How to set up a child's phone for a family trip abroad

Apple and Google each build family controls into their own platforms, and the child's phone decides which one you will use. On Apple devices it is Family Sharing: the family organiser invites up to five other family members, parents can create an Apple Account for a child under 13, and Screen Time and parental controls then manage that child's device. On Android it is Google's Family Link, which can create a Google Account for a child under 13, or the applicable age in your country, or add supervision to a child's existing account.

Mixed households need one detail straight. Family Link cannot supervise an iPhone or iPad, so a child who carries an iPhone needs Apple's tools; a parent who carries an iPhone, on the other hand, can install the Family Link app to manage a child's Android phone. Whichever applies, set it up at home on reliable Wi-Fi well before the trip, so that accounts, approvals and passcodes are not being sorted out in a departure lounge.

Choose the size of the plan on a child's phone deliberately, then control how quickly it is used and whether the settings stay as you left them. Decide what the phone is actually for on this trip, whether that is messages and maps or video as well, before you pick an allowance, and agree it with the child rather than announcing it at the airport.

On an iPhone, set the mobile data options the way you want them, then lock them. In Screen Time's Content & Privacy Restrictions, under Allow Changes To, you can set Mobile Data, which covers changes to mobile data settings, and Background App Activity, which covers changes to whether apps run in the background, to Don't Allow. The choices you made at home then stay in place for the trip.

On Android, the Family Link controls that matter most for data are the app controls. A parent can decide which apps a child can download, block or allow apps, set app limits and see how much time is spent in particular apps, so the heaviest apps can be blocked for travel days and allowed again later. Google notes that a block or unblock takes effect in about five minutes, or once the device is connected to the internet.

Location sharing is the control most parents care about on a trip, and the one most worth testing. With Family Sharing, family members can share their locations with each other in the Find My app, and Apple's parental controls include a Share My Location restriction that locks the settings for location sharing in Messages and Find My, so sharing cannot be quietly switched off. With Family Link, you set up location sharing for a child in the app and can then check where their Android device is.

Test it the way the trip will use it. Once the travel eSIM is installed on the child's phone, turn its Wi-Fi off, let them walk to the end of the street, and check that their location on your phone moves with them. Repeat the check after landing, once the travel line is connected, and still agree a physical meeting point for busy places, so that a map pin is never the whole plan.

Travel days break normal routines, and both systems allow for that without dismantling your settings. In Family Link you can let a child have more time on their device for the day, as bonus time, without changing their daily limit, downtime or school time schedule. In iOS 26 and later, you can allow a child to request an exception to a limit or restriction you have set in Screen Time, and the request reaches you as a message.

Agree the travel-day rules together before you leave, and write them down: more screen time on a long flight or transfer, normal limits on sightseeing days, and phones charging overnight rather than in bed. Look at the schedules again once you arrive, so that bedtime and downtime still fall at the local hours you intended.

Know the steps, and their order, before you need them. In Family Sharing, family members' devices appear in the Find My app, where you can locate a missing one, mark it as lost to protect the device and the personal information on it, or erase it if you believe it is permanently lost or stolen. With Family Link, a child's supervised devices appear automatically in the Family devices tab of Google's Find Hub, which can play a sound at full volume for five minutes even when the phone is set to silent, or mark the phone as lost, locking it and showing your contact details and a message on its lock screen.

Erasing is the last step, not the first. Google lists a mobile data or Wi-Fi connection among the conditions for securing or erasing an Android device remotely, and notes that a phone found after being erased needs the Google Account password before it can be used again. Keep that password, and the child's Apple Account details, somewhere you can reach from your own phone.

Then deal with the line itself. Keep the eSIM order details in your own email rather than only on the child's phone, contact the provider with them, and ask what can be done for a replacement device. Once you are back on a connection you trust, change any passwords that were saved on the missing phone.