Universal Screen Time/Family sharing setup confusion

[macstatic]

I'm in the midst of setting up a brand new iPhone 11 for a child as well as Family Sharing with Screen Time for parental control, but I'm not getting it to work.
The child's SIM card is still in the old phone (Android) until we get it all settled, so until then we're using Wifi to test and set up things. I'm able to access/set up Family Sharing from either an iPad, my own iPhone or a Mac.

Adding family members to Family Sharing was a huge pain as the invitations were just sent as email, and the recipients tried to click on "Get started" link in the mail which just opened an "invitation to Family sharing" page at icloud.com. I don't know how I managed it in the end but think I (as the administrator) found a way on my phone to add people.

OK, I've added all the family members including the child, and believe for actually controlling the use of the child's phone I need to set the Family Sharing's Screen Time settings, right? But it looks like nothing is happening on the child's phone, regardless of what I do. Does the child's phone have to be enabled for administration by Family Sharing first? If I go to the Settings app in the child's iPhone and look at the very top I can see that the iCloud login is working, and Family Sharing is also there. Have I missed something?

 

[Bigwaff]

Child has iCloud account. Child's iCloud account is signed in on iPhone 11.

On parent iPhone, Settings > Family (under your iCloud) > Child's name > Screen Time. Enable Screen Time and configure... and this not working?

You may have to be very patient as I have experienced Screen Time taking excruciatingly long to sync settings across devices with iOS 16... sometimes 5-10 minutes.

 

[macstatic]

Thanks for your suggestion and comments!
Yes, there was absolutely no response on the child's phone no matter what I did on my own phone.
I also noticed that on my (parent's) phone, whenever I had changed some setting related to this it said "updated on xx.xx" (xx.xx being the current time) and the "spinning activity circle" or whatever you can call it, would spin indefinitely. This gave me a clue that something just wasn't right, but it's hard to tell when you haven't used it before. Maybe it would start working if I let it do its thing for 5-10 minutes as you've experienced.

Then I read this article entitled How to use Screen Time with your Family Sharing account where it says:

If Screen Time with isn’t working properly with Family Sharing, here are a few things you can try to fix it:

1. Make sure your child’s device is updated to the latest version of iOS, iPadOS, or macOS.
2. Disable and re-enable Screen Time from the Settings on both devices.
3. Sign out and back in to the iCloud accounts on both devices.
4. Restart both devices.

Step 2 was what solved it for me 👍 👍 👍
I had already done all those other steps (except 3) to no avail.

And to answer my own question earlier: Yes, you can do all of this with a Wifi connection. There's no need to insert the child's SIM card into the phone in order to get a cellular connection going.
Make sure both phones are turned on and have a Wifi connection.

1) So, first I went on my own (parent's) phone or iPad and turned the child's Screen Time on and off a few times by going here:
Settings > iCloud (at the very top, shown with your name/Apple ID etc, above Airplane mode) > Family Sharing > Child's name > Screen Time.

I also noticed two other places I could do the exact same thing:
a) Settings > Family (right above Airplane mode, next to iCloud) > Child's name > Screen Time
or
b) Settings > Screen Time > Child's name

... I repeated the on/off Screen Time procedure 2 or 3 times times to "kick its tires" so to speak

2) Then, similarly on the child's phone I turned Screen Time off/on a few times by going here:
Settings > Screen Time

Having "reset" Screen Time on both phones I did the following to actually set up a parental controlled Screen Time for the child, getting a communication working:

3) on both phones, first ensure Screen Time is OFF (by going to the settings described in steps 1 and 2 above)

4) on the parent's phone, turn Screen Time ON for the child by going here:
Settings > Family (right above Airplane mode, next to iCloud) > Child's name > Screen Time

5) You will be greeted with a "Set up parental controls" window where you answer several questions about restrictions, downtime, app limits etc. This can be changed later, so for now just go quickly through it to get it going

6) Once the last step is done the child's phone should play an alert sound and a notification pop up to say that Screen Time has been activated by the parents. Success!! 😅

7) on the parent's phone, you can now configure all the parental controls properly (and at any time later if you need to change something) regarding app limits, restrictions, downtime etc.). You can use any of the three methods in step 1

Clearing up the confusion
Finally, here's something that confused me at first, which I now understand:
Question: Is there a "local" (on the child's phone, controlled on that phone itself) as well as a "remote" (controlled by the parent) Screen Time? And if so, which one does what?
Answer: No, there's only one Screen Time on the child's phone. It's accessed by going to:
Settings > Screen Time

... but there's two ways of using it:
a) with Family Sharing OFF: any restrictions (i.e. app limits etc.) are set up on the child's phone itself. Any changes need to be done on that same phone. A separate password from the rest of the phone is used so the child can't access those settings

b) with Family Sharing ON: the same Screen Time on the child's phone becomes accessible by "remote" control (i.e. from a parent's iPhone or iPad). In addition I noticed that it's also possible for the parent to change settings directly on the child's phone (which in turn is reflected in the child's Screen Time settings on the parent's iPhone/iPad). You're asked for the Family Sharing Screen Time password before you can change anything directly on the child's phone.

Phew! I wish someone had told me all this earlier instead of having to learn it the hard way. Perhaps the above will help someone else