I’m not sure if your kids are playing this little game called Fortnite, probably not, right? It’s not very popular. Except for the fact that it’s extremely popular and kids are spending hours playing it. I had a Mom ask me recently if there was anything that could be done about her Son playing Fortnite after the parents have gone to sleep. Aside from giving the internet a bedtime in your entire house, there are also settings you can implement on the gaming systems themselves.

Xbox One

Since the Xbox is a Microsoft device, you can actually use the same controls for the computer and the Xbox. The parental controls can be found if you login to your Microsoft account and then head over to https://account.microsoft.com/family. From here you can add the Microsoft account your child uses to login to Xbox Live and assign them to your family.

Once you have done that, you can follow these steps to set screen time limits:

• Find your child’s name and select Screen time.

• If you want to use the same schedule for all devices, switch Use one screen time schedule from Off to On. If you’d rather have separate schedules, scroll down and switch on screen time for PC and Xbox One individually.
• Set how much time your child is allowed to spend with their devices each day, and when they can use them. If you want to give them the full amount of time you’ve scheduled, select Max scheduled. (Example: If you’ve allowed screen time from 8 am to 8 pm, they could use their devices that entire time.)

PlayStation 4

There are actually two places you can control time limits for your PlayStation 4. You can do it from the gaming console itself, or you can do it from the PlayStation app on your phone. You can control the time duration, the playable hours and an end time for every day or specific days of the week. Once they have reached the end of their Play Time, you can have a notification sent to the family manager or just simply log the account out.

From the console

1. On your PS4 system, go to [Settings] > [Parental Controls/Family Management] > [Family Management] and select the child account you would like to set Play Time controls for.
2. Set a [Time Zone] then select [Play Time Settings]. Once you have set your restrictions, select [Save] to apply the changes.

From the PlayStation app

1. Open the PlayStation App on your mobile device and log in to your family manager account.
2. Tap (PS icon) at the bottom of the screen > [Settings] > [Account Information].
3. Tap [Menu icon] at the top left of your screen > [Family Management].
4. Tap the child account and tap [Edit] by the Play Time restrictions you would like to set or change. Select [Save] to apply the settings.

Nintendo Switch

The Nintendo Switch also has a parental control app you can download on your phone called “Switch Parental Controls” The app will track how long your children have spent playing the console and what they were playing. You will also get notifications on your phone when your child downloads a game, even demos. Most importantly, it allows you to create Play-Time Limits.

1. Link your Nintendo Switch console to the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls application.
2. After the link is complete, start the Nintendo Switch Parental Controls application on your smart device.
3. Select “Console Settings” in the upper-right corner.
   • If this is your first time launching the application after linking a system, you will be walked through how to adjust the different settings.
   • If you have more than one Nintendo Switch console linked to the app, tap the (+) icon in the upper-right corner to choose the correct system.
4. Select Play-Time Limit:
   • If you have a Play-Time Limit and a Bedtime Alarm enabled, the system will use whichever time limit comes first.
   • Play-Time Limit – Set a daily limit on the amount of time the Nintendo Switch console can be used (from No Limit up to 6 hours). You can also choose to remove the restriction for a specific day.
   • Bedtime Alarm – Set gameplay to stop at a certain time each day (between 6:00 PM – 11:45 PM).
   • Suspend Software – When this is turned on, the software on the system will be stopped when the time limit is reached. Otherwise, a notification will appear when the limit is reached, but software will still be playable.

Once you have these set for your individual gaming console, you can rest easy knowing that kids are getting the rest they need, and not staying up all night playing Fortnite, not that any teenagers would do that, right??