Children playing on a console gaming device

ByMark Lincoln/March 29, 2025/inLife

Gaming rules for children (now that mine’s on Fortnite)

When my son was eight, he asked me if he could play Fortnite. I knew that his friends were playing it, but I didn’t know much about it other than it was ‘free’ and had become incredibly popular around the world. Wanting to protect my son from all the usual – strangers on the internet, violence, gambling-style play, and gaming developers that use techniques to encourage addiction to their games – I was immediately hesitant.

But I certainly had my fair share of gaming when I was young so I told my son that I would download it myself, play it for half an hour, and then make a call on whether I thought it was OK for him.

That 30 minutes told me that the game was hyperactive, heavy on playing online with strangers, and very much encouraged players to spend time in the online store and turn real money into virtual money (a single ‘skin’ for a player could cost around $12 in real money, so it’s easy to see how that could stack up over time).

So I said no.

Obviously he was upset and I felt like the bad guy, but it was a beautiful day so we grabbed the kids scooters and went for a ride to the park. Within seconds of being outside on the scooters his mood was lifted. He didn’t bring up Fortnite again for another two years. I told my wife later how easy it would have been to take the easy road and let him play, but I had no doubt in my mind that a game like Fortnite, with its online play, addictive qualities, and some signs of unhealthy internet culture, was not appropriate for an 8-year-old.

Over the next two years, and as we grew as parents, we pulled back further on our kids’ use of devices for gaming. We’ve really come to realise that any free game is full of ads, and often those ads are aimed at grown-ups as, after all, it’s usually the grown up’s account.

In that time, knowing that device use is inevitable, can be very useful in education, and in fact is even a requirement in their schools, we started to build up a few rules for the use of devices.

Now that my son’s ten, we finally caved and allowed him to play Fortnite. But with the promise of Fortnite as a useful carrot, we said that first we would put our rules to paper. After writing these, it was important that we took some time to sit together at the table and have our son read them, paragraph by paragraph, stopping so that he could ask questions and we could be confident that the rules were understood and had sunk in.

Some of these rules were tested pretty early on so have needed some adjustments (for example, ‘only join chat parties with friends who are your school mates or our family members’ becomes tricky when those friends are in chat parties that include their friends who are strangers to your child – if you allow them to join, they’re now chatting online with strangers, possibly including older cousins of your child’s friends, their parents, aunts and uncles, etc.).

That aside, here’s what I wrote for my son. We sat together and our son read the rules out loud, stopping so we could discuss after each rule.

Gaming and Device-use Rules for a Ten Year Old

Pro tip: Being responsible, trustworthy, and reliable means making the right choices even when you know no one is looking.

These rules are not about stopping you from having fun, they’re about keeping you safe and healthy. They are not mean or stupid, they are written for good reason by people with more knowledge and experience than you. If you want to understand more about a rule, speak with your parent.

Playing online is a huge privilege, especially at a young age. It is not something that is a ‘given’. If you had to stop playing online tomorrow, the world will not end. There is a lot more to life.

You must be trustworthy and responsible. There are parental restrictions in place, but they may not always be enough. To play online you must be trusted to make responsible choices. If at any time you are found to be trying to get around parental controls without speaking to a parent, that trust has been broken and there will be consequences.

No Strangers

No adding or accepting friends who are not in your school without speaking to a parent first.

People on the internet can lie about who they are, their age, and who they know. They can even have a fake profile photo or other information to trick you into thinking they’re someone else. It’s not enough for one of your friends to say a particular person is ok. Your friend may also have been mis-lead or tricked.

If you’re in a party or game where you can hear teenagers or adults, let a parent know.

If at any time you’re hearing or seeing swear words, or anything else that you think you shouldn’t, tell a parent or leave the party/game.

Be Private

Never tell someone what school you go to, where you live (even what town you live in), your real name, other people’s real names, or your age. Never send photos to anyone.

This information is your private information, is none of anyone’s business, and can be used in bad ways like hacking into your account.

