Shared Phone

What This Is

Some families don't want to buy a child a phone yet. KidMoat supports that: your child uses your phone, and the phone switches between two modes — yours, and theirs.

This is different from the other setup, where your child has their own phone and you manage it remotely by pairing to it with a code (see Pairing Devices). On a shared phone there's nothing to pair. You add your child from your own account, choose this phone instead of a separate one, and the same handset does both jobs from then on.

The Two Modes

A shared phone is always in one of two modes:

  • Parent mode — your normal phone. Your apps, your accounts, your notifications.
  • Child mode — your child's restricted space, with their own apps, their own screen time rules, and their own rewards.

Only one mode runs at a time. Handing the phone to your child switches it into child mode; taking it back switches it into parent mode. See Handing Over the Phone for exactly how that switch works, and Privacy on a Shared Phone for what each side can and can't see of the other.

More Than One Child

A single shared phone can hold up to three children of the same family, each with their own switch-in tile, their own rules, and their own coins and streaks. See Siblings on One Phone.

Choosing at Setup Time

When you add a child, KidMoat asks where they'll use it — this phone, or a phone of their own. There is no way to move an already-set-up child from one to the other afterward; the only route is removing the child and adding them again, which starts their screen time history, coins, and streak over from zero. Decide before you commit, and if you're not sure, treat "this phone" as the harder choice to undo.

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