Add kids friends

[Geney]

My daughter just received is Fitbit Ace and her friends too but how to add all her friends to her account so they can do challenges. 

Thanks

[Julia_G]

Hi, @Geney, as the "guardian" of a family account you control who your child interacts with.  The best way would be for you to nvite the parent of your child's friends to be your Fitbit friend.  Then either parent can start a challenge, invite the other parent, and the parents can invite the children to join the challenge.  Parents do not necessarily need to have Fitbits if they have a device that supports mobiletrack, but they do need to have a Fitbit account.

Since a family account can contain up to 11 members, an alternative would be to add the other child's parent to be a "guardian" in your family (or vice versa, or both), then the other child can be added.  (In order to add a child you need to confirm that you have parental responsibility over the child).

*** Edited to add: I have recently learned that you can only belong to ONE family, so it probably does not make sense to add parents of yur kids friends to your family -- but you can still make sure the kids can challenge each other if you "friend" the parent and then invite them to a challenge... ***

I know it sounds a little complicated, but there are important regulations about protecting children's privacy online

Here's some more information from the Fitbit blog:

"Group Challenges. Kids can compete against their family in daily and weekend Challenges or via Family Faceoff, a brand new 5-day step challenge that allows members in a family account to compete against each other (coming soon). Winner gets a fun virtual trophy. Keep the motivation stoked by cheering and direct messaging each other within the app. Soon, kids will also be able to add their friends to do the same, but with control over who your kids connect with on the platform, you can feel confident knowing that they are only connecting with people you approve."

[brandonyork]

I'm with you Geney.  This stinks. I posted another post about the ability to join multiple families and that is not supported, so what are you to do?  11 spots for your family, friends, and their kids.  I know my child will go to school on Tuesday with her fitbit and I will have to advise her that she cannot challenge any of her friends with fitbits or those planning to get one because we are not adding them to our family.  It would also be nice to be able to sync to a PC vs a smartphone/tablet.    

At this point with the need to group kids into a family and no ability to add a photo, I'd recommend the alta with an order of an ace wristband.  Don't get me wrong, my kids love the thing and are moving, but for $100 there sure are a lot of nerfs to the device.  I know there are laws for kids,but how about some parental controls vs. no ability.  Get the alta and lie about the age on setup.

[KateFitbit]

@Geney I'm piggybacking on what @Julia_G said and calling out this help article: Can my child interact with others on the Fitbit app.  Specifically: 

Through kid view, your child can message, cheer, or taunt anyone in their Fitbit family account. If your child is participating in a challenge, they can cheer or send messages to others—including participants who aren’t part of your family account. Your child can’t connect with other Fitbit members outside of challenges.

@Julia_G excellent response, thank you! 

[brandonyork]

The problem would be, if a kids is not part of your family group they cannot be added to a challenge.  So either eat up the 11 spots you get and the ability to ONLY BE ABLE TO BE IN ONE FAMILY, or they don't get to challenge friends.  

[Rich_Laue]

The workaround that @Julia_G posted is to invite the guardian to the challenge. Then the guardian invites their child who is the wanted friend. 

[Julia_G]

@brandonyork, as mentioned above, your child can certainly participate in Challenges with children and adults who are not part of your family account.  The only restriction is that you must first invite the parent into the challenge, and then the parent invites the child.

In this way the parent controls who the child interacts with.  Once both children have joined the challenge, they can message each other, cheer and taunt.

[kwizorek]

If you invite a parent of your childs friend and that parent invites there children then the parents are being challenged as well. Not fun for my child when the adults are blowing them out of the water in steps. I think parents should be able to add friends to their child’s account and if someone sends a friend request to the child, the parent has to approve it first. There should be parental controls that the parent has the ability to make those choices. 

[Rich_Laue]

This might not be as much of a problem as you think. 

An child really needs 12 to 15,000 steps daily. Where as a parent can get away with much less . So yes, unless the parent is very active. the child should be getting more steps. 

I believe that the children can be in their own challenges. if not yet we have been told it is conning. 

[KateFitbit · Accepted solution]

Fitbit Update: Kids can now add friends on Android and iOS on their account with their parent's permission! Check out this article.