Tablets are increasingly popular as a form of entertainment for children. With a tablet, you can watch TV, read, play games, and more. But amongst a wealth of great content is a lot of inappropriate content.
Amazon’s parental controls are universal and will work on an older fire tablet and the newer Amazon Fire Tablet, such as the HD 10.
We’ll run you through the general steps you’ll need to follow to set up parental controls on your child’s tablet. There are lots of features you’ll want to take advantage of.
Fire Tablet parental controls
There are two critical wants to restrict access to your child’s tablet. The first step is setting up an Amazon account and signing in to the tablet. If you’ve not done so yet, you should open ‘Settings’, select the ‘My Account’ button, and follow the steps below. The first method is straightforward, but the second has more uses.
Simplified parental controls
- Navigate to ‘Settings’ and open ‘Parental Controls’. Toggle ‘Parental Controls’ to ‘On’
- You’ll be prompted to create a password. Ensure it’s not easy to guess
- Click Confirm’
- You may also want to toggle ‘Set Restricted Access’, which will let you choose a curfew during which the tablet will be inaccessible (unless you have the parental control password)
When the tablet is restricted, password-protected purchases will be blocked, and other apps such as Alexa, the browser, email, the camera, and Amazon Stores are all blocked. This is an effective and straightforward way to set up parental controls, but it’s a less sophisticated version.
Customized parental controls
You can put more sophisticated controls on your child’s device. You can create child profiles that can be used across various devices. If you haven’t already set up a lock screen PIN or a password when you went through the initial set-up, you should do so now. This will stop your child from accessing your profile or editing parental controls themselves.
- Open ‘Settings’
- Go to ‘Security’ and open the ‘Lock-Screen Passcode’
- Toggle the option to ‘On’
- Choose a PIN that you’ll remember, but ensure that it’s not something that can be easily guessed
When your password is set up, you’re good to proceed with setting up your child’s profile.
- Go back to ‘Settings’ and open the ‘Profiles & Family Library’ tab
- Tap ‘Add a Child’
- Enter their name and birthdate
- Select ‘Amazon Freetime’ (maybe known as Fire For Kids). You could also select ‘Teen Profiles’, recommended for kids over the age of 9
- Once the profile is created, you’ll get to choose the content that you want to allow them to access. You can choose from apps, games, books, and videos. You could activate Amazon’s shortcut ‘Add All Kids’Titles’, and these settings are determined based on the age you input during the profile creation
- Repeat the process as needed
If you want to select an individual profile, you should swipe down from the top of the screen and select the correct profile icon. When you choose the child’s profile, you’ll open a new interface containing the permitted content. When selecting an adult profile, you’ll be asked to designate a password.
You will have restricted access to specified apps and choose the content you want your children to use. Amazon FreeTime blocks content from being purchased and turns off location sharing by default. But you can do even more than this.
Profile management
You can fine-tune your child’s profile controls. Let’s take a look through the main options you have at your disposal:
- Open ‘Settings’, go to ‘Profile & Family Library’, and choose the child’s profile
- Set ‘Daily Goals & Time Limits’. Set ‘Total Screen Time Limits’. You can use this option to prevent your child from using the tablet during the night
You might want to allow unlimited reading but restrict games to one hour each day.
You can adjust different schedules and limits and even set educational goals. For example, you can set it so that your child must read a book before accessing their games. If you reach the time limit, a message will come up on screen and let your child know that they’ve reached the limit for the day.
If you want to edit access to any specific content, you can do so under ‘Manage Your Child’s Content’. You can download new apps or games for them, and you’ll need to log into your profile, download, and install the app.
- Open ‘Settings’ > ‘Profiles & Family Library’. Choose the target profile
- Tap ‘Add Content’ > ‘Add Books’, ‘Videos’, and ‘Apps’. Click on the game or app you want to add, then click ‘Confirm’. You can override any age-appropriate suggestions if you want to
If you open your child’s profile and go to ‘Web Settings’, you can edit their access to the web browser. You can restrict content to ‘Amazon Curated Content’, which has been pre-approved based on your child’s age.
You’ve got the option to edit the gallery and camera in your child’s profile. This prevents them from sending photos or uploading them to social media. You can opt to back them up to the Drive, too.
You can enable or disable in-app purchasing options to avoid any surprise bills, too.
Once your profiles are configured, you can sit back and relax, knowing that your child can’t break screen time rules or access any inappropriate content. To grant them access to filtered, age-appropriate content and prevent them from needing to bug you when they want a new game, consider Amazon Kids+.
Amazon Kids+
Amazon Kids+ subscription service provides access to thousands of books, TV shows, educational apps, and movies. All content has been checked meticulously to ensure that they’re suitable for all age ranges. Amazon Kids+ is geared towards kids in the 3-12 age range. If you buy a Kids Fire tablet brand new, you’ll get the first year for free.
- To activate Amazon Kids+, go to ‘Settings’, then open the ‘Profiles & Family Library’ tab
- Click your child’s profile, then select ‘Subscribe to Amazon Kids+’. If you’re already subscribed, it’ll let you manage your subscription
- You can select a family plan that covers up to four children or a single child plan
- Amazon Kids+ costs $3 per month for each child or $10 per month for a family. You can prepay for the year for $99 for a family account, and you’ll get a free month as a reward
- If you’re a Prime member, the cost is discounted to $2.99 per month for a single child or $6.99 per month for the family plan. You can pay for the year for $69
- If you open ‘Settings’ > ‘Profiles & Family Library’, then open your child’s profile and tap ‘Smart Filters’; you’ll set your custom age range to determine which content is available to them via Kids+
FreeTime Unlimited is an excellent service that will let your child browse, get new apps, games, and books, in addition to accessing all kinds of video content without needing to ask for your assistance. All of it is age-appropriate, and much of the content is educational.
Reviewing activity
The last thing to mention is your ability to review your child’s activity.
- If you’ve chosen to allow web access, you can tap ‘Settings’ > ‘Profiles & Family Library’ and find your child’s profile
- From there, you can tap to ‘View Your Child’s Web History’ to see all pages
- Under ‘Attempted’, you can see any sites your child has tried to access but was blocked from
If you decide to use FreeTime Unlimited, you can visit the ‘Parent Dashboard’ there and gain interesting insights into exactly what your child uses their Fire tablet for. Their time on each activity is broken down into an easy-to-understand graph.
You can select an activity such as games, books, or web pages and see exactly how much time has been spent on each activity in just a few clicks.
Wrapping up
Kindle Fire tablets are some of the most child-friendly Android tablets. You can easily disable purchasing from the Amazon AppStore and enforce restrictions that ensure your child only accesses age-appropriate content types. We like the unique features, including the Amazon Fire’s ability to keep track of attempts to access blocked/disallowed web pages and content. Overall, Amazon Tablets have comprehensive parental controls and can be trusted to keep your child safe. You can view all of our parental control guides here.
This article has been reviewed and approved by Officer Banta.
Officer Banta is the official SecurityNerd home security and safety expert. A member of the Biloxi Police Department for over 24 years, Officer Banta reviews all articles before lending his stamp of approval. Click here for more information on Officer Banta and the rest of our team.
