Notification

How Google Accounts work when children turn 13 (or the applicable age in your country)

When children whose accounts are managed with Family Link turn 13 (or the applicable age in their country), they can decide to:

Tips:

Children decide when to manage their own account

When a child is about to turn 13 (or the applicable age in their country), the child and their family manager will get an email. The child can choose between the options below.

Continue their current parental supervision settings

The child can choose to maintain their existing supervision settings and have a parent continue to manage their account. The child can pick this option by selecting Ask me later.

When the child is ready, they can choose to manage their own account. The child can decide to set up parental supervision for children over 13 (or the applicable age in your country).

Important: The child must decide to manage their Google Account before they turn 18.

Set up supervision for children over 13 (or the applicable age in your country)

To agree to continued parental supervision, the child must first choose to manage their own account.

Step 1: Manage their own account

To manage their own account, your child can:

  1. Go to their inbox and open the email titled, "Ready to take charge of your Google Account?"
  2. Read the email and select Review settings.
  3. Review their account settings and select I’m ready.

Step 2: Add continued supervision

Learn how added supervision works for children over 13 (or the applicable age in your country) and follow the steps to set up supervision.

Manage their own account

To manage their own account, the child can:

  1. Go to their inbox and open the email titled, "Ready to take charge of your Google Account?"
  2. The child will pick certain settings for their account, like their SafeSearch setting for Google Search results.
  3. They'll tap I'm ready.
  4. If the child’s account was signed in on a Chromebook, they’ll need to sign out and sign in again to remove parental supervision features.

When a child chooses not to be supervised and to manage their own account:

  • Parent supervision features are turned off, like:
    • Setting downtime
    • Allowing or blocking apps
  • Children are still in the family group, but can choose to leave.
  • Location sharing will be off, and children can decide if they want to turn it on again.
  • Parents won't be able to set up YouTube Kids or supervised experiences on YouTube for their children. If they add supervision back to their children’s account, they can use Restricted Mode to filter out potentially mature content on YouTube.
Tip: Videos and channels that were previously blocked may be available to watch in the app. 
  • Children have the option to turn on personalized ads.
    • Google won’t personalize ads to children until they reach at least the applicable age of consent in their country.
    • Children who had supervision added to their Google Account can control the ads they find.

Settings that change

When a child manages their own account and hasn't chosen to be supervised:

  • Parent supervision features are turned off, like:
    • Setting downtime
    • Allowing or blocking apps
  • Children are still in the family group, but can choose to leave.
  • Location Sharing will be off, and children can decide if they want to turn it on again.
  • Children won't be able to use YouTube Kids with their Google Account anymore. Videos and channels that were previously blocked might be available to watch in the app. 
  • Children will be given the option to turn on personalized ads.

Some Google Play settings also change:

  • Purchase & download approval: If the child was required to get their parent's approval for all Google Play content, they'll only need approval for paid content. If they weren't required to get their parent's approval to make purchases, nothing will change.
  • Parental controls: The child's Google Account parental controls won't apply after they manage their account. They can set up parental controls again on each supervised device they're using.
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