My son and I share a Netflix account and recently I’ve been curious whether he’s been watching “R” rated soft-porn movies. How can I tell what he’s watched, and are there any sort of parental controls on Netflix?
Without limitations to access, Netflix really is a proverbial den of inequity, with its extraordinary range of TV shows and movies that are enough to make any parent anxious and any child rub their hands in titillated glee. There’s definitely what you so aptly refer to as “soft porn”, films that might even have a PG-13 rating but are still full of more couplings than a train station, if y’know what I mean. 🙂
Before I talk about Netflix in specific, however, I want to point out that there’s just as much potentially inappropriate content on YouTube and scattered throughout the Internet, so to some extent giving a child access to the Internet means that the world’s information — for good and bad — is now at their fingertips. So you can close down access to content through Netflix but you can’t really completely block everything.
With that caveat in mind, yes, Netflix does offer some parental controls and, perhaps more importantly, you can also see a list of what TV and movies your son has viewed, even if they just watched a few minutes and bailed because it was stupid or embarrassing…
To start, log in to your Netflix account via a Web browser. The top right shows which account you’ve logged in as, which turns out to be a menu if you click on it:
You can see that I have three profiles, generically named “Dad”, “Daughter” and my own, “Dave”. To proceed, click on “Manage Profiles” just below it for now.
You’ll see the profiles listed thusly:
You can change any of the pics by clicking “Edit” then moving your cursor over the picture:
But more importantly, notice the checkbox “This is a profile for kids under 12”. That’s one way to limit things to kid-friendly material, but instead, choose the profile you want to modify and go back to the main Netflix view.
Now you’re viewing it “as that person” (they should be the profile shown on the top right. If not, choose them again from the menu).
With that done, choose “Your Account” from the menu (see pic, earlier) and you’ll see a number of options for that specific profile:
Click on “Viewing activity” and voila! A list of what that account has viewed:
This isn’t me, don’t get too excited. This is my 17yo daughter’s profile we’re looking at here, and I can see that she’s a big fan of Gossip Girl and Pretty Little Liars, but doesn’t always make it through the entire 42min episode. That’s because she watches these while we’re at the gym mostly, so apparently they’re not compelling enough to go back and watch the last few minutes if we run out of time.
One more step. Go back to the big “Your Account” settings for a specific profile and click on “Parental control setting” to see the simple slider Netflix makes available:
Pretty vague, actually. Does a “teen” allow PG13? R? Soft R but not hard R? Unrated?
Still, better than nothing and I imagine if your son is like my daughter, he’s quite capable of asking you to adjust the settings as he believes is fit and appropriate and at least that then opens up the opportunity for an important discussion about fantasy, reality and media.
Good luck!
So, my roommate worked for Netflix and still works for Netflix, We, my daughter and I, moved in to his house and we were roommates for 5 years. During that time, my daughter was 3 years old (when we moved in), and 8 years old when we moved out. Now she is 9 years old. She just told me about all the SEX scenes, in detail, that she saw on Netflix for years!! I am so upset right now. My roommate was a tech guy making a lot of money. I assumed he would have adjusted the parental controls for me on the front TV that he set up just for my daughter and I. Can I sue him or better yet sue Netflix? I am so disturbed!
You have no legal basis for your complaint: It’s your responsibility to monitor and manage your child’s experience with media. Sorry that this happened, but it’s not Netflix’s responsibility to somehow detect when a child is in the room and change what can be shown. And your roommate, well, if you never expressed your preferences, it sounds like he was just a bit clueless about material appropriate – or inappropriate – for little ones. The good news is that your daughter will forget over time, so work on filling her brain with good, wholesome and appropriate content and I surmise things will work out fine in the long run.
Come on Netflix, I am on a month trial period here to see if NETFLIX will suit our family needs and there is no PIN for parental control….I think our pet hampster could get around the so called ‘parental control’ within ten minutes, lucky guy could sit up all night watching all kinds of naughty things : )
Is there any way to keep the child from changing their account back to ‘adult’ to watch shows that would otherwise be banned?
