GardionHow to Turn Off Parental Controls in 2026: Three Places to Look
Aleksandr Popov · Updated · How we write our articles
You remove supervision in Family Link, hand the phone back to a teenager who has clearly outgrown it, and a day later you hear that half the sites still will not load and the screen still goes dark at ten. The app is gone, the limits are not. Over 2026 parental controls stopped being a single switch: they now sit in three different places, and each one is turned off somewhere else.
What changed in 2026
In June, Google expanded Android Parental Controls to every phone that updates to Android 17; until then they lived only on Pixel. They sit inside Android Settings, sit behind a PIN, and do most of what people install a separate app for: a daily screen time cap, a downtime schedule, a content rating filter for Google Play, and limits or blocks on individual apps.
In July, Google started the global rollout of the Play Age Signals API. An app can now ask the store for a user’s age range and whether the account is supervised. The default ranges are 0–12, 13–15, 16–17 and 18+.
In June, Apple previewed its autumn update: a redesigned Screen Time, Time Allowances, and Ask to Browse, which makes a child request permission for a new website. That ships in the fall, but a child account is already required under 13 and available up to 18.
Laws moved too. Texas’ App Store Accountability Act is in force, and Google Play now hands age and parental-approval signals to developers for users in those states. In Russia, a law passed in June 2026 lets a parent register a SIM card as a child’s, after which the carrier filters mobile traffic itself.
Each of these adds restrictions in its own place. Here is how to clear them one by one.
Place one: the supervision app
This is what most parents mean by parental controls: Family Link, Kaspersky Safe Kids, Qustodio, Gardion. It comes off from the parent account: open the app or the parent dashboard, find the child’s device, turn supervision off. It takes a couple of minutes, and the child’s data stays where it was.
Step-by-step guides for Family Link, Kaspersky Safe Kids, Qustodio and other apps are collected in the remove parental controls section. If the app was Kids360, see our Kids360 alternative guide for removing it and switching.
This is the only place you can see from the outside. The icon disappears, the confirmation email arrives, and it feels finished. What follows is the part nobody shows you.
Three special cases: turning 13, a lost password, a second-hand phone
Your child turned 13. From that age (the threshold differs in some countries) a child in Google Family Link can start removing supervision themselves, but until 18 it still needs a parent’s approval. On the child’s phone the path is Settings → “Digital Wellbeing & parental controls” → the three-dot menu → “Stop supervision”, then the parent signs in or enters the Parent Access Code. The steps are checked against Google’s official help, and the guide on how to stop Family Link covers this case step by step.
The parent password is lost. Supervision cannot come off without it; that is what the protection rests on. Recover the parent account through Google’s password recovery first, then remove the controls the normal way. Do not delete the child’s account from the phone while supervision is still on, or the phone will lock.
A second-hand phone with someone else’s Family Link. There is one working path: the previous owner stops supervision and unlinks their account from their side. A factory reset will not help, because factory reset protection asks for the previous Google account after the reset. The second-hand phone guide covers this in detail.
Place two: the phone’s own settings
On Android that means Android Parental Controls. They often get switched on during the first setup of a child’s phone and then forgotten: the supervision app is removed later, while the bedtime schedule and app limits keep living in the system itself. They come off where they went on: in Settings, behind the PIN the parent chose. There is no other route, and there should not be: a PIN you could walk around would be pointless.
On iPhone the same job belongs to Screen Time. It lives in device settings and has its own passcode, separate from the code that unlocks the phone. While Screen Time is on, app limits and content restrictions apply no matter what sits on top of them.
Check this before you hand the phone over. The “Mum, everything shut down at ten again” conversation a week after removing supervision is almost always about this place.
Place three: the store and the carrier
The least visible one arrived this year. Age range and supervision status now travel from the store to the apps themselves, through Play Age Signals on Android and the Declared Age Range API on Apple platforms. So a game rated 18+ can refuse to install, or run in a reduced form, with no parental controls involved at all. What decides is the age recorded in the account.
In some countries the filter has moved even further away, to the network. Under Russia’s 2026 law a SIM card can be registered as a child’s, and from that point the carrier filters mobile traffic before it ever reaches the phone. Neither Family Link nor Android settings can see that, let alone switch it off; only the carrier can.
Hence the rule: if a restriction lives outside the device, look for it outside the device.
Controls are off and something still blocks
What keeps working usually tells you which of the three places to check.
| What you see | Where the restriction lives | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Some sites fail on mobile data while the same addresses open fine over home Wi-Fi | Probably carrier filtering | Check what your operator has registered for that SIM |
| The phone still locks on a schedule after supervision is gone | Built-in system controls | Turn off Android Parental Controls in Settings, or Screen Time on iPhone |
| An app will not install or keeps asking for approval | Your child’s account | Check the age and supervision status on the account |
| Reports stopped arriving but the limits still work | The system kills the app in the background to save battery | Adjust the phone using our guide by manufacturer |
What not to do
A factory reset does not remove parental controls, and it does wipe the data. On a second-hand phone it is worse than useless: factory reset protection will ask for the previous Google account on first boot.
“We’ll unlock it for you” services ask for access to the child’s account: the same account that holds photos, messages and saved cards. Handing that to a stranger to clear one checkbox is a bad trade.
How Gardion handles it
In Gardion a parent can remove the controls and a child cannot. The app runs as a device administrator, so a long press on the icon will not delete it; the parent switches supervision off from the dashboard in a couple of taps. If the child opens the uninstall screen, Gardion pulls them away from it and tells the parent straight away. The page on parental controls for Android shows how that protection works on the phone.
We deliberately keep nothing hidden in our own layer: whatever is on is visible in the dashboard, and that is where it goes off. Trying it is free: 14 days of full access on Android and Windows, no card needed.
In short
Most likely the built-in Android controls or Screen Time on iPhone are still running. Those are the phone’s own settings, and they do not come off together with the supervision app.
In some countries, yes. Russia’s 2026 law lets a parent register a SIM as a child’s, after which the carrier filters mobile traffic and blocks sign-ups on age-restricted services. That status changes only through the carrier.
Not on their own. From 13 a child can start removing Family Link supervision, but until 18 a parent has to approve it, and the parent gets the request. The steps are in the special cases section above.
Yes. Stopping supervision and deleting the account are two different actions. You only stop supervision; the child’s account, with its mail, photos and purchases, stays. Deleting the account from the phone before supervision is off is the risky move: it can lock the phone.
Only the holder of the parent account can remove them. If the device and account belong to someone else, return the phone to its previous owner or ask them to stop supervision from their side.
Not necessarily. Dropping the limits while keeping what you installed it for, emergency contact and a location on the map, is usually enough. A full removal makes sense when the phone changes hands to an adult owner.
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Read next
- How to remove parental controls without deleting your child’s accountTurning off supervision, leaving the family group and deleting the account are three different operations. What to do in Family Link, on iPhone and in Windows so your child keeps their mail, photos and purchases.
- No parent’s phone: what you can remove and what you cannotThe parent’s phone is lost, broken or out of reach, and the restrictions on the child’s phone are still there. What comes off from a browser, what needs the account, and what not to try.
- Android Digital Wellbeing vs. parental controls: what the app does and where it stopsWhat Android's Digital Wellbeing app does, why its app timers won't stop a kid, how to turn it off, and how it differs from parental controls and Family Link.
- Remove second space and cloned apps on AndroidHow to find and remove a second space, cloned apps or Android 15 private space on a child's phone, with Settings paths for Xiaomi, Samsung, Huawei and Pixel.