Family Settings: Xbox Live Controls

On the original Xbox®, they were called "Parental Controls;" on Xbox 360™, this concept has expanded into the new Family Settings feature. There are two levels of Family Settings—the Console Controls that dictate the behavior of the console offline, and the Xbox Live® Controls that set different levels of protection for online gameplay.

Controlling Xbox Live Features
Xbox Live Controls only come into play when you take your Xbox 360 online, and they're linked to a child's gamer profile and gamertag. When an Xbox Live account is created, the service asks for the member’s age to determine whether to apply Family Settings to that account.

Parents are also required to create or use an existing Passport Network account that connects to the child’s Xbox Live account, which protects the settings from being changed later by the child. To change a child’s settings, you first select the child’s account name and connect to Xbox Live. Once signed in, enter your Passport Network password to unlock access to the settings.

Xbox Live Controls include:

• Online gameplay: Before you can play multiplayer games online, you will need an Xbox Live Gold Membership. Once that's in place, this option allows you to decide if you child can play Xbox 360 games online and also allow or disallow them from playing original Xbox Live-enabled games that are Xbox 360 compatible.
  
• Privacy and friends: You have the power to approve your child's online friends. Let your child communicate with anybody, or only with their friends; decide who can see your child's personalized gamer profile; decide whose gamer profiles your child can see; and control who sees your child's online or offline status.
  
• Communications: Select "Everyone" to allow your child to communicate with anyone on Xbox Live, pick "Friends Only" to allow your child to communicate only with people on their friends list, or select "Blocked" to block everyone from communicating with your child. No matter what the setting, your child will still be able to receive new friend requests for you to approve or block.
  
• Content: Last but not least, the Content controls help you set limits on the kind of downloadable goodies your kids can access. You can choose to allow your child to go onto Xbox Live for downloadable game updates, demos, and other for-fee content, as well as whether your child can download member-created content from other Xbox Live users. Here Family Settings act as a filter for what kids can or can't download onto the Xbox 360 console.
  
• Online Status: Decide whether other people can see your child's online status.
  
• Profile Sharing: Decide who can see your child's gamer profile which includes their motto and information about online achievements.
  
• Profile Viewing: Decide whether your child can see other people's gamer profiles.

Access Xbox Live Controls from Family Settings.

Get to Family Settings from the System blade, then select the Xbox Live Controls tab and press the A button.

The Xbox Live Controls menu.

The Privacy and Friends menu.

Xbox 360 Console Controls
The other half of Family Settings can be found under Console Controls. Check out our accompanying article to learn more!