What Is Xbox Parental Control App and How To Use It

Gaming consoles like Xbox have transformed entertainment by providing immersive experiences for children and adults. Nevertheless, while adults use them responsibly, excessive gaming can interfere with kids' studies and sleep. Therefore, parents must ensure a healthy balance between their kids' entertainment and mental health. For this purpose, gaming platforms allow parents to monitor and manage kids' playing habits.

This guide will explain the complete process of setting up the Xbox Parental Control app for parents. Since this parental control app has limited features for directly managing the Xbox Game Center, this article introduces a more versatile alternative. Whether your kid is spending a lot of time playing games on a computer or mobile, this guide ensures your child’s gaming remains safe and balanced.

Excessive gaming will disturb kids' sleeping patterns and studies. Therefore, parents need to constantly control their kids' gaming schedules using Xbox parental settings. Additionally, the following points explain why excessive gaming isn’t recommended for kids:

• Social Isolation: Kids who spend most of their time gaming may miss real interactions. This can lead to loneliness and difficulty in building meaningful friendships.
• Headaches: Your kids can get eye strain when staring at screens for extended periods. Furthermore, it may contribute to the usage of spectacles and eye lenses.
• Health Concerns: Kids' physical activity is reduced when they sit for long periods while playing games. As a result, they can gain weight and face chronic health issues, obesity, speech delay, etc.
• Aggressiveness: Many video games contain violent content that is inappropriate for kids. When kids get exposed to such games, it increases aggression, violence, and other behavioral problems in them.
• Time Management: Children can lose track of time when playing many games. When this happens, they get little time for their schoolwork and hobbies.

Upon exploring the importance of balancing your child’s gaming time, the Xbox Family Settings app is recommended for parents. Start by setting up a family account to quickly add family members. Then, use app activity reports to track your child's daily and weekly gaming habits, helping you understand how much time they spend on the console and manage it effectively.

You can also set screen time limits to prevent excessive gaming. Additionally, the app enables you to manage your child's online interactions by approving or removing friends. You'll also receive notifications whenever your child wants to purchase a game or in-game items, allowing you to approve or deny the request based on their account balance or your preferences.

1. Pause Time: Parents can pause screen time to prevent overuse and promote healthier gaming habits.
2. Deposit Money: Users can add funds to their child’s account and give them access to game purchases within set limits.
3. View History: The app lets you review your child’s spending history to keep track of their purchases and ensure responsible spending.
4. See Balance: Parents can check their child’s account balance to ensure they have enough funds for purchases or set spending limits.

Pricing: Free

App Compatibility: Android, iOS, Windows PC, Xbox, and TV

According to reviews, users appreciate the app's ability to manage screen time and ensure a balanced gaming schedule for children. Plus, many parents found setting daily gaming limits useful and even approved or denied screen time extension requests.

Some users expressed frustration with the Xbox Family Settings App despite its benefits. Issues with time synchronization were common, as parents reported extra time not registering correctly on Xbox consoles. Another complaint was the inability to pause or modify manually set screen time, which made it difficult for parents to adjust on the fly.

Moving forward, after exploring the app, let’s examine the parental control setup for Xbox One/360. Whether addressing screen addiction or ensuring age-appropriate gaming, these settings provide enhanced control. So, follow the comprehensive instructions below to understand how to set up parent controls on the Xbox platform.

Step 1. To commence the process, access the Xbox One main interface and navigate to Settings. Next, click the Privacy & Online Safety option in the newly appeared Windows.

Step 2. Upon seeing the next screen, you have various options to choose from according to your preference. Now, enable the Child Defaults option to apply restrictions according to this strict preset. Alternatively, you can select the Custom option to set personalized content restrictions, including web filtering.

Step 3. After selecting the Child Defaults option, choose the Use, But Customize button from the next screen. Then, you will have multiple options to modify your child's privacy and online safety. So, choose any option and leave the default settings to meet your requirements.

Step 4. Moving forward, you need to choose the Content & Apps option from the next window. Then, click the Access to Content & Apps drop-down button and select the age group you want to limit. Now, you just have to save all changes, and the platform restricts your child from using inappropriate content.