Or you can all start by taking care of your children and watch shows and Tv with them instead of just using your account as a nanny. Seriously people, if you wanted to have kids why not being around our children and supervise what they are watching? take responsibility!!!!!!! They care about their business, we should care about paying attention to our children, stop being a lazy jerk, get up and take care of them.
So the only time our kids should watch TV shows or movies is when we are watching with them? If we let them watch by themselves then we are lazy jerks who aren’t taking care of our children? They should not be allowed to watch while we cook dinner or bath the baby? When my wife is not home my four kids should all watch the same show in the same room because there is only one adult to supervise?
Some parents request proper, robust controls because they can’t be around all of their kids all of the time. Others do so because they have a boy who is four and a girl who is fourteen (and they have completely different tastes).
Some parents have no need for controls of any kind because they don’t care what their kids are watching. Others don’t see the point because, as perfect responsible parents, they are around their kids 24/7 and force their teenagers to watch Peppa Pig like everyone else in the family (or so they would have us believe).
I know which group I proudly belong to.
Unrealistic, judgemental high horses are not the solution to this problem.
You can safely assume the person you’re replying to doesn’t have kids.
Anyone who does would know what a ridiculous proposition that is.
This is one of the more judgmental and out of touch blasts I’ve seen on the Internet today. Of course, there’s a lot of holier-than-thou attitude on the ‘Net so I hafta limit it to today. One thing I’ve noticed is that the number of exclamation points a person uses is inversely proportional to the amount of fux one should give about their opinion.
I have a 14 year old and a 5 year old and one on the way. Who are you calling a lazy jerk! You’re probably just bitter an twisted cos your partner left you for someone with more of a personality! When my baby comes are you telling me the little man then needs to follow me or the wife around cos we should care? You thick twit! My little man is gonna finish school, do his homework then watch what ever he wants to! It’s his house but my $#$@ rules! You sound like a right barrel of laughs ya weirdo.
How dare you. What kind of a person talks like that. Really. Anyway. Netflix needs to require a passcode for the adult side. Our 6 year old just selects his fathers side and can see what we don’t want him to. Definitely need it for the app as well. Thank you.
1. Netflix obviously knows they are giving unfettered access to kids of all ages since there is no PIN to keep them from using the adult’s login.
2. In Germany, a PIN is required, and Netflix implements it with no problem.
3. Therefore, they are purposely NOT implementing the PIN in the U.S. because they know that the kids are asking their parents for Netflix. Of course they are! They can watch House of Cards or whatever other inappropriate content they want! It’s fantastic if you are a kid. I am going to have to quit Netflix because of this. They have the code to add the PIN functionality, but have just decided not to do it. That should get some air time! I bet a LOT of parents would dump Netflix, especially since more alternatives are popping up all the time.
Maybe they just started it, but my Netflix allowed me to enter a pin for adult content! WooHoo! I’m a happy momma!
It is a very poor choice not to set password protection for individual Netflix profiles. Just offer it optionally for concerned users who have teenage kids. Is this problem so hard to comprehend? Most parents I know are struggling with this issue. On the other hand, this would be a fantastic business opportunity for a competitor. I can guarantee all parents we know would switch instantly.
I think that Netflix offers no parental controls whatsoever.
The profile without controlling access is not a control. In addition the history review without account information or even rating displayed right on the history screen and next to a show information does not help to recognize if there is a problem with a child accessing adult content or not. All that, is an indication that Netflix does not pay enough attention to this important issue. I get the trust approach, but trust and verify is really what is needed, otherwise why bother with ratings at all.
Solutions could be very simple: require a pin to access prohibited content, send notification if kid’s account accesses prohibited content, include account and ratings next to a show name on the activity screen, etc.
Simple, but yet not available.
