Why does microsoft make it so difficult to manage child accounts

Steve B H · Jan 23, 2022

I have a child account for my 8 year old son, because this is required for xbox. Recently his Netflix app was somehow connected to someone else's account. I am trying to see if my son's account has been hacked but don't remember his password. Using the microsoft family settings page I can't manage password, I can't even see the email address assigned to the account to try to reset the password. I have spent an hour online searching and still don't have the answer. I have no way to manage the xbox account for my young son. This is not acceptable.

I guess I will find out if Playstation makes managing child accounts easier because I don't have time for all of this. And you can forget trying to find a phone number or actually speaking to someone at microsoft

:)

Jesse E'

Hello, My name is Jesse. I'm an Independent Advisor and a member of the Microsoft community and I'd love to assist you today.

I'm afraid only way to recover an Xbox account is via the account recovery form here https://account.live.com/password/reset

You can try all the emails you remember or if you had a phone number attached to the account, you can use that too.

Dadwhite

This sounds like an issue with a Child Account that is managed under a Parent account. I deal with this same issue with a sub Child account. If your account is a child account you will have to make this free purchase using a Xbox 360 console only. For
some reason this is the only way to make this work, I do this with 2 Child accounts for my Grand children I manage. And it does not matter what your age is, if the account is a child account under another account you still have to make this purchase with
the 360 console.

Sonamater7

it is still an issue,i have cash on my microsoft account but it still wont let me purchase live gold with the cash on the account, why does everything involving microsoft always have to be so difficult?

XBF Leslie D

Hi Louise,

I'm sorry to hear that it's been such a hassle to get the age verification going.

The thing is once creating a Microsoft Account and adding the age, and if it's underage, it will require a 50 cent charge to verify that the adult is giving the child permission to use a Microsoft Account.

I would recommend to take a look at :

Why does Microsoft charge a small fee as part of the consent process for a child account?

This is in accordance with certain regulations that promote child safety along with greater visibility and management of data that is stored about
your child online.

Helping kids explore technology safely is one of Microsoft’s top goals, so in addition to complying with these important regulations, we offer family
settings that include content restrictions, screen time, and activity monitoring through the Microsoft family service that lives on
account.microsoft.com/family. It’s where you’ll go to manage your child’s Microsoft account.

Best Wishes!

PetryBosch

Hi,

Another way to cancel your subscription is by going to your Microsoft account page (https://account.microsoft.com/).

While on the account page, go to "Services and subscriptions".

On the "Services and subscriptions" page you will see all your subscriptions.

Click on the "manage" button next to the Game Pass subscription, this will bring you to the page for your Game Pass subscription.

Here you can either Cancel, Change or change your payment options.

Why does microsoft make it so difficult to manage child accounts