How to Enable Parental Controls on a Mac

In the latest release of Apple's Mac OS X operating system, also known as Leopard, users are given the ability to control children's accounts with Parental Controls. With this feature, parents can limit the applications kids can use and the length of time they can use them. The first step in controlling children's accounts is to turn on Parental Controls. Here's how to enable that feature.

Things You'll Need

• Mac running OS X 10.5 or later

Instructions

1. Log in to your computer through an account that has administrator privileges.

2. Open System Preferences by clicking on the dock icon.

3. Choose the "Parental Controls" control panel icon under the "System" category.

4. Click on the lock in the lower left corner of the control panel window and enter your administrator username and password.

5. In the menu on the left side of the window, choose the account to which you want to add parental controls.

6. Click the "Enable Parental Controls" button in the middle of the screen to turn on parental controls for the designated account.

Tips & Warnings

• Only accounts with "Standard" access privileges can have parental controls applied to them.