When children whose accounts are managed with Family Link turn 13 (or the applicable age in their country), they can decide to:
- Keep parental supervision for children over 13 (or the applicable age in their country)
- Manage their own Google Account
Children decide when to update their Google Account
When a child turns 13 (or the applicable age in their country), they get an email to inform them that they're now eligible to update their account. The parent who supervises the account also gets an email.
The child can choose between these options:
Continue their current parental supervision settingsThe child can choose to maintain their existing supervision settings and have a parent continue to manage their account by not acting on the email.
Tip: Supervision settings remain the same until your child decides to update their account.
To update their account and keep parental supervision, the child needs to:
- Go to their inbox.
- Open and read the email titled, "Ready to update your Google Account?"
- Select Update your account.
- Review their account settings.
- Select I agree.
Learn how supervision works for children over 13 (or the applicable age in your country).
Tip: For children turning 16+, they can also choose to take full responsibility and stop supervision for their account when they update their account.
Children decide when to stop supervision
Children over 13 (or the applicable age in your country), who had supervision added to their account or updated their account, can choose to stop supervision.
When children decide to take full responsibility for their account and stop supervision- 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.
- Supervised experiences on YouTube will be turned off.
- Children can add payment cards to Google Wallet or Google Pay on their own.
- Children can remove a payment card from their phone or smartwatch.
- Children can use payment cards in Google Wallet, along with payment cards added before parental supervision stops, to:
- Make tap to pay transactions in stores.
- Pay on apps and websites with the Google Pay button.
- Autofill payment info in Chrome to checkout faster online.
- Pay across Google on Google Play Store, YouTube, and more.
Tip: For added security, any payment method added before a child turns 13 (or the applicable age in your country) that they continue to use after they update their account, will require a one-time CVV code confirmation before it can be used for transactions online, in-app, or across Google.
- Set up supervision features like:
- Setting up downtime.
- Allowing or blocking apps.
- Location Sharing will be off and children can decide if they want to turn it on again.
- Find their child’s transactions in Family Link or receive email notifications of new transactions.
- Add or remove payment cards for their child.
- Monitor their child’s transactions through Family Link or email notifications.
- Block their child’s access to the Wallet passes features.
Tips:
- If a child chooses not to update their Google Account, it remains supervised.
- If a child does update their account and exits supervision, parents may still be able to view their child’s transactions directly from the card issuer’s site or app.
- A child will be able to continue to use any payment card that remains in the child’s Google Account after they choose to exit supervision to make tap to pay purchases in stores, as well as purchases online and in-app. To prevent a child from being able to continue to use a card after they exit supervision, a parent can remove the payment card before their child exits supervision. Parents will be reminded of this via email before their child is eligible to exit supervision. Cards that remain in their child's Google Account at the time the child exits supervision can no longer be removed by the parent.
- Purchase & download approvals: 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.