[When discussing, we gave an example here where even though he and his friends use gamer tags/handles, they still call each other by their real names over the microphone. It would be an easy mistake for one of his friends to let slip what town they’re from and even what school they go to, so suddenly that stranger can track them down in the real world.]

Be Someone That Others Would Look Up To

Being someone that others look up to and think “I like that person. I hope I can be like him one day,” means showing respect to other people, whether they are boys or girls, young or old.

Treat others like you would want to be treated.

Make your own decisions. It’s ok to stop, say “Nah, that’s not cool,” and walk away.

Sometimes people who are being mean are doing it because they want attention. They want you to argue with them. The best thing you can do is not give them that attention. Disengage, stop talking to them, walk away and carry on with your life.

Healthy Balance

Fortnite only on Saturdays and Sundays. No online/multiplayer games from Monday to Friday. Completely device free on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

[We added the device-free Tuesdays and Thursdays after a few weeks of this. While our kids were only allowed screens in the morning, I found that every morning I was getting ready for work while the kids stared at screens. They often wouldn’t have made eye contact by the time I left for work. We made the device-free days easier by putting out craft, colouring, etc. the night before, and they now spend those mornings laughing and chatting with each other while they do art or write stories – the difference is amazing and there’s no complaints from the kids.]

Spending Money

At no point should you be spending money in a game. There are no exceptions. Games that are free make their money by trying to do everything they can to get you to spend money in-game.

If in doubt, ask a parent.

No Ads

You should not be playing any game or watching any video where you are seeing ads. If you’re seeing ads, tell a parent straight away.

How’s it been going?

On his first morning of playing Fortnite with his friends, our son couldn’t be happier. He was delighted to be able to speak to them all in a group party over the microphone, and he’s taken to the time restrictions well.

I’ve had to learn more about the game’s – and others – parental controls myself, and one of the first big realisations was that I was going to have to create an email address for my son. It was only through this that I could add him as his own user account on our PlayStation (if he just used my profile, there would be no restrictions in place and he would have access to all my own adult friends and adult games) and following that he (and I!) had to have an Epic account, as they own Fortnite and you need to have adult and child accounts in order to set and manage parental rules.

While he was happily playing with his default ‘skin’ in the game, I felt pity for him as all of his friends were well kitted-up so, despite already breaking my own rules, I said I’d pay for an initial starter credit pack so he could get a few items from the online store. I very quickly realised how crafty Epic have become at this, as what seemed like a lot of ‘credit’ only bought him one skin and a couple of items, and in fact most of the items he was being encouraged towards were cleverly just over the amount you get with the starter pack, encouraging you to buy your second pack straight away. We quickly put a stop to that and he’s shown a good understanding that paying real money just to buy something like a special skin or even a dance move is – in the long term – a lot less worthwhile than using that money for things in the real world.

His friend list has rapidly grown, but with each friend request he knows that I have to step in and enter my PIN before it can be completed. He has to first tell me who the friend is and that it must be someone he knows at school. For anyone else – a cousin of a friend – we typically know the mutual friend’s parents so are happy to flick them a quick text to ensure that cousin Billy is who are kids say he is and is also of a suitable age.

Another move we make is to occasionally take our son’s headset, listen to the banter, then return it. Every time, it’s his school friends excitedly yelling and shouting just as much as he is (thankfully – we were worried he was the noisy one all by himself…), but it’s not a bad idea to check and listen for any teenage or adult voices, or for any inappropriate chat at any age level.

Ultimately, it’s been a great social activity for our son, and I feel that I personally learnt a lot through gaming when I was younger, and also learnt social skills as I aged and started playing online, even making friends that I met up with in the real world. But the risks are significant and it’s important to be the parent, not the mate, at times like this. Even if that means you’re the bad guy again, or at least until you get the kinds outside for a walk and to remind them that there’s more to life than a gaming console.

Photo by Ron Lach.

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Gaming rules for children (now that mine’s on Fortnite)