How parental controls work

Parental controls in Acutis are designed to give parents meaningful oversight without turning the tool into a surveillance system. You can block specific topics, limit when and how long Acutis can be used, restrict certain features, and receive alerts when something sensitive comes up — all configurable per family member.

To access the controls for any member, open the Family section from the side menu on the web, or from the Family tab in the mobile app, then tap or click on the member you want to manage.

Blocked topics

You can block Acutis from responding to questions in any of the following categories:

• Sexual content — questions about sex, pornography, or explicit material
• Drugs & alcohol — questions about drinking, vaping, or recreational drugs
• Violence — requests involving harming people, weapons, or violent acts
• Self-harm — questions about suicide, self-harm, or injuring yourself
• Dating & relationships — questions about crushes, dating, or romance
• Occult / spiritual practices — tarot, astrology, spells, or occult topics
• Politics — political parties, elections, candidates, or current political debate
• Social media / influencer culture — platforms, influencers, follower growth, going viral

When a blocked topic is triggered, Acutis does not respond with the requested content. Instead it shows a short message letting the member know that the topic has been restricted by their account admin, and suggesting they speak with a parent, mentor, or spiritual director. The member is not told which specific word or phrase triggered it.

You can enable any combination of these categories. For younger children, enabling most or all of them is a reasonable starting point. For older teens, you might leave some open — particularly politics or dating — and rely more on conversation than restriction.

Conversation history

You can enable admin history for any member. When turned on, their conversations are saved and visible to you from the Family screen. This applies from the moment you enable it — it does not retroactively capture previous conversations.

Use this thoughtfully. For younger children it is a reasonable safeguard. For teens, it is worth having a direct conversation about the fact that you have access — not as a threat, but as part of the same honest conversation you would have about any tool they use.

Screen time limits

There are two ways to limit how much time a member spends on Acutis:

• Daily limit — set a maximum number of minutes per day. Once the limit is reached, Acutis will not respond until the following day.
• Downtime schedule — block Acutis during specific hours or days. For example, you might block it on school nights after 9pm, or on Sunday mornings. You can set a custom schedule for each day of the week.

Both options can be used together. Downtime scheduling is particularly useful for households with consistent routines — it removes the need to manually enforce boundaries that should just be automatic.

Image generation

Image generation can be turned off per member. If you would prefer that a child not be able to generate images through Acutis, toggle this off in their controls. It applies immediately.

Parental alerts

Acutis can send you a notification when a family member's conversation touches on a sensitive area — even if the topic is not fully blocked. This is separate from the blocked topics list: alerts are designed to flag conversations that might warrant a follow-up conversation, not necessarily ones that were outright refused.

Categories that can trigger an alert include self-harm, violence, sexual content, predatory or grooming language, illegal drugs, hate or harassment, extremism, and dangerous instructions.

You can also choose whether the alert includes a short excerpt from the conversation. This can help you understand the context quickly, but it is optional — some parents prefer to receive the alert without the excerpt and follow up in person.

For alerts to reach you reliably, notifications must be enabled for the Acutis app on your phone. If you have not done this, go to your phone settings, find Acutis in the app list, and turn notifications on. Without this step, alerts will not come through.

A note on trust

These controls work best as part of a wider approach, not as a standalone solution. A child who understands why certain things are off-limits — and who trusts that the rules come from care rather than suspicion — will navigate these boundaries more honestly than one who is simply restricted without explanation. The controls are a tool. The relationship is what matters.