GuestSpy Editor
Parent of two children aged 9 and 13, and has run GuestSpy on the family's Android phones since 2022.
I started GuestSpy after trying to find a parental control app that would tell me what it could and could not see. Most of them would not, so I ended up building one that does. I write the guides on this site myself, on the phones in my own house — a Samsung Galaxy A-series and a Pixel, both on Android 14. When a page says a menu sits three taps deep, I counted the taps. When a page says a feature cannot do something, it is because I tried it and it did not work. I am not a security researcher and I do not pretend to be one. What I have is three years of living with these tools in a house with teenagers, and a strong dislike of software that overstates itself.
- 71 articles published here
- Every guide is written, edited and checked by a person — see our editorial standards.
Guides by GuestSpy Editor
A Step-by-Step Guide to Setting Up Family Location Sharing
Three ways to set up family location sharing on iPhone and Android, the settings that quietly break each one, and…
The Complete Guide to GPS Tracking for Families
How your phone actually works out where it is, why the accuracy varies so much, what it costs your battery,…
The Complete Guide to Child Phone Monitoring (iPhone and Android)
What you can actually see on each platform, how to set it up in an afternoon, and the one conversation…
The Complete Guide to Monitoring a Teen Respectfully
A step-down approach to monitoring a teenager's phone: what to negotiate, what to drop by 15 and 17, and how…
The Honest Parent’s Guide to Phone Monitoring
What phone monitoring actually delivers versus what the marketing promises, five claims worth being sceptical of, and a straight framework…
Monitoring vs. Spying: Where Parents Should Draw the Line
A working framework for the monitoring vs spying question: four questions to ask about any situation, and how common grey…
How to Tell Your Child You’re Monitoring Their Phone
Word-for-word scripts for telling a child their phone is monitored, by age, plus how to handle the most common pushback…
At What Age Should You Monitor Your Child’s Phone?
There is no single right age — there's a right amount of monitoring for each stage. Here's the age-by-age framework,…
What to Do When You Find Something Worrying on Your Child’s Phone
A calm, practical playbook for the moment you see something worrying: what to do first, what not to do, and…
How to Monitor My Child’s Social Media
Every platform has its own supervision tools, and every one of them has real gaps. Here's what Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok,…