Tablets and phones – many parents let their kids use them to play games, watch movies, and my personal favourite – as an I need to get stuff done distraction. Regardless of what they are used for, there are many kids who are also the compulsive button pushers and just as you set them up with their movie or game they are pushing that home button and logging themselves out.
Last week, however, I learned about the absolutely genius feature that is available on iPhones and iPads and it’s a game changer! It’s called Guided Access.
Stop Your Child From Continuously Exiting Apps
Guided Access is a feature that you can use on your iPhone, iPad, and iPod which locks you into the app that you are using. Not only is it a great feature for kids who are continuous button pushers but it’s also good for the snoopy ones as well.
To enable Guided Access, go to your settings and follow these instructions.
To activate Guided Access push your home button 3 times while in the app and it will stay on until you deactivate it which is done by pushing the home button 3 times and then entering in a passcode.
One of the things that I love about Guided Access is that the app gives you the option to circle areas where you don’t want to be clicked. For example, my niece loves to watch Paw Patrol and while enabling Guided Access keeps her in the Netflix app, it doesn’t automatically make it so she isn’t also able to exit the show but with the option of being able to create the barrier in the app, it’s that much more useful.
What About Other Phones?
When it comes to Androids many newer phones have an option just like Guided Access which is called Screen Pinning. This gives you the option to pin the screen which will deactivate the home button.
This can be enabled by going to:
Setting –> Security –> Screen Pinning
Once this is enabled you can activate Screen Pinning by going to the app that you want to be pinned and pressing the multitasking key. It will give you the option to request a password when unpinning.
Since learning about the Guided Access option I have told so many people about it and not one person knew about it. Simply put it’s a game changer on so many levels.