WhatsApp Introduces Optional Parental Controls for Teen Accounts

WhatsApp has introduced optional parental controls designed to help parents guide their teenagers’ experience on the messaging platform while preserving the privacy of their personal conversations and calls.

The new tools allow parents and teens to set up controls together. Parents can select privacy settings for a teen’s account, including who can view their profile photo and who can add them to groups. If a teen wants to loosen certain settings, they will need approval through a PIN set by the parent.

Parents can also receive alerts when their teen joins or leaves a group, or when a group they belong to grows significantly. Additional controls cover how teens use Channels, whose Status updates they can see and who can view their own updates.

The tools also let parents choose between the default 13+ Meta AI setting and a stricter “Limited Content” option for their teen.

WhatsApp said the controls are optional and can be adjusted or switched off at any time. The company described them as an initial set of features that will be developed further in response to feedback from families.

The controls are intended to support conversations between parents and teens about using WhatsApp, while keeping personal messages private. WhatsApp said messages and calls remain protected by end-to-end encryption, meaning no one outside a chat—including WhatsApp—can see or hear them.

Parents can find setup instructions and additional guidance in the WhatsApp.