Messaging was never the whole picture. Sometimes your child just needs to hear your voice — or see your face. Now they can, with the same guardian oversight you already trust ChatMinder for.
One of the most requested features since ChatMinder launched has been simple: let my child actually call me. Not through a separate app, not by handing over a phone number, just a tap from the app they already use every day.
Voice and video calling is now live — and because nothing ships in ChatMinder without a guardian in the loop, we’ve built calling permissions with the same care as every other protection feature. That includes a brand new capability we’re especially excited about: you can now set who can call your child at the individual contact level, not just as one global rule for their whole account.
Here’s everything that’s new, and — because it’s worth revisiting — a refresher on the full set of protection features ChatMinder now supports.
📞 One tap to call home
On your child’s device, a dedicated screen lists every one of their guardians, with a single tap to start an audio or video call to any of them. No phone number to dial, no searching through contacts — just a name and a tap.
This works entirely over Wi-Fi, so a device doesn’t need a SIM card or an active mobile plan to make or receive a call. An old phone, a tablet, or any iOS or Android device works.
Guardian-to-child calling is always on. It isn’t affected by your Contacts Protection level, Message Protection settings, or anything else you’ve configured — a guardian and their protected user can always reach each other.
🔒 You decide who else can call your child
By default, your child can only call — and be called by — their guardians. Nobody else can start or receive a call with them until you say so.
Calling permission for non-guardian contacts (siblings, grandparents, trusted family friends) is a three-tier setting on your child’s profile:
- Not Allowed — no calls or video calls with anyone besides guardians (the default)
- Calls Only — audio calls are allowed with non-guardian contacts; video calls are not
- Calls and Video — both audio and video calls are allowed with non-guardian contacts
This means you can be as cautious or as open as you want. Maybe grandma gets full video calling, but the rule for everyone else stays at “Not Allowed” until you decide otherwise.
This setting lives in your Supervision Dashboard, alongside every other protection setting for that child: select your protected user → Protection Settings → Call Protection.
Requesting a video call when only audio is allowed doesn’t quietly get downgraded to an audio call behind the scenes — the option simply isn’t there, so there’s never a surprise about what’s actually happening.
✨ New: Per-contact call permissions ⭐ Premium feature
This is the headline addition, and the one we most wanted to make sure was clear: calling permissions can now be overridden for an individual contact, not just set as one blanket rule for your child’s whole account.
With Premium protection turned on for your child, you can open any conversation and set that specific contact’s calling permission to:
- Default — follow whatever is set on your child’s profile
- Not Allowed — override to block calls entirely with this contact
- Calls Only — override to allow audio calls with this contact, but not video
- Calls and Video — override to allow both
This means your child’s global call setting can stay conservative — say, “Not Allowed” for everyone — while you individually open up “Calls Only” for one trusted family friend, or “Calls and Video” for a specific grandparent, without changing anything for anyone else.
It’s found in exactly the same place as per-contact message protection overrides: open the contact’s chat, tap into the chat info screen, and look in the Protection section. If you’ve used per-conversation message protection before, this will feel immediately familiar — same screen, same pattern, now covering calls too.
Read more about how the message-protection version of this works in our per-conversation message protection guide →
📱 A real call experience, not a workaround
Calling integrates with each platform’s native call system. On iOS, incoming ChatMinder calls come through the same interface used for standard phone calls and FaceTime — so your child sees a proper incoming-call screen even if the ChatMinder app is fully closed. On Android, the standard call screen is used the same way.
Both audio and video calls are supported, with speaker on by default for video calls. Either person on the call can mute themselves, switch to the earpiece, or end the call at any time.
Calling is available on iOS and Android. It’s not currently available in the web browser version of ChatMinder.
🧾 Calls are logged — never recorded
Every call leaves an entry in that conversation’s timeline, showing whether it was answered, missed, or declined, and how long it lasted if it connected. Guardians with a Premium subscription who view that chat can see these entries.
We do not record or store the audio or video content of any call, ever. Call logging is metadata only — status, duration, and timestamp — in keeping with ChatMinder’s privacy-first approach to everything we build.
Read more about how guardians can view chats →
🔄 While we’re here — a refresher on everything ChatMinder protects
Calling is the newest addition to a much bigger picture. Each protection area in ChatMinder is a separate, independent setting — there’s no single master switch that decides everything for your child. That’s deliberate: it lets you dial in exactly the right level of oversight for each area, rather than accepting a one-size-fits-all bundle. If it’s been a while since you looked at your protection settings, here’s a quick tour of everything currently available, all from the same Supervision Dashboard → select your protected user → Protection Settings area:
Contacts Protection
Controls how your child can build their own contact list and group chats — independently of message or call settings. Three levels are available:
- Guardian Managed — the guardian manages all contacts; adding contacts, joining group chats, and responding to invites all require guardian approval (or are guardian-only)
- Approval Required — your child can add contacts themselves, but a guardian must approve first
- No Approval Required — your child has full control over their contacts and group chats; guardians can still monitor
Message Protection
Controls whether incoming and outgoing text and media messages require guardian approval before they’re delivered, plus optional AI-powered severity scoring (Premium) that automatically scores messages as Safe, Low, Medium, or High risk and applies your chosen action — Allow, Require Manual Review, or Reject — to each level independently.
Learn more about message protection → · How approvals work → · Smart Approval →
Feature Protection
Per-child toggles for GIFs & stickers, phone number discovery, and AI-powered Message Improvement — each off by default until you turn it on.
Call Protection (new)
The three-tier calling permission covered above — plus, now, per-contact overrides.
Per-conversation overrides (Premium)
Both message protection and, as of now, call protection can be overridden for a single contact from that chat’s info screen — without touching your child’s global settings. Set a specific contact to be more restricted, or more relaxed, than everyone else.
Per-conversation message protection →
Beyond protection settings
ChatMinder also includes contact discovery controls, sharing of protected profiles between guardians, a full approvals dashboard and history, and a suite of “No Pressure” accessibility features (no read receipts, no last-seen, no typing indicators by default) designed to take social pressure out of messaging for children who need that.
Ready to turn on calling?
Calling with guardians works out of the box for every child on ChatMinder — no setup required. If you want to open things up further, head to your Supervision Dashboard to configure Call Protection for your child’s whole profile, or set overrides for individual contacts with Premium protection.
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