TutorCat Guide Open TutorCat

Parents

Screen time

Set a daily limit and quiet hours for each child, choose whether reaching them warns or blocks, and see what your child sees.

On this page
  1. See the current settings
  2. Change the settings
  3. Warn or Block: what's the difference?
  4. What your child sees when Block applies
  5. How minutes are counted
  6. Two parents, one limit

You can give each child a daily learning limit and quiet hours. You also choose what happens when they reach them: a gentle Warn, or Block, which pauses new questions.

See the current settings

Your home page has a Screen time card for the child you're viewing:

  • Daily limit: for example "90 min", or "No limit set"
  • Quiet hours: for example "9 PM – 7 AM", or "Off"
  • When reached: Warn or Block

Today's minutes also appear under Learning activity on a computer, and in the Today tile on a phone.

The Screen time card on the parent home, with the Change link
  1. Limit, quiet hours, mode
  2. Change it in Settings

Choose Change to go straight to that child's screen-time settings.

Change the settings

  1. Open Settings (or choose Change on the home card).
  2. Choose the child. Use Manage on their card if they aren't already open.
  3. Under Screen time, set:
    • Daily limit: choose 30, 45, 60 or 90 minutes. Reading past sessions doesn't count towards it.
    • Quiet hours: pick a start time, then an end time after to. Choose Off to have none. Quiet hours can run past midnight, such as 9:00 PM to 7:00 AM.
    • When the limit is reached: Warn or Block.
  4. That's it. There is no Save button. Your change saves itself a moment after you make it, and Saved appears.
Screen time settings for Maya: the daily limit, quiet hours and when the limit is reached
  1. Daily limit in minutes
  2. Quiet hours start
  3. Quiet hours end
  4. Warn or Block

Quiet hours follow your own clock: TutorCat uses the time zone of the device you save them on.

Warn or Block: what's the difference?

Warn (the default) Block
5 minutes before the limit Your child sees a heads-up: "Your parent set a daily limit. You can keep going, and it's a good moment to wrap up." Your child sees a heads-up: "Finish this step, the answer will wait for tomorrow."
When the limit is reached Nothing stops. Your child's own progress page says they've reached today's limit. New questions and new messages pause until tomorrow.
During quiet hours Nothing stops. Your child's progress page says they're inside your quiet hours. New questions and new messages pause until quiet hours end.

With Block, the help text under the setting reads: "New questions pause at the limit. A reply already on its way finishes, and old conversations stay readable."

When the limit is reached set to Block, with its help text
  1. Block is on
  2. What Block does

On a phone, the same settings stack one under another.

Screen time settings on a phone
  1. Daily limit
  2. Quiet hours
  3. Warn or Block

What your child sees when Block applies

When a Block limit is reached, or quiet hours begin, your child sees That's it for today. It tells them:

  • that they've used their minutes, or that it's quiet hours
  • your quiet hours, if you set them
  • how many minutes they learned today, their streak and, if you set quiet hours, the time they're back
  • "Your streak is safe, today already counts", if they already learned today

They can still choose Look at my portfolio (which doesn't count against the limit) and read their old conversations.

What a child sees when a Block limit is reached, with the Need to talk to someone? link
  1. Why it has stopped
  2. Portfolio still open
  3. Help is never blocked

How minutes are counted

TutorCat counts the time your child spends in tutoring sessions. Overlapping sessions count once, and a session left open all day can't take over the total. Time spent just reading an answer without doing anything isn't captured, so the figure is more likely to be a little low than too high.

Two parents, one limit

The limit belongs to the child, not to each parent. If two parents are linked, either can change it, and the latest change is the one that applies.