If you’re anything like me, the biggest relief you can give yourself with your kids at home, is knowing they are doing what they are supposed to be doing and knowing they are protected without having to monitor them 24/7. After all, many of us still have to work, or just need a break you know!? This tutorial walks you through setting up Time and Content restrictions on your child’s Microsoft Account.
This is geared towards their PC usage on Windows 10 devices, but you can use this guide to also restrict their X Box usage. Teens now hate me, and i accept it. In Microsoft Family you can also monitor their activity remotely. Meaning you can see where a device is located as well as what content your child has been engaging with.
Time Restrictions
1. First, let’s set up some time restrictions on your child’s devices. You can do this by logging into your Microsoft Account Online here.
2. Then, select your Child’s account from the list of family members. If you can’t find your list of family members, click here.
3. After you select the child account you want, click on the Screen Time Tab.
4. You can choose now to restrict devices separately, like for Windows 10 and the X Box or restrict all of the Screen time your child can have. To restrict all screen time, turn on Device Limits. This tutorial does not focus on those settings.
5. We recommend you set restrictions on each device. Ensure the Device Limits is off
6. Select the Device (Windows 10 or Xbox One) you are wanting to set time limits for
7. Next to the day of the week, set how many hours this device can be used by your child by selecting the Max Scheduled Dropdown. This lets you set the Maximum Allowable time on this device.
8. Next, to select which times the device can be used (such as setting a time in which the device cannot be accessed, like bedtime). Click on the blue rectangles under the time of day for the day you are wanting to adjust. You can add another time to this day or remove the current schedule and create a new one. For instance your family may not allow device usage later than suppertime. You might also consider setting schedules on the Xbox to restrict your child from accessing it until after their “school day ends”.
Content Restrictions
Content restrictions are a wonderful utility for parents, especially if you want to designate the PC for educational purposes only. These settings give you complete control over what your child can and cannot interact with.
1.In the same navigation bar that you find Screen Time, select Content Restrictions.
2. Ensure the Block inappropriate apps, games & media is enabled (as shown in the green box in the image below), as well as that the age of your child is correct.
3. Under the Always Blocked list, ensure that the Firefox browser is Removed from this list or else you will not be able to set up the Firefox browser in our other tutorials.
4. Then scroll down to Web Browsing
5. Ensure the Block inappropriate websites is enabled.
6. Below is an image showing both Allowed websites, like your child’s school websites and Blocked websites, such as social media sites.
7. To add sites to the Always Allowed category, paste or enter your child’s school resource websites one by one
To ONLY allow your child’s school resource websites, check the Only allow these websites checkbox. IMPORTANT, Use this with caution, if your child will need to search the internet for research material, or if you may need to search for information at any time to help them, all websites will be blocked and research will not be possible. If you’re concerned about your child’s privacy using search engines online, check out our tutorial on how to set up a safer browsing and searching experience for your child here.
View Child’s Activity
If you’re interested to see what your child is working on, or how much they’ve been working. If you want to see if anything may be distracting them, or it looks like they may need help in a certain area, check out the Activity tab to get a sense of how you can either change these settings to better the online school experience, or ask data driven questions about what school subjects they might need help with.
1. Select Activity from the same navigation bar as Screen time and Content restrictions.
2. Here you can see the Apps and games their interacting with and how much time they’ve spent playing them
3. If you scroll down you can see the websites they are interacting with, how many visits and at what times.
Featured Photo by Ludovic Toinel on Unsplash