Child Watch - can I make it the DEFAULT Location Sharing in Family?

I have two children with Apple Watches set up in apple family. One child’s watch is working correctly as the default for location sharing.


The other child’s location is defaulting to the iPad instead. I can see the watch in “devices,” but when I look at “people,” I can only see the iPad.


Both watches were set up the same as a child watch in family share.


I can see others have had the same question within the past year and the questions remain “unsolved.” Please help!

Posted on Dec 25, 2025 4:06 PM

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Posted on Jan 7, 2026 6:00 AM

Thank you! I got it fixed! I think the main problem was that I had location settings locked in the kids' profiles, so it could not be changed on their devices until I temporarily disabled that lock. Then, what I did was open "find people" on her watch, select "me," and then share location "from this watch." It's working now!

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Jan 7, 2026 6:00 AM in response to LD150

Thank you! I got it fixed! I think the main problem was that I had location settings locked in the kids' profiles, so it could not be changed on their devices until I temporarily disabled that lock. Then, what I did was open "find people" on her watch, select "me," and then share location "from this watch." It's working now!

Jan 7, 2026 4:04 AM in response to LD150

LD150 wrote:

I can't make my watch my find my location either.
...

By the way, I was reluctant to answer this as I have never owned a cellular watch, but nobody else answered. While ipad is out of the FindMy picture, press the watch crown, tap settings, then FindMy, see if there is a 'Use This Watch for my location' setting

Jan 7, 2026 3:44 AM in response to katolswick

I can't make my watch my find my location either.

As an experiment you can for a day turn off Find My on their ipad and see if the watch starts working for location.

Turn Find My back on ASAP as that is also the activation lock. When turning it back on if there is an option to use this ipad as my location, don't select it.

The settings are in iPhone, Settings, [tap their name], Find my.

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Child Watch - can I make it the DEFAULT Location Sharing in Family?

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