Parents’ Guide to Minecraft: Creating a Safe and Fun Experience for Your Child
Welcome to our guide on parental controls and tips in Minecraft. In this guide, we’ll dive into some of the features available to parents within the game, show you how to enable some settings, create safe accounts, as well as some good-to-knows for when your child starts playing Minecraft.
What is Minecraft?
Minecraft is a sandbox game made out of blocks, creatures, and community. It’s a game with nearly limitless potential, with no set goal, in a world of epic adventures, quiet meditations, and everything in between. It is available for almost every platform and comes in two versions, Java edition and Bedrock edition.
As a player, you can survive the night, solve tricky problems, or express yourself through building works of art, teaching you how to be both collaborative and creative. You can play solo or together with a group of people. If you’re creative, you can use blocks to build things from your imagination, which is great because the entire world is made out of just that, blocks.
Creating an Account
To play Minecraft, you need a copy of the game for the platform of your choice. For example, if you want to play Minecraft on your PC, you can purchase a copy at minecraft.net. If you want access to all settings and features, like realms or parental controls, you will need two Microsoft accounts, one for the guardian and one for the child.
To create an adult Microsoft account, head to account.microsoft.com then click the button marked “Sign in”. Below that is a message for those who don’t have an account. Click “Create one”, then choose “Get a new e-mail address”, and follow the instructions to create your adult account. After you’ve created the account, the screen will have a box that says “Family”. Select “Add a member”. In the “Add someone”-box click “Create an account”. Start in the “Create an account for child”-box, and follow the instructions to create the child account.
Parental Controls
We want Minecraft to be a welcoming and safe experience. This is why we offer a set of parental controls to make sure our youngest players can explore, create, and learn in a secure and age-appropriate environment. The controls allow you to customize settings for communication, multiplayer games, and manage your child’s friend list.
To edit the security settings for your child’s account, go to account.xbox.com/settings, then sign in to your account. Once you’re logged in, navigate to the top of the screen and you’ll see the gamer tags of all those included in your family account. Then simply click on the account you want to edit the settings for.
Multiplayer Games
Playing Minecraft together with others is both a fun and collaborative experience. Through our multiplayer modes, you can create or join servers, sharing a world with other players online. There are many ways to enjoy this. Some servers are public, while others can be tailored to only include friends and family. You can also play multiplayer offline using local play.
With Minecraft Realms, you can easily set up a custom world with up to ten friends. It supports loads of minigames, plenty of custom worlds, and the ability to moderate your realm based on your needs. If you’re playing on Bedrock edition, you can set up your own realm to include our subscription service, Realms Plus, where you can easily, and safely, play online with friends in shared worlds.
Staying Safe
If you want to enable the ability to add and remove friends, click “online safety” in the navigation menu. Then select “Allow” for “You can add friends on Xbox Live”. To enable or disable chat for people not on your child’s friend list, click “Privacy” in the table header, then locate the setting labeled “Others can communicate with voice, text, or invites”. Choose “Everyone”, “Friends”, or “Block” based on your preference.
Congratulations! You’ve made it to the end of our guide and now you can get ready for an epic adventure together with your child. If you’ve already forgotten what we’ve taught you, don’t hesitate to go back to the very beginning and watch the guide in its entirety. Best of luck, and happy mine crafting!