What Is Fortnite? Why Should I Care About Parental Controls For It?
Fortnite is a video game that has become wildly popular with children and teenagers (and adults) over the past few years. The ecosystem of Fortnite is insane! While the game can be a lot of fun and provide a lot of entertainment and collaboration between your children and friends, it can also be quite addictive and may lead to problems with behavior, time management, and discipline if left unchecked. When I asked several of my friends if their kids play Fortnite, every single one of them said yes. When I followed up with asking whether or not they had parental controls set up, every single one said, “No.” Some of them followed that up with, “I just don’t know how to set up all that tracking stuff.” And that’s the problem: we just think managing our kid’s screentime and game-time use is too difficult and takes too much time.
Discover: Six Principles For Parenting Your Gamer
Reminder: You are the parent. If you’re going to give your kid a device or platform, you need to be responsible so you can teach your kids how to be responsible with them. This is an oversimplification, but would you just hand a 16-year-old kid the keys to a car with no training, no education, and no testing? Probably not. The same logic applies to gaming and the specific games they play. That’s why it’s important for parents to put in place parental controls for Fortnite and any other games or apps their children might be using. These controls are there for a reason. They can help limit the amount of time kids spend playing games, as well as the amount of money they might be spending on in-game purchases. If you have an avid Fortnite gamer in your household, you’d know how much those in-game purchases can add up to!
How Do I Set Up Parental Controls For Fortnite
This is how you set up parental control for Fortnite. We’re assuming you’ve already got the account created and are now ready to go ahead utilize these parental controls. This process was performed on a PC, but the steps to set up Fortnite parental controls on Playstation and Nintendo Switch are very similar.
Step 1:
In Fortnite, select the menu icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen. The menu icon has three lines in succession on top of each other.
Step 2:
From here, you will then want to select “Parental Controls”
Step 3:
You’ll be taken to another screen and a big button reading “Set Up Parental Controls” will be the main call to action here. You’ll want to select that.
Step 4:
If you (or your child) have already set up your child’s account with their personal email address, we highly recommend changing it to yours by selecting change email. This process is pretty easy. If you don’t set it up with your own personal email (one they don’t have access to), they can easily switch these parental controls on and off at ease.
Step 5:
Select “Next”. From here, you’ll be taken to a new screen where you are required to enter a six-digit parental control pin. This six-digit pin will be required when adjusting any parental control settings. What’s cool about Fortnite parental controls is the email associated with this account will be notified whenever a pin is changed. This is a big reason why we recommend that email be yours. Go ahead and enter your six-digit pin code (and keep this secret as well, no need to tell the kids). Select “Next”.
Step 6:
You will then have the Fortnite parental controls settings panel displayed. There are several options here. Everything other than text chat has defaulted to “Off”. This is vital: take time to read and understand each parental control option. We’d highly recommend sitting down with your child to go through each of them together and agreeing on a personalized solution, which is best for them and you. If there are disagreements, let your child explain their side. And explain your point of view as well.
One tip here: Keep the “Voice Chat” off at the start. As we mentioned earlier, the Fortnite ecosystem is huge and there are all kinds of players. Adults play with kids. Teens play with little kids. You cannot control what other people say live. So as a recommendation (especially with younger kids), keep this option Off. Another quick tip: select “Weekly Playtime Reports” to On.
Once you’ve finished configuring the parental controls, select “Save” to enable them and that’s it. Congratulations! You’ve now officially set up parental controls for your kid’s Fortnite account.
Quick Parenting Tips For Fortnite
We’ve talked about some of the principles you can use to help parent your gamer, but when it comes to Fortnite, here are a few tips for you to manage your child’s use of Fortnite:
1. Just Talk About It
This one is so easy and pays off dividends if you do it consistently! Talk to your kids about Fortnite and the risks associated with playing it too much. Make sure they understand that it’s just a game (it’s fictitious), but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a little harm that can affect them.
2. Create Some Rules
Don’t rule with an iron fist here. Collaborate and create rules together. They will be more effective if you do. Set rules for how much your kids can play Fortnite each day and the key is to enforce them. If they break the rules, take away their privileges to play the game. Pretty simple.
3. Actively Monitor
This might take a little time and you don’t have to do it all the time. But randomly monitoring and checking in on your child’s gameplay and making sure they’re not playing for too long or hearing what they’re saying to the multi-player-verse is something you should do.
If you have a kid that is an avid player of Fortnite, setting up the parental controls will be the best 5 minutes you ever spend. The idea here isn’t necessarily about control as much as it is about setting up healthy boundaries with gaming (especially in multi-player universes such as Fortnite) and using tools to teach your kids management and awareness with what they’re doing. There might be some disagreements about the controls you set up on these games, but just remember…it’s for the better good.
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