Online multiplayer games can help children cooperate, create, and stay connected with friends. They can also introduce voice chat, messages, friend requests, user-made content, purchases, and links to people outside the family’s circle. A parental control is useful, but the safest setup combines account settings with clear family expectations.
1. Use a child account inside a family group
Do not hand a child an unrestricted adult account. Create the child account with the correct age and connect it to the platform’s family-management tools. This keeps permission changes with the parent or guardian and makes age-based settings more meaningful.
Microsoft documents family controls for Xbox, including privacy and online safety settings. Sony likewise explains PlayStation Family tools. Menus change, so use the platform’s current official instructions rather than an old screenshot from an unrelated blog.
2. Decide who can communicate
- Choose whether voice chat, text messages, and invitations are allowed.
- Start with known friends when the child is new to online play.
- Check whether “friends of friends” or cross-network players can contact the account.
- Show the child how to mute, block, and report someone without continuing the argument.
Remember that a game may have its own chat and friend settings in addition to console controls. Cross-play and linked publisher accounts can add another privacy layer. Review both the device account and the individual game.
3. Review profile and sharing settings
Limit who can see the child’s real name, profile, activity, friends list, location clues, captures, and live streams. Use a screen name that does not reveal a full name, school, team, birth year, or neighborhood. Ask before sharing screenshots because usernames and chat notifications may appear in the frame.
4. Set spending boundaries before play starts
Require approval for purchases, protect checkout with a password or PIN, and avoid storing payment information on a child account when it is not needed. Talk about virtual currency, loot boxes, subscriptions, and limited-time offers in plain language. A spending limit works best when the child understands what counts as a purchase.
5. Check the game, not only its age rating
Age ratings are a starting point. Also review whether the game includes public chat, user-generated worlds, realistic violence, gambling-like mechanics, location sharing, or external links. Play or watch together long enough to understand the actual social spaces the child can enter.
6. Make a simple exit plan
Children need to know what to do when someone pressures them for personal information, sends sexual or threatening content, asks them to move to a private app, offers free in-game items, or tells them to hide a conversation. A useful rule is: stop responding, save evidence when appropriate, block or report, and tell a trusted adult.
7. Revisit settings after updates
New games, console updates, linked accounts, and changed friendships can make an old setup less effective. Schedule a quick review after a new device or game is added and every few months afterward. Test the child’s actual account so you know what they can see and do.
Parental controls reduce risk; they do not replace supervision or regular conversations. Our parent resources offer more practical device-safety guidance. If you need help understanding a family’s current settings, use the contact options on our site to ask about available support without assuming every platform or service is included.
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