Unable to add a child to Screen Time

I'm unable to add one of my children to the Screen time monitoring. I can add my 14 year old but I cannot add my 12 year old. He IS on my family sharing though. Why can't I view him in screen time?

iPhone 7, iOS 12

Posted on Sep 18, 2018 7:58 PM

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Posted on Jan 17, 2019 12:43 PM

Same solution for me, could only see one child previously so I logged out of iCloud, waited a minute and logged back in, then I could see and enable Screen Time settings for both children from my own Iphones Screen Time interface :)

24 replies

Dec 10, 2018 5:44 AM in response to Nina GB

I'm having the same issue. It seems that Apple will only allow you to add one child to manage and monitor. This is unfortunate as most families have more than one child. Now I'll have to go back to using a third party app (which are always glitchy at best) to manage the account access for the kids. I think I spend enough money on Apple products that they could resolves this!!!


APPLE please fix this and update it soon!?

Dec 29, 2018 12:47 PM in response to Nina GB

its very frustrating that apple cant make this easy for parents. it gave me a headache trying to set my son’s phone, took me 2 days of trying everything that were suggested here, it finally worked for me and i can manage his phone/screen time from my phone.


this was the last thing i thought to give a try and worked for me.


  • make sure your phone is up to date, even if it says your os is updated to 12 but right now it’s 12.1.1 update it.
  • sign out from icloud, both your phone and your child’s phone. (back the phones up before signing out just to make sure you don’t lose anything)

*backing your phone up - settings>your name>icloud>icloud backup>back up now.

*signing out from icloud - settings>your name>sign out.

as soon as i signed back in, my son’s name showed up on my screen time app.


good luck!

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Unable to add a child to Screen Time

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