Step 1. Begin the process by navigating to the Xbox 360 main dashboard. Click the Settings menu and select the Family option from the newly appeared list.

Step 2. After accessing the Family settings, you need to choose the Content Controls option to move further.

Step 3. Now, click the On option to enable the presets of the parent control. Then, you can choose various options according to your parental control needs, such as Family Timer and Xbox Live Access. Once you adjust the settings for these options, just press Save and Exit to end the task.

Step 4. Following this, you need to navigate back to the Family Settings interface. This time, select your child's Profile to move to the next step.

Step 5. Afterward, hit the Privacy & Online Settings within your child profile dashboard. Upon seeing the various options, choose the Change Settings.

Step 6. Subsequently, select the Customize option and choose the Privacy Settings according to your needs. Here, you can modify the Friends Request, Web Browsing, and more for your child's safety. Now, press the Save Settings option, and the adjustments may take as many as 4 hours to become effective.

While the mentioned app is a good option for managing kids’ gaming activities, it has many limitations. For starters, the app is only compatible with the specific console and doesn’t work with other platforms. That's why parents must find options supporting controlling kids’ activities on all platforms and devices. For this purpose, Wondershare FamiSafe is the ideal Xbox parental control app alternative with its helpful features.

Specifically, its Screen Time feature lets parents limit their kids' screen time by restricting it. Additionally, you can automate the whole process by scheduling an unavailable time range. This feature also lets you add a custom schedule for each day of the week. Moreover, using this feature, parents can block certain apps according to their children's age group.

1. Set App Rules: To prevent children from accessing games, parents can lock them using FamiSafe. This feature helps put limitations on gaming apps.
2. Detect Explicit Content: Parents can get alerts when their kids see something graphic or adult on social media. The tool monitors over 14 types of social media platforms for this purpose.
3. Screen Viewer: You get regular screenshots of your kids’ screens when you are away. In addition, the tool reports screenshots when explicit content is on the screen.
4. Activity Report: You can check the detailed phone usage reports to adjust the schedule. Besides screen time, you receive reports about what apps were used.

FamiSafe, as the features suggest, is a better alternative to the Xbox family control app. We recommend using it instead of the specific tools for different platforms. The following section lists the detailed steps to use FamiSafe for monitoring purposes:

Step 1. Launch FamiSafe for the Screen Time Feature

Firstly, you need to launch this Xbox Parental Control app alternative on your phone and press the Start button. Then, you need to copy the code from the next screen and save it for the upcoming steps.

Now, ensure the application is installed on your kids’ phones and open it there. Finally, paste the code you copied from the other phone and provide permissions by pressing the Enable/Activate Now button. Tap the Turn on Now button to securely connect both phones and quickly access the monitoring features.

Step 2. Tap the Screen Time Feature in the App

When you reach the main screen, tap the Screentime feature to access its options. Press the Screen Time Limit option on the new screen to make changes to it.

Step 3. Adjust Screen Time Limits According to Your Needs

In this step, you need to toggle on the Enable Screen Time Limit option. After doing so, simply select the Custom option and change the schedule according to your needs. Finally, press Save to adopt these changes and apply the limitations.

After learning about the app’s top features and how to use it, let’s compare it with the Xbox Family Control app. The following table highlights the key differences between both activity monitoring apps:

As evident from this table, you can see how FamiSafe provides all the features present in the console and more on all devices. Since it isn’t limited by platform restrictions, we highly recommend using it to manage Xbox screen time.

In short, while gaming platforms are great for kids’ entertainment, they can also get addictive. Tools like Xbox Parental Control exist to allow parents to manage their kids’ gaming habits. The tool has extensive features that will let parents control how much time kids spend on the console. Additionally, you can manage what games your kid buys without you being nearby.

Although it is a good option, parents can only use it to limit their Xbox activity. It is better to use FamiSafe for extensive activity monitoring as it provides multiple controlling features. Furthermore, it isn’t platform-specific, and you can utilize it for comprehensive monitoring.