The company said the controls were developed in response to concerns from parents who want to guide their teenagers online without resorting to monitoring their private messages.
“As teens grow up, so does the way they communicate,” WhatsApp said in announcing the new features. “Parents have told us they want to be there to guide them without reading over their shoulder.”
The new controls are intended to allow parents and teenagers to establish settings together, giving families the option to determine how much oversight is appropriate for a particular teen.
Under the new system, parents can select privacy settings governing who is allowed to see a teenager's profile photo and who can add them to WhatsApp groups. If a teenager attempts to loosen certain restrictions selected by a parent, approval through a parent-set PIN will be required.
The company is also introducing notifications intended to help parents understand changes in their teenager's WhatsApp activity without exposing the content of private conversations.
Parents can receive alerts when their teenager joins or leaves a group, or when a group the teenager belongs to experiences a significant increase in membership. These notifications are designed to give parents a broader picture of their child's interactions while stopping short of providing access to the conversations themselves.
The controls also extend to WhatsApp's Channels and Status features. Parents will be able to determine how their teenager uses Channels, select whose Status updates the teenager can view and control who is able to see the teenager's own Status updates.
Another addition concerns Meta AI, the artificial intelligence feature available through Meta's platforms. Parents can now choose between the default 13-plus setting and a stricter “Limited Content” option for their teenager's Meta AI experience.
WhatsApp said the newly introduced controls are only the beginning of its efforts to provide families with more options.
“This is just the start,” the company said. “We're building these controls step by step, based on what families tell us they need.”
The company stressed that the controls are intended to complement, rather than replace, conversations between parents and teenagers about responsible use of the platform.
“All of these controls are being designed to support open conversations about how to use WhatsApp between parents and teens, while keeping everyone's personal messages private,” WhatsApp said.
Setting up the controls is designed to be relatively simple, with a single PIN and alerts intended to keep parents informed. However, the features are not mandatory. Parents can decide whether to activate them, determine the level of support their teenager requires and change or disable the controls at any time.
WhatsApp also reiterated that enabling parental controls does not give parents access to the content of their teenager's private messages or calls.
“Even with controls turned on, your teen's personal messages and calls stay private and protected by end-to-end encryption,” the company said. “No one outside of the chat, not even WhatsApp, can see or hear them.”
The move comes as technology companies continue to introduce tools aimed at helping families navigate teenagers' growing use of social and messaging platforms. For parents, the challenge is often balancing supervision with teenagers' increasing expectations of privacy and independence.
WhatsApp's approach puts that balance at the centre of its new controls, allowing families to decide how much oversight is appropriate rather than imposing a single set of restrictions on every teenager.
The company said parents seeking information about setting up the new features and other ways of managing their family's WhatsApp experience can consult its Help Center.