iMessage on an iPhone or iPad
Why you might choose it: The only one of the ordinary messengers a young child can legitimately have an account on. A child Apple ID is created by a parent through Family Sharing. It is end-to-end encrypted, it is free, and Screen Time’s communication limits genuinely restrict who a child can message, incoming included. Configured properly, this is a good answer.
How Rilo compares: Rilo lacks its polish and its reach. It does run on Android as well, which iMessage does not, so a family spread across both kinds of phone is not a family iMessage can hold. The real difference is the address. Your child has an Apple ID and a phone number, and anyone who learns or guesses either can send them something until the limits are set correctly. Rilo has nothing to learn. No number, no username, no directory. It also cannot carry a photo, a video or a link at all, and it filters unkind words on the phone before a child sees them.
WhatsApp
Why you might choose it: Everyone already has it, on both platforms, for free, and the encryption is Signal’s own protocol. If your child is old enough for an account of their own, this is the path of least resistance for the whole family.
How Rilo compares: WhatsApp sets a minimum age in its terms, and a five-year-old is under it. So a small child using WhatsApp is using an adult’s account, and every conversation that account is in comes with them. Anyone holding the number can start a conversation. Rilo cannot match WhatsApp’s reach and does not try; what it offers instead is an account a small child is allowed to have, no address for a stranger to use, and no photos, video or links in either direction.
Signal
Why you might choose it: The best encryption in this list, and we will say so plainly. Signal’s protocol is the most scrutinised in the world, open source, independently audited, and run by a non-profit that does not want your data. If encryption is the thing you are optimising for, use Signal.
How Rilo compares: Rilo’s own sealing has never been independently audited, and Signal’s has. They are also built for different people. Signal sets a minimum age too, its interface assumes a reader, and a username or number is still an address somebody can use. Rilo is built for a child who cannot read, has no address at all, and shows nothing until a grown-up on each side has said yes.
Messenger Kids and other children’s modes
Why you might choose it: The closest thing to how Rilo works. A contact list a parent approves, on an account made for a child. The controls are real, the apps are well made, and they cost nothing.
How Rilo compares: They match Rilo on the thing that matters most. Nobody reaches your child unless you allowed it. What can travel between two children is not the same, though. Messenger Kids carries photographs and video calls, and Rilo carries neither. Your child cannot send a picture of themselves, nobody can send one to them, and there is no camera in the conversation to be pointed at a bedroom. There is also nothing to screenshot and pass around a class. Then there is what you are handed at the end of it, which is a profile held by a company whose ordinary product is advertising, inside that company’s account system. Rilo has no profile to hold, and the server never learns your child’s name, photo or age.
A children’s smartwatch
Why you might choose it: It is on the wrist, so it cannot be left at a friend’s house, and most carry GPS. If knowing where your child is matters more than what they can say, buy the watch.
How Rilo compares: Rilo cannot tell you where anybody is and never will. A watch needs its own SIM and a monthly plan; Rilo runs on a phone already in a drawer, over Wi-Fi. Calling on a watch is usually limited to a list held on the maker’s servers, and the screens are too small for messaging to become a habit, which is either the point or the problem, depending on the child.
Waiting a few years
Why you might choose it: It costs nothing, risks nothing, and it is what most families do. If your child has nobody far away to talk to, this is the right answer and the rest of this page does not apply to you.
How Rilo compares: Waiting also decides that a grandparent in another country waits too, and that the first device arrives at eleven or twelve with everything on it at once rather than one thing at a time. Rilo is the small version of that step. Calls and messages with people you chose, and nothing else on the phone to find.
