Create a Google Account for your Child and Manage it through Google Family Link

The COVID lock down has made it now necessary for our children to have a Google account to access the online classes conducted by the schools through Google Classroom and other virtual classroom platforms. Most of the cases the parents are giving their wards their own e-mail id to join the classroom. This may create many practical difficulties for the students, parents and teachers. For parents, it may not be advisable to let their child use their Google accounts as that may cause problems. Creating another ID in parents name for this purpose may be a good idea. But, as the students are enrolled under the name of the parents in Google Classroom, this creates practical difficulties for the teachers to manage the grades of their students properly.  

The minimum age limit to have a Google account is 13, but Google lets the parents to create  a Google Account for their child under 13 (or the applicable age in your country), and manage it using Family Link.With Google Accounts, children get access to Google products like Search, Chrome, and Gmail, and you can set up basic digital ground rules to supervise them. 

Let's see how to create a Google Account for your child.

Creating a Google Account for your child is very simple. It can be done either through the Family Link App or through Google Account Signup.

Google Account Signup

Go to Google Account Signup

Enter the First Name and Last Name of your child

Select an email id you want for the child

Enter a password

Click on Next. 

Provide your mobile number and recovery email address. Also enter date of birth and gender of your child.

Click Next

As you are creating an account for you child and Google identifies the age of the child from the date of birth given in the previous step this screen will appear asking for the parent to sign in to their account to confirm. Enter your email id and click on Next.

The Parental consent form with Family Link disclosure for parents of children under the age of 13 (or the applicable age in your country) will appear now. You will have to read the disclosure to understand important details regarding Google Account details of your child, what you can do, how you can manage your account and what personal information Google collect.

Check the two I agree... check boxes and click on Agree button to continue

Now you will have to enter your password (password for the parent's email id to give consent)

Click on Next and the account will be created and you will see the information regarding your child's account. 

What parents can manage

Until your child reaches 13 (or applicable age in your country) and decides to manage his account on his own, you can do things such as:

• Update your child's account info & some settings
• Such as his name and birthday.
• Delete his account
• You can recover his account for a limited period of time after you delete it.
• Manage his activity controls
• You can manage settings such as how Google collects your child's Web & App Activity.

Click on Next 

Another window appear asking you to start and manage a family group

 The Google Family Group will help you to manage all the Google accounts of your family. You can create accounts for your children and another parent can be added to manage the accounts. Click on I agree button.

You will have to verify your child's info on the next screen.

Google will create an account for your child and the following confirmation will appear.

Click on Continue and you will be taken to you Manage Account page for your child where you can change the personal information, set up privacy information and secure the account.

Now your child's Google Account is ready and it can be managed through Family Link. For this you need to install Google Family Link for Parents on your device and Google Family Link for children & teens on your child's device. 

How to setup the devices is explained in the next tutorial.

Click here see how to setup Family Link on Your Devices