How to set parental controls on PS4
Sony offers a suite of tools built into the PS4 ecosystem that helps you protect your child when playing games, ranging from restrictions on talking to strangers on multiplayer games to restricting content to age-appropriate content only, and most importantly, setting limits on when and how long your little one can play on the PS4.
Here, we talk you through how to set up a child account on the PS4 and enable Sony’s wide range of parental controls to protect your little one. For more information about keeping your kids safe online, take a look at our recommendations of thebest parental control softwareavailable right now.
Set up a Family account on PS4
The first step in setting up parental controls on the PS4 is to create a Child Account on the console. This gives you the ability to set restrictions on what your child can do when playing games on the console, as well as set time limits on the when, and how long, your kid can access the PS4.
Add a child account
The process of adding a Child Account is fairly straight forward:
Follow on-screen instructions to tweak parental controls for the new profile – we go into each element in more detail below, and you can return to this page at any point and adjust the restrictions.
Give an account parent/guardian permissions
As a Family Manager, you have admin control over the rest of your family’s PSN accounts, but what if your other half wants to be able to change restrictions? Follow these steps to give an adult PSN account parent/guardian permissions.
Your partner’s account should now be able to access and edit the parental controls of your child’s PS4 account.
Set a login password on the Parent account
Kids these days are pretty tech-savvy, and chances are they’ll try and access your account to try and lift the restrictions you place on their account. Thankfully, you can set a login password on the parent account, restricting access to the various parental controls on offer – unless the kids figure out your password, of course!
And that’s it! You’ll now be required to enter that four-digit passcode whenever you log into the Parent account on your console. If you ever want to change or remove the passcode, simply head back to the Login Passcode Management section of the Settings app.
Restrict access to PS4 features
Once you’ve set up a Child Account on the PS4, you can tweak the various parental controls available to you. We break down the main parental controls below, and explain how to use each feature to help protect your child when gaming on the console.
Set Age Rating levels
One of the most valuable parental control features the PS4 offers is the ability to block access to age-inappropriate content, be it games, DVDs or Blu-rays, leaving you confident in the knowledge that your little gamer won’t be exposed to violent or potentially disturbing content when you’re not around to keep an eye on them.
To set up age rating restrictions, follow these steps:
Control communication options
One of the biggest worries with letting your little one onto the PS4 without supervision is communication; how can you control who your child is talking to on PSN while playing hugely popular online multiplayer games like Fortnite?
Thankfully, there’s a way to specify who your child can speak to on the console, although it’s not quite as extensive as whatMicrosoft offers with the Xbox One.
Restrict play time
If you want to limit the amount of time that your little one spends on the PS4, or dictate times when theycanplay, that’s possible with Sony’s Play Time management feature. The best part is that while you have to initially set up this functionality via the PS4, it can be tweaked via web browser and the PlayStation app. We outline the options below:
On PS4:
Edit via web browser:
Edit via the PlayStation app:
Disable web browser
The PS4’s built-in web browser is a very handy thing to have, especially if you want to watch content that isn’t officially available via the plethora of streaming services the PS4 offers, but the idea of leaving your child with unfettered access to the internet may be daunting.
Sony agrees, and that’s why you can disable the use of the web browser on your child’s account altogether.
And there you have it! With these parental control features under your belt, you can be safe in the knowledge that your child is having a fun and safe experience on the PS4 when you’re not around.
Author: Lewis Painter, Contributor
Lewis Painter was once a Tech Advisor Senior Staff Writer. He covers everything from iPhone to AirPods, plus a range of smartphones, tablets, laptops and gaming hardware.
