To turn on Guided Access (Kid’s Mode) simply open the Settings app and navigate to General –> Accessibility –> Guided Access and turn the “Guided Access” toggle to on.

Have you ever wanted to let your kids, grandkids, or someone else’s kids play with your iPhone or iPad? Have you ever come back later to find that this wonderful little person ended up sending random texts to people in your contacts list, deleting photos, and other things you didn’t want to happen? Well, there is a solution to that. It is called “Guided Access.” I have renamed this Kid’s Mode or Child Mode because that’s what I use it for.

Kid’s Mode locks your device into one app and disables the Home Button, On/Off Button, and Volume Buttons. This allows you to have peace of mind when a special little person in your life wants to use your iOS device. Here is how to take advantage of this feature.

1. Open the Settings App and tap on General –> Accessibility –> Guided Access. Then turn the toggle for Guided Access to “On.” Then, set a passcode that you will use to exit Kid’s Mode after it has been activated (make sure and write this down somewhere or use something you are sure you will remember).

2. Next, go to whatever app you want to give a kid access to and open it up. Once you are in the app, triple tap on the home button. The app will minimize slightly revealing options on the edges of the screen. Use these options to disable touch, and disable screen rotation. You can also circle any part of the screen to disable that portion of the screen. For example, in the Photos app, I always circle the menu bar at the bottom that includes the delete button so that my 2 year old won’t be able to delete and of my photos. Then, tap on “Start” in the upper right corner.

These are the options that popup when you have enabled Guided Access mode and then triple press the Home Button when you are in the desired app.

3. To exit “Guided Access” just triple tap the Home Button again. Enter your passcode from step 1. Tap on “End” and your iPhone or iPad will be back to normal.

That’s it.

Note: This mode is also very useful to use your iPad or iPhone as a display kiosk to showcase an app, a product, gather signup info at a conference, etc.

Here is the app that my 2 year old loves. It’s called Alphabet Tracing and it’s totally FREE. Click the icon to find the app in the App Store

Click the icon to go to the App Store

This is my 2 year old tracing letters on the iPad in Guided Access (Kid’s Mode).