From Restriction to Reasoning: A Story-Based Approach Toward the Design of Child-Centered Parental Control Apps

Parental control apps often use restrictive approaches that children find invasive due to a lack of explanation for the restrictions, harming parent-child relationships. To this end, we employed a reasoning-based approach; inspired by Fogg’s Behavior Model, we leveraged fear appeal to enhance motivation through illustrating the potential consequences of unregulated device usage. We communicated these elements through story-based designs, drawing on the efficacy of digital storytelling to influence behavior and support children’s understanding. Our narratives are built on top of two core features—screen time limits and content filtering—of Google’s existing parental control app, Family Link. We developed these narratives through two focus group sessions with six child development experts, who emphasized the importance of positive framing alongside depicting consequences. We then evaluated our story-based designs through semi-structured interviews with 18 children, aged 8–12. Our participants appreciated the clear reasoning behind restrictions, helping them connect their actions with consequences and encouraging compliance, self-regulation, and open communication with parents. Based on our findings, we provide guidelines for designing inclusive, child-centered parental control apps.