WhatsApp has introduced new parental controls for teen accounts. With the help of this feature, parents will be able to control some important settings related to their children’s use of WhatsApp. At the same time, the privacy of children’s personal chats and calls will remain the same as before.

With the new feature, parents will be able to control who can see their child’s profile photo, who can add them to WhatsApp groups, and how they can use statuses and channels. Parents will also get separate controls regarding Meta AI. They can choose the normal 13+ setting for the tin or use the more limited contact option.

The special thing is that parents will not be able to see the child’s personal chats and calls. That is, the purpose of this feature is not to monitor every conversation of the child, but to provide the facility to manage some important safety and privacy settings.

The new facility was announced on September 30

WhatsApp has announced new parental controls for teen accounts on September 30, 2026. According to the company, these controls can be set by parents and teens together.

These features are optional. That means every family can use it according to their needs. If parents wish, they can change these settings later or even turn off parental controls altogether. Parent-set pins are also important in these controls. If a teen tries to change a parent-locked setting, they’ll have to enter the parent’s PIN.

You may receive an alert if your child joins a new group.

Group activity alerts are also provided in the new feature of WhatsApp. If a teenager joins a new WhatsApp group or leaves the group, parents can get an alert. Apart from this, if there is a significant increase in the number of members in a group in which teenagers are already present, parents can also get activity alerts.

Also control over position and channel

Parents will also be able to decide whose status updates their teen can see and who can see their child’s own status.

Some controls are also provided for the channel. Along with this, parents will be able to limit some privacy and content settings according to their needs without turning off the child’s WhatsApp completely.

Parental settings will be locked with a PIN

A parent-set PIN will be used to secure parental controls. If the teenager wants to change any setting locked by the parent, he has to enter this PIN. Due to this, the teenager cannot easily overcome the restrictions set by the parents. However, parents can change these settings or turn off parental controls whenever they want.

Personal chats and calls will not be visible to parents

There is no option to open children’s personal chats and calls to parents in this feature of WhatsApp. This means that parents will be able to control some account and privacy settings, but the child’s personal conversations and calls will not be visible to them.

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