A free app and service that helps families create healthy digital habits and stay connected. It’s designed to support both online safety and real-world awareness by offering tools for screen time management, content filtering, and location sharing
Changing a Microsoft account from a child to an adult cannot be done directly if the account is already classified as a child account.
For child accounts, the birth date cannot be edited to make the account an adult. This is specifically to prevent children from bypassing Microsoft Family Safety restrictions by changing their age, leaving the family group, and removing protections. The account must reach the legal adult age in the country/region before it is treated as an adult account and can leave the family group or remove restrictions.
Until that happens, any organizer in the Microsoft Family group must adjust the restrictions for the child account (screen time, app limits, content filters, etc.) through the Family Safety settings.
If the account is actually an adult but has the wrong birth date set (Microsoft “thinks” it is a child), the documented path is to follow the guidance under "I'm an adult, but Microsoft thinks I'm a child" in the birth date change article referenced in the Family Safety troubleshooting content.
To reduce restrictions so storage can be cleaned or admin actions can be taken in Windows, an organizer should:
- Sign in at the Family Safety site (for example, via https://family.microsoft.com from the context) with the organizer account.
- Adjust the child account’s limits and permissions as needed so required actions on the device are allowed.
If the account is an adult and Family Safety restrictions are being wrongly enforced on the device (for example, the device still treats the user as a child even though the account is not in a family or is an organizer), a Family Safety reset can be run on the affected Windows device:
- Press Windows key + R to open Run.
- Type
cmdand select OK. - In the Command Prompt, enter:
schtasks /run /tn "Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyRefreshTask" - Restart the computer.
These steps must be run on each impacted device.
If the issue is that the account is above statutory age but still being treated as underage because of the stored birth date, use the age/consent correction flow described in the parental consent article ("The birthdate on your account indicates that you're underage. Use our interactive tool to help guide you to the right steps to correct it.").
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