Long back Xiaomi Phones used to have soemthing like this. That one feature was how I migrated my in-laws to Smartphones from their Nokias.

The key content from the article;

Here's how you set it up: Head into Settings, tap Accessibility, scroll down to the General section at the very bottom, and tap Assistive Access. Now, tap Set Up Assistive Access, then Continue. It will then ask you to select your preferred appearance: rows or a grid. I suggest choosing a grid. This is how you get those super-large tiles. Now the OS will ask you to select allowed apps—tap the green plus icon next to the apps you want to allow.

I was very surprised of this by my own kids find workarounds like l33t hackers. Apple's restrictions are a joke. The app store is full of things they can mess with. My daughter mentioned some way to get around screen time.

I've ended up just taking the iPads away.

All you need is a macbook and Apple Configurator.

You can remove safari, blacklist or whitelist websites, block installing apps, block deleting apps. It's really customizable.

My guess is that its a bad look for PR to essentially say that a feature designed for disability assistance = children.

I get that the internet is an addictive scary place with lots of content potentially dangerous to a young person.

But why would you care if your child took a selfie? That seems pretty draconian.

1. Call mom, 2. Call dad. 3. Call Auntie.

These kid's phones were very common, inexpensive and worked great.