Parent's Guide to Family Settings
At A Glance
- New console Family Settings.
- Console and online settings.
- Children's account creation.
Okay, parents, you've got this incredibly powerful game machine, and some amazingly potent games. With a wide range of realistic and sometimes violent games available in stores, how do you protect your kids? Your first defense, of course, is to control your child's purchases, but sometimes things slip through. Kids get gifts. Friends come over. You need something to help you stem the tide of potentially inappropriate content.
From the beginning, we knew we wanted to put parental control tools squarely in parents' hands with Xbox 360™. However, the more things you get to control, the more complicated they get. This guide helps you make sense of it all.
Xbox Live child accounts contain some special
features designed to make your child's online
experience as safe as possible.
Where to Start
When you get your new console, I suggest that you set up console controls first. When you turn on the console for the first time, you go through some setup steps, and then you have an opportunity to select Family Settings. Restrict game and movie ratings here, plus you can restrict access to Xbox Live®. This gives you some time to work out how you want your child to play on Xbox Live without worrying about them jumping online right away.
To restrict access to Xbox Live, set the Access to Xbox Live and Xbox Live Membership Creation controls in the console controls area. By doing this, your child can only sign in to Xbox Live or create an Xbox Live account when you are there to allow it. I'll go into more detail about these settings later.
Accessing Family Settings
If you've already gone through initial setup, access Family Settings in the dashboard of your Xbox 360™ console. Start the console (with no disc in the drive), and then use the left stick on the controller to move to the System area. Once there, use the left stick to highlight Family Settings, and then press A. (This is the primary means of navigation on the console: left stick to move, A to select, B to go back.)
Family Settings in the System area.
After selecting Family Settings, notice that there are two types of controls: Console and Xbox Live.
Console Controls
Console controls are settings applied to a single console. This is where you set game ratings, movie ratings, and online access. These settings apply to anyone who uses the console.
- Game Ratings: Choose the maximum game rating you want allowed on the console. For example, if you choose the ESRB rating E (Everyone), only E and EC (Early Childhood) rated games can be played. Games rated E10+ (Everyone 10+), T (Teen), and M (Mature) are blocked. Rating systems are determined by locale.
- DVD Movie Ratings: Choose the maximum movie rating you want allowed on the console. This works much like game ratings. Note that some DVDs do not carry a rating on the disc that the console can read—in this case, your console may still play the DVD regardless of its advertised rating.
- Access to Xbox Live: Determine whether the console allows players to sign in to Xbox Live. You can use this to manage your kids' online playtime, or prevent online play altogether.
- Xbox Live Membership Creation: Choose whether new Xbox Live accounts can be created on the console. You may want to use this to prevent your kids from creating multiple accounts (or any at all).
- Set Pass Code: When you set console controls, you are asked to enter a pass code to protect those controls. A pass code is a combination of four button presses using the X button, Y button, left trigger, right trigger, left bumper, right bumper, and D-pad. Whenever a player on the console tries to do or access something that's blocked by Family Settings, they are prompted to enter this code. In this way, you can bypass the restriction yourself while keeping kids from accessing the content on their own. When you set your pass code, you are asked to enter a pass code reset question and answer. This is so that you can reset your pass code if you forget it. Make sure that your pass code and your reset question and answer are something you will remember, but your children will find hard to guess.
- Turn Off Family Settings: If you find that you no longer need the console controls, you can turn them off.
Xbox Live Controls
Xbox Live controls are profile-specific controls. After you set up your child's Xbox Live account, you can choose their profile and apply settings to it. The settings are protected by your Passport Network account (see Xbox Live Child Accounts later in this article for more info). These settings follow your child wherever they use their profile online, not just on your home console.
- Online Gameplay, Xbox 360 Online Games: Prevent your child from playing Xbox 360 games online. They can still play the games offline, subject to the game ratings on the console they're playing on at the time.
- Online Gameplay, Original Xbox® Online Games: Prevent your child from playing original Xbox games online. The reason these two are separated is that original Xbox consoles do not apply Family Settings. Blocking original Xbox games will prevent your child from playing any game on an original Xbox console online.
- Privacy and Friends, New Online Friends: Choose whether your child can send and receive friend requests. You can also choose to approve friends yourself. By maintaining a friends list, you can control who your child can interact with online.
- Privacy and Friends, Communications: Decide who your child can communicate with.
- Privacy and Friends, Gamer Profile Sharing: Decide who can see your child's profile information.
- Privacy and Friends, Gamer Profile Viewing: Determine the profiles your child is allowed to see.
- Privacy and Friends, Online Status: Decide who can see your child's online status and activity.
- Content, Member Content: Choose whether your child can download premium content from Xbox Live Marketplace. Premium content is redeemed using Microsoft Points.
- Content, Downloadable Content: Choose whether your child can see content from other players on Xbox Live.
Most of these settings can be set to allow or block. For some settings, you can also allow interaction only with people on your child's friends list.
Xbox Live child accounts contain some special features designed to make your child's online experience as safe as possible:
Signup
Ideally, you'll be present when your child creates a new Xbox Live account. However, if they decide to go it on their own (assuming console control settings allow it), there is a point in the signup process that will require your intervention.
Any Xbox Live account (a child's or an adult's) must be linked to a Passport Network account. During signup, your child will be asked to enter or create this Passport Network account info. Upon completion, a parent's Passport Network account is requested. If you and your child each have an MSN or Hotmail e-mail address, you each already have a Passport Network account. If not, you can create one based on your own e-mail address. The sign-up process will walk you through these steps.
When signup is finished, your child can use their Passport Network account to log into their Xbox Live account, but it is your Passport Network account that controls Xbox Live Family Settings. Any time you want to change the settings on your child's Xbox Live account, sign in with your own Passport Network account. You don't need to have an Xbox Live account yourself.
Privacy Settings
Owners of adult accounts on Xbox Live control privacy settings through their gamer profiles. However, for child accounts, the Privacy Settings button is unavailable from the profile screen. Privacy settings are part of the Xbox Live Family Settings, as described earlier in this article.
Advertisements
When you're signed in to Xbox Live, the dashboard may feature ads from the service. These ads usually promote a game or event. However, because there are no Family Settings for these "banner ads," owners of child accounts will not see them. This also affects the list of downloads in the "Featured Downloads" area of Xbox Live Marketplace. Downloads are still available, just not advertised in that area. These effects currently apply to any account that was created as a child account, even if the owner has since come of age.
Membership Types
Every account on Xbox Live is a separate membership, even if it's set up as a child account. If you have an Xbox Live Gold Membership, and you sign your child up for Xbox Live, they too will have to get their own Gold membership (or just stay Silver).
More Info
There's much more information available to help you understand Family Settings and the world of parental controls:
Article by Elle
