Screen Time on iPhone prematurely shows limits used

The Screen Time settings on my son's phone recently stopped working correctly. It shows he has used all time for the day first thing in the morning, when he has used none at all.


More information: My son (age 13) has an iPhone 14 and is part of my Apple Family. I use Screen Time to impose limits on his app use. Some apps are always available. Some are available for only 30 minutes a day. And some are not available at all (0 minutes of Screen Time). The phone is set to block the app when the time limit expires.


This worked fine for about a year. One day, a few weeks ago, first thing in the morning, he was not able to open any apps. He got the error message that he had used all of his time for the day across all apps. This goes for apps with unlimited use as well as those with a time limit on them. The popup gave him the option to "Enter Screen Time Passcode" or "Ask for More Time." I had not changed any settings. This did not happen every day, but it is now happening more days than not.


Things I have tried, without success:

  • Disabling "Share Across Devices"
  • Updating iOS
  • Hard reset of iPhone
  • Turning all Screen Time off and on again
  • Deleting all Screen Time restrictions and creating new ones


It is extremely annoying that this seemingly helpful function stopped working. Now I either have to unlock each app on his phone individually every morning (some in 15-minute increments) or turn off Screen Time entirely. Please help.

iPhone 14

Posted on Jan 15, 2026 3:24 PM

Reply
1 reply

Jan 30, 2026 11:57 AM in response to dmgssgmd

Same for me. My son is 14 and he has ipad and an apple watch setup in family mode (e.g. no paired iphone). I only place limits on his apps and this worked well for a while, but in the last couple of months sometimes it randomly locks all his apps even though screen time shows he hasn't met the time limit. I've tried all the usual stuff - but nothing has worked beyond just not using the feature. There are other quirks to using screen time and the apple watch in standalone mode - the software quality in this area continues to get worse over the last few years.

Screen Time on iPhone prematurely shows limits used

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