I'm sure there are dozens of new ways for them to bypass Screentime
I found it really frustrating to use. It does sound like the settings got messed up, hard to say if it's from a child working around it or just like an software update so now screen time no longer recognizes the device as the original one. That it happened to both of them at the same time is a bit sus, but who knows...
We started forgetting where we were hiding devices about 2 weeks into the pandemic, we got a safe everything gets locked in at night. The kids revolted so strongly against it (DS initially tried to take it apart) but it's just 'normal' for us now and removed a lot of struggles around devices.
~ Dawn
Our little monkey (4/2011) & his early holiday present 12/12