בס״ד · independent · nothing for sale
Your son is getting a phone. Nobody told you what to do.
Everyone has an opinion, the companies all sound the same, and the one person in the community who actually understands it is impossible to get hold of. This page answers the question in about a minute — and tells you the parts the companies leave out.
Start here
There is no single right answer — it depends on who the device is for and what you actually need. Three questions and you will have something specific to do.
Question 1
Who is the device for?
Three things worth knowing first
No filter is unbeatable, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling something
Every option on this site can be worked around by someone determined enough. That is not a reason to skip it — a filter turns a moment of curiosity into a deliberate act, and that difference is most of the value. But buy it knowing what it is.
Layers beat one perfect answer
The built-in controls, a filter, and the home wifi each catch things the others miss, and two of the three are free. Most people skip straight to the paid filter and leave the free layers untouched.
The free tools are better than their reputation
Screen Time and Family Link are genuinely capable and cost nothing. They fail mostly because nobody sits down and configures them properly — which is what the guides here are for.
The part no filter company will tell you
A filter buys you time and it removes accidents. What it does not do is settle the question for a teenager who has decided otherwise. Every family that has done this well has done it as a conversation first and a setting second — the boy knows what is on his phone and why, and the filter is the floor under that rather than a substitute for it.
Installed quietly and never spoken about, a filter mostly teaches someone to be better at getting around filters. That is worth knowing before you spend anything.
Still stuck?
Send us what you have got — the device, the situation, what you already tried. A real person reads it, and there is nothing being sold at the other end.