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What is Family Pairing? • How to set up Family Pairing • How to manage Family Pairing settings
What is Family Pairing?
Family Pairing on TikTok allows parents, guardians, and teens to customize their safety settings based on individual needs. You can review and adjust the settings for your teen as needed. Teens can always increase their own restrictions, but can't reduce those set by you. You can link your TikTok account to your teen's account and set controls, including:
Daily screen time
Decide how long your teen can spend on TikTok each day. For teens between the ages of 13 and 17, this setting is turned on by default to one hour. You can also:
• Set your teen's screen time limit directly from your own account.
• Set one screen time limit for TikTok to apply to all of your teen's devices.
• Get a randomized passcode that you can choose to enter after your teen reaches their time to allow them to return to TikTok.
Screen time dashboard
Get a summary of your teen's time spent on TikTok, including:
• The cumulative time spent each day for the last 4 weeks.
• The number of times your teen opened the app each day for the last 4 weeks.
Learn more about screen time on TikTok.
Schedule time away
Set recurring times to limit your teen's access to TikTok:
• Select the day and time that TikTok will be unavailable to your teen.
• Your teen can send you a request to continue using TikTok during the scheduled time away.
Mute push notifications
Decide when to mute your teen's push notifications. This setting is turned on by default:
• For teens between the ages of 13 and 15, the scheduled time is set from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m.
• For teens between the ages of 16 and 17, the scheduled time is set from 10 p.m. to 8 a.m.
You can also schedule additional time to mute your teen's notifications directly from your own account. Keep in mind that the default scheduled time overrides any custom time that overlaps with the default time. For example, if you set your 13-year-old teen's scheduled time from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m., the default time from 9 p.m. to 8 a.m. will override your setting.
Learn more about how to mute push notifications on TikTok.
Filter keywords
Select keywords and their variations or hashtags to exclude from your teen's supported feeds on TikTok and manage the visibility of your keyword list.
STEM feed
Decide whether your teen can view the STEM feed.
Note: The STEM feed isn't currently available everywhere.
Restricted Mode
Restrict your teen's exposure to content that may not be appropriate or comfortable for them.
Linked account activity
Get notifications about your teen's activity, such as if your accounts get unlinked, by turning on Customized updates and more push notifications.
Search
Decide whether your teen can search for videos, hashtags, LIVE videos, and more on TikTok.
Discoverability
Decide whether your teen's account is private or public. With a private account, your teen can approve who can follow them and view their content.
Interactions
View all blocked accounts, following and follower lists on your teen's TikTok profile.
Suggest account to others
Decide whether your teen's account can be recommended to others. Learn more about suggested accounts on TikTok.
Direct messages
Decide who can send messages or message requests to your teen.
Note: Direct messaging on TikTok is only available to people who are 16 years and older. Learn more about direct messages on TikTok. For teens under 18 years old, review our teen privacy and safety settings for more details.
Liked posts
Decide who can view your teen's liked posts.
Comments
Decide who can comment on your teen's posts.
Review teen's settings
Get an overview of your teen's privacy settings, such as their account visibility and who can comment on their posts. The settings shown here depend on your teen's age and the features available to them. Keep in mind that this is a view-only list. You can manage some privacy settings through Family Pairing.
Report content or account
If your teen reports an issue on TikTok that they believe violates our Community Guidelines, they have the option to let us notify you in your inbox when they report it. They can choose to notify you by email if your accounts aren’t linked through Family Pairing. People report incidents for various reasons so you may want to talk to your teen to understand what happened.
Visit our Guardian's Guide to learn more about how you can support your teen.
Note: Restricted Mode and daily screen time limits will prevent your teen from logging out or switching accounts on the TikTok app.
How to set up Family Pairing
To link parent and teen accounts:
1. In the TikTok app, tap Profile at the bottom.
2. Tap the Menu ☰ button at the top, then select Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Family Pairing.
4. Tap Continue.
5. Tap Parent or Teen, then tap Next.
6. Follow the steps to link the accounts.
How to manage Family Pairing settings
To manage Family Pairing settings:
1. In the TikTok app, tap Profile at the bottom.
2. Tap the Menu ☰ button at the top, then select Settings and privacy.
3. Tap Family Pairing.
4. Select the account you want to manage, then update the settings as needed.
For more information on digital safety, including our safety and privacy tools, visit the Guardian's guide in our Safety Center.