What Family Settings Does The Xbox 360 Offer?

When talking about kids and videogames, my philosophy is that it is usually better to play games with your younger kids rather than to just let them loose on their own. I can guarantee that it is going to be more fun for both of you if you can play together. As kids get older, though, you might not always be able to monitor what they are playing and for how long. That is where the parental control features of the Xbox 360 can step in to lend you a hand.

Xbox 360 Family Settings

The family settings available on the Xbox 360 allow you to restrict access to game or movie content that you don’t want your kids to see. You can set the console to only play games below a certain ESRB rating or movies below a certain MPAA rating. If you want to use the system yourself, or you want to allow your kids to view something that is blocked, you just tap in a password that you set when you set up the family settings.

Xbox Live Settings

You also have several options to control what your kids can see and do and who they can interact with on Xbox Live. You can manually approve the people that want to be on their friends list. You can choose whether to let them speak to and hear voice chat from anyone, no one, or just people on their friends list. And you can also dictate how much they can do on the Xbox Live Marketplace. You can also block Xbox Live access entirely if you want.

Family Timer

A great new feature is that you can set the console to only play for a certain amount of time each day or even each week. You can set the daily timer in increments of 15 minutes and the weekly timer in increments of 1 hour, so you can determine exactly how long your child can play. Notifications will pop up every now and then to let your child know how long they have left. And when you want to play, or you want to let your child play longer, you just tap in your password.

How To Use These Features

All of these features are accessed on the same part of the Xbox 360 dashboard.

• Step 1- On the dashboard, move right until you get to the “System” blade. It is as far right as you can go.
• Step 2- Select “Family Settings” and press A.
• Step 3-Now you can choose “Console Settings” to adjust things like movie and game ratings, use the family timer, change your password, and more. Or you can choose “Xbox Live Settings” to change friends list settings and who your child can communicate with.

To use the Xbox Live settings, you’ll need to create a child Xbox Live account. Learn how to create a child account right here

And for more detailed instructions on how to use the family settings, see this page on Xbox.com.