FAMILY SHARING WITHOUT CREDIT CARD

You have to set it up with a card to prove you're an adult yes. You could always get one of those prepaid Visa cards if you're worried (if you're in the UK, Tesco has them). Once you've setup - turn on 'Ask to Buy' for your kids. If they want anything, even if it's free, you get a push notification on your device. You can approve or deny it - that should put your mind at rest on what's going on on your credit/debit/prepaid card.

Hope this helps 😉

Also, I know the setup says credit card, but it'll accept debit/prepaid or whatever.

You can't use a pre-paid card. You must use an actual credit card. A pre-paid card does not serve as acceptable legal identification, which is required to set up family sharing and give consent for minor children to access online services. If you don't have an actual credit card, you can't set up family sharing. Without it, it is illegal for children under 13 to access online services.

What country are you in? I setup my account with a debit card - worked perfectly. Sorry to hear the prepaid card didn't work out.

Normally it works it works with any card. However if you are setting it up with children under 13 it requires a credit card.

I am in Australia and we only have a debit card (shock horror to the Big Banks that we don't want a credit card). Would also love to use Family Sharing, we buy Itunes cards and use a debit card to make purchases, but looks like we are locked out of Family Sharing because we don't have a credit card - bizarre business model.

It has nothing to do with a "business model". Apple is a US company and must comply with US law. US law says a debit card can not be used to authenticate electronic consent for a child to access services that collect data, and therefore, is not acceptable as a method to set up Family Sharing.