Hi Dave and other Netflix users
A problem seems to be that viewing history is not available from a Kids account. I can only enter “Your account” from a Kids account – only choose exit Kids and return to my own account. And as far I can see, I am only able to see my own viewing history from here. Then how do I see the vieving activity from a Kids account?
Thank you!
This has been driving me crazy, too. When I called Netflix customer service, they said I was the only person who had ever called with this question. (Really???) I think I FINALLY just stumbled on to the solution myself. If your kids’ profile is tagged as KIDS, you can’t access their viewing history or other settings. But if you go online and temporarily change it to “adult,” you can access these features. So change it to “adult”, look at their viewing history, delete the stuff you don’t want them seeing again and tag it as “I’m not interested,” then change their setting back to KIDS. Not easy nor intuitive, but I think it works.
What prevents my kids from choosing my profile when they login? There seems to be no way to prevent that since the pw to login is the same?
Not a thing! Can’t figure out why they’d go through the trouble of setting up profiles but not allow password control over the “adult” or master account. Ridiculous. Heck 35 years ago my dad had a physical key for our cable converter box that would look out Skinemax and other premium cable channels. It’s not like there isn’t a history of of interest in blocking children’s access to entertainment and the technology to do it.
It boggles my mind that parent groups, mother groups, the FCC haven’t been harassing Netflicks for decent parental controls.
Agree with the above, What is the point of having a profile defined as Kids, when the Kids can just change to an Adult profile. The people at Netflix must be utter morons to come up with “Parental Controls” that can be side-stepped in this way – it is utter incompetence – someone needs to be fired.
My 9 yo son told me earlier today “Mum, I think netflix is all about trust. I am not going to use your profile, but who nows if other children would think the same as me?”, which I totally agree. It would be much better to make sure that the adult profile was password protected. The other provider has a password for adult content, so whenever someone tries to watch adult stuff the pass is requested. Simple. Very simple. Although I valued the conversation about trust I had with my son.
Thanks – very helpful. I hope that Netflix will also add some kind of restrictions, as-is there is nothing to prevent a kid from switching profiles, at least that I can find. Yes we’d see it on our viewing history after-the-fact but would be nice to password-protect a profile.
Agree with Jean. The parental controls are absolutely useless as the kids can simply view the inappropriate stuff via my profile since there is no way to prevent access. What Netflix can and should do is be able to assign a profile or limits on a device by device basis. That way my kid’s iPod, computer and Wii/TV can only view kid’s stuff and on the family room TV and on my computer and iPad I can my the stuff appropriate for older audiences. Another alternative would be to give each profile a passcode to ensure the little ones don’t access another’s profile.
what if you take care of your children and take responsability as a parent instead of complaining? I think that works best for all of you guys , wanted children TAKE CARE OF THEM!!!!
You obviously don’t have children. Have much knowledge about children, or know much of anything about raising children. Leave the conversation to the grownups and come back when you have a clue.
Do you really, honestly think that those of us who would like effective parental controls implemented are not taking responsibility as parents and not taking care of our children? That’s hilarious because the fact that we are asking for them to be implemented indicates exactly the opposite. If you truly believe that kids won’t sneak and watch something that is not age-appropriate when they think they can get away with it, you are very naive.
Try this on for size: My kids don’t watch inappropriate movies – I know because, being the awful, horrible, irresponsible parent that I am, I check their viewing history – but they don’t always pay attention to which profile they are using.
I want password/PIN protection implemented on each of the profiles so that they don’t end up with a bunch of suggested movies that are based on the viewing history of someone other than the person for which that profile was created. One of the profiles needs to be designated as the administrative profile with complete control of the Netflix account.
The reason for this is to allow family members to log in to the Netflix account and then log in to their profiles but at the same time, to prevent them from switching profiles or changing anything with the Netflix account itself.
In essence, it’s like a home: every family member can have a copy of the key to the front door and each can have their own key to get in their own room, but there’s only one key for the tool shed. The one who holds it is the only one who can access the tools needed to change things in the home, including the locks for each room if it is necessary.