Children connecting with one another on Facebook’s Messenger Kids will no longer need their parents to become Facebook friends, thanks to an update unveiled by Facebook on Wednesday.
With the update in place, parents will no longer have to be friends with the parents of their child’s contacts on the app, which serves as a free video calling and messaging app that allows children to communicate only with parent-approved contacts.
Messenger Kids noted in a Facebook statement aimed at parents that the change was “highly requested.”
“Parents still have to approve every single contact their child can talk to on Messenger Kids. This change will just make it easier to complete the connections you want to make for your child without having to friend the other parents,” read the statement.
Messenger Kids debuted in December 2017 and is aimed at children as young as 6 years old, as children cannot create full-fledged Facebook accounts until they are 13-years-old. The app does not create a Facebook account for children and allows parents to monitor who they are communicating with.