Better Internet for Kids

Gaming consoles

Playstation

This parental controls guides you through the steps on how to set up parental controls on PlayStation consoles. Before setting parental controls, parents and caregivers need to first create an adult account, then create a family and add their children's account as family members. 

Then, parental controls features can be set under Settings > Family and Parental Controls > Family Managements. The settings include:

• Managing your child’s privacy settings. Some of the privacy settings can only be adjusted by the allocated parent/guardian, while for others the parent/guardian can choose to allow their children to autonomously change those.
• Managing spending limits on the PlayStation Store. Parents and caregivers can set monthly limits to purchases made in the PlayStation Store only. Please note that, in order to set in-game purchasing limits, you will need to set them in each individual game’s settings.
• Managing and restricting screen time. For this, you can set how many hours your child can play each day, and until when in the evening before bedtime. You can also differentiate your choices based on whether it’s a weekday or it’s the weekend.
• Restricting communication and user-generated content, and specifically the sharing of videos, images and messages on the PlayStation Network (PSN). You can however “whitelist” certain games under Allowed Games.
• Setting age levels for games and apps. When setting this feature, make sure you also set your country or region to ensure that games’ age ratings align to your local age rating system (e.g. PEGI). Additional restrictions can be applied to content from DVDs and Blu-rays, and web browsing.

Xbox

The Xbox Family Settings app, available for iOS and Android devices, is a collection of parental controls which, once a family is set up, offers features such as:

• Screen time and activity reports. Daily and weekly activity reports are available for child accounts. Custom screen time schedules can be created with different time ranges and by different days of the week, which will automatically pause the child's game time with the message "your screen time is up".
• "Ask to Buy". When this is activated, parents and caregivers receive a notification for every game, app or in-app purchase attempt when there isn't enough funding available in the child's account. The child's balance and funds can be reviewed and updated at any time.
• Friend requests. Parents and caregivers can review and approve new friend requests from other players with "Ask a parent", and also decide how your child can play with others in the Xbox online community

Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch Parental Controls app is available for download for iOS and Android mobile devices. It connects to your Nintendo Switch account (and associated console), and offers a number of features to monitor your child's gaming sessions:

• Keep an eye on play time. It is possible to set play time limits on how long or how late the console can be used every day. Parents and caregivers can also set alarms if this time limit is exceeded, or set game suspension features that will automatically interrupt the game when the time's up.
• Only play age-appropriate games. Parents and caregivers can either choose from pre-set age categories or set custom options to make sure your child is only shown, and can only play, age-appropriate games. Certain games can also be "whitelisted" by parents and caregivers using their PIN.
• Online and in-game features. Parents and caregivers can choose to limit the sharing of in-game texts and images per game, and/or restrict the ability to post game screenshots.
• Restrict who can make purchases on the Nintendo eShop.

Other consoles

VR - Meta Quest

Firstly, children under 10 years cannot use Meta Quest 2 and 3. For children aged 10-12, parents and caregivers must set up parent-managed Meta account for their children, while teenagers aged 13+ can set up a normal Meta account. This guide from the Meta help centre explains how to set up different Meta accounts.

The Meta Quest Parent education hub provides a handful of guidance and information on the use of the Meta Quest VR headset, and illustrate a range of parental controls features available, such as:

• Set time limits to support the well-being of the child, which is customisable for different days of the week and will block the use of the Meta Quest if the day's time limit is exceeded. Activity records are also available for the previous 7 days.
• Control what information is shared with Meta. By default, Meta Quest only uses a child's age, language and approximate location to personalise their experience, but a parents can choose to allow Meta to collect other types of data. For children aged 10-12, the precise location is not collected nor shared with third-party apps.
• Age-appropriate experiences are provided using Meta's app rating system, which creates recommendations for content consumption based on the age of the child, so that certain apps and social features are not available to younger users. In addition, children between 10 and 12 will need their parent/guardian to approve each app download request.

All of these features can be configured from the Meta Account > Family Centre.

Online games

Minecraft

Please note that you will be required to first set up a Xbox live or Microsoft account in order to enable and manage parental controls features on Minecraft. This guide explains how to set up a Microsoft Family account, or you can check our our guide for laptops and computers. Once a family is created and both adult and child accounts have been added, Minecraft offers the following parental controls features:

• Manage your child’s spending on the game. Parents and caregivers can require that each in-app transaction or purchase to be approved first, and to load a specific amount to your child’s account – thus adding a spending cap.
• Manage multiplayer game access, as well as online communications permissions. This includes allowing your child to join multiplayer games, to allow to cross play with players on other consoles, to create and join clubs, and to post screenshots.
• Set age limits and content filters to block inappropriate games, content and apps. Any content with a higher age rating will require a parent/guardian’s approval.
• Set screen time limits for certain periods of the day, and days of the week.
• The child can autonomously moderate social interactions thanks to an added player reporting tool that allows anyone to report inappropriate chat messages or behaviour, and to send reports to Minecraft moderators for review. It’s under the pause menu > Player Reporting.

All these features can be managed from Settings > Family. You can learn more about Microsoft Family Safety here.

Roblox

Roblox has a dedicated guide for parents and caregivers, explaining the functionalities and how the platform works in general, as well a parental controls page. The features under Settings > Parental Controls, include:

• Parent PIN. A four-digit PIN can be added to lock the account settings, and must be entered every time to make changes to the settings.
• Limit purchases. Parents and caregivers can set a monthly limit on the purchases made using Robux, Roblox's virtual currency, as well as setting alerts for all spending, or just exceedingly high spending.
• Chat restrictions. Parents can limit the account's ability to chat in-app.
• Age-based experience controls. Roblox has created Experience Guidelines that are meant to recommend the content suitability of an experience, and therefore allows parents to limit what experiences the account can join. These recommendations are informed by child development research industry standards.

Fortnite

Epic Games, Inc. is the video game developer and publisher that distributes some among the most popular online games, such as Fortnite, Rocket League and Fall Guys. Its guide on parental controls explores the options in details.

Parents and caregivers must first login their child’s account and enter the parental controls settings, which are PIN-protected. The features include:

• Voice and text chat can be moderated. If your child is under 10, it will only be possible to either disable the voice chat entirely, or to set it to “Friends only” and disable text chat. Additional options are available for older age ranges. Furthermore, mature language in text chat can be filtered out and replaced by heart symbols.
• Friend requests and approvals can be PIN-protected, so that a parent/guardian is required whenever a new request is sent or received.
• Authorise purchases using Epic Games Payment by always requiring the PIN code
• Content filtering based on age ratings (and the age rating system of your choice), which determines which games your child can see and get, including in the Epic Games Store.
• Tracking play time. Fortnite can provide weekly play time tracking reports to the parent/guardian.