How to Prevent your Kids Accidentally Purchasing from App Store

The Washington Post reported about 8-year-old Madison who amassed a $1,400 bill on family’s credit card, by making a lot of in-app purchases while playing the Capcom Interactive’s Smurfs game on iPhone. With an in-app purchasing feature enabled, it is difficult for a child to avoid purchasing with a touch of a button without knowing what they’re doing. Here we will guide you on how parents can prevent their child from accidentally purchasing apps.

How to Enable Restriction to Avoid Accidental app Purchase

Step 1: Navigate to Restrictions menu under General -> Settings

Step 2: This is the place where you can provide the access control to your child. As shown in screenshot, you can control various apps, like YouTube and Safari, as well as place limits on their purchasing ability within iTunes.

Step 3: Now tap the Enable Restrictions button at the top of the screen. You’ll be prompted to enter a Restrictions Passcode. Enter the passcode. It will now prevent anyone else who doesn’t know the passcode from changing the Restrictions settings.

Step 4: After setting the Restrictions Passcode, you can select apps that can be accessed on the iPhone. ‘On’ means the app can be accessed. Changing the switch to ‘Off’ removes the app from the iPhone’s screen. Don’t panic, it hasn’t been deleted; it’s just been made “invisible” so it can’t be accessed. For instance, if you choose to disable iTunes and Installing Apps, you are then preventing downloads from the iTunes store and the App Store through the apps on the iPhone.

Step 5: Under Allowed Content, disable In-App purchase which will prevent your child from making purchase in a single click.