The First Phone Kit: free, sourced guides

Free answers. Every rule carries a numbered reference that resolves to a named publisher, a date and a link, so you can check it yourself. Read the guide that matches your situation; the paid pack is named once, at the end, for the reader who wants the whole thing done tonight.

• Family phone agreement template: what the free ones leave out
  National PTA's Smart Talk and Common Sense Media's agreement are good free pledges. What they leave out: the phone settings each line maps to, what platforms let you see, the school's rules, the lost-phone plan. Honest comparison.
• How to Set Up Parental Controls on iPhone and Android
  The screen-by-screen sequence for Apple Screen Time and Google Family Link, side by side, sourced to Apple's and Google's own pages, with the test that proves a block actually holds.
• Kid bypassed parental controls: what to do tonight (iPhone and Android)
  Your kid got around the parental controls. Tonight: test on their phone whether the block was ever on, redo the two settings that make limits hold, trigger the override yourself, re-test off WiFi, apply the agreed consequence.
• Parental control app not working? Check these two settings before you ask for a refund
  A parental control app that 'doesn't work' usually sits on two phone settings nobody set: deletion blocked and settings locked on iPhone, Developer Options off on Android. Check both, then test, before the refund.
• Parental controls on a child's first mobile phone (UK): carrier content locks, Screen Time and Family Link
  UK parents have three free layers on a child's first phone: the network's 18+ content lock (EE gives it free, with a credit-card check to remove it), Screen Time or Family Link, and each app's own settings. The order, the test, and the UK agreement.
• Parental Controls When One Kid Has an iPhone and the Other Has Android
  Almost every paid guide covers one platform only. The sourced, both-platforms sequence for a mixed-device household: one evening, screen by screen.
• Screen Time Not Working? Kid Found a Way Around It
  The settings reset, the app got deleted, the limit stopped applying. The sourced fix is two specific steps and a test you run yourself, not a better app.
• What Are the Best Parental Control Options for a First Phone?
  The honest, sourced answer: usually the free settings already on the phone, set up in the right order and tested, not another subscription. The full sequence, with sources.