Instagram For Kids: Setting up Instagram Parental Controls

**This tech guide was updated on April 23, 2026.**

Instagram is one of the most popular social media platforms in the world, with over 2 billion active users. It's a photo and video-sharing app where people can post content, follow others, scroll through a personalized feed, send direct messages, and interact through comments and likes. Celebrities, brands, and everyday users alike all have a presence on the platform.

Understanding Instagram's Two Parental Control Systems

Instagram currently offers two different ways for parents to oversee their child's experience on the platform. Understanding the difference between them is key to choosing the right approach or using both together.

Supervision is an opt-in system that links a parent's Instagram account to their child's account, giving parents visibility into their child's activity and the ability to manage settings remotely.

Teen Accounts are Instagram's built-in protective defaults that automatically apply to users under 18. They restrict certain features and limit who can contact your teen without requiring any action from a parent.

These two systems work alongside each other. A child can have a Teen Account and be supervised by a parent at the same time.

Supervision

Supervision is Instagram's parental controls feature. It connects your Instagram account to your child's so you can monitor their activity and adjust their settings directly from your own account.

What you can do with Supervision

• Set daily time limits for Instagram
• Schedule daily breaks when Instagram can't be accessed
• See how much time your child is spending on the app (daily totals, weekly averages, and per-day breakdowns)
• See who your child follows and who follows them
• Get notifications when your child gets new followers
• See when your child reports a post or account, including what was reported and why
• Manage certain features of your child's Teen Account remotely

How to set up Supervision

Make sure both your account and your child's account are updated to the latest version of Instagram before you begin.

1. From your account, tap your profile icon in the bottom right corner.
2. Tap the three lines in the top right corner.
3. Tap Settings, then tap Supervision.
4. Tap Create invite.
5. Send the invite link to your child. They'll have 48 hours to accept before it expires.
6. Once your child accepts, you're connected. From that point on, you can access the Family Center by going to Settings > Supervision to view and manage your child's settings.

Teen Accounts

Instagram automatically places users under 18 into Teen Accounts, which come with a set of built-in protections. For users under 16, these restrictions are on by default and require parental permission to change.

Here's what Teen Accounts do by default:

• Private account: Only approved followers can see your teen's posts and interact with them.
• Sensitive content filters: Instagram automatically limits exposure to content that may not be appropriate for teens, such as posts related to violence, graphic imagery, or certain adult topics.
• Communication limits: Teens can only receive DMs from people they already follow or are connected to.
• Time limits: After 60 minutes of daily use, teens are shown a reminder to take a break. The app also prompts teens to stop using Instagram at 10 p.m. and won't send notifications between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m.
• Content restrictions for nudity in DMs: A feature that blurs potential nudity in direct messages is turned on by default.
• Going Live: Teens under 16 need parental permission to go Live on the platform.

Teens under 16 cannot turn off these protections without a parent's permission. Teens ages 16 and 17 can adjust some of these defaults on their own.

How to connect your Instagram account to your teen’s account 

Instagram allows parents to manage their teen’s account through Supervision. The teen’s account will automatically come with the restrictions listed above, but if you want to make changes or grant certain permissions, you’ll need to set up Supervision first. 

Additional Privacy and Safety Settings

Beyond Teen Accounts and Supervision, there are several settings worth knowing about — especially if your child has an account and you want additional control over specific features.

Setting an account to private

A private account means only people your child approves can follow them and see their posts. This is automatically enabled for Teen Accounts, but you can verify or set it manually:

1. Open Instagram and go to your child's profile.
2. Tap the three lines (or "…") in the top right corner.
3. Tap Settings, then scroll down to Account Privacy.
4. Toggle on Private Account.

Blocking an account

1. Go to the account you want to block by tapping their username or profile photo.
2. Tap "…" in the top right corner.
3. Tap Block.

Reporting abusive or inappropriate content

For a post or profile: tap "…" in the top right corner, then tap Report.

For a comment: swipe left on the comment and tap the exclamation mark icon.

For a direct message: tap and hold on the message, then tap Report.

Managing comments

Turning off comments on a specific post:

1. Tap "…" above the post.
2. Select Turn Off Commenting.

You can also disable comments before posting by going to Advanced Settings on the caption screen and toggling off commenting there.

Bulk comment management:

1. Go to your child's profile and tap Settings.
2. Scroll down and tap Comment Controls to manage filters, keyword blocks, and who can comment.

Deleting multiple comments at once:

On iOS: Tap a comment, then tap the dotted icon in the top right and choose Manage Comments. You can select up to 25 comments to delete at once. Under More Options, you can also block or restrict commenters in bulk.

On Android: Press and hold a comment, then tap the dotted icon and select Block or Restrict.