**OpenAI Adds Parental Controls to ChatGPT: How They Work**
*By Mudit Dube | Sep 29, 2025, 04:42 PM*
OpenAI has introduced new parental controls for its AI chatbot, ChatGPT, aimed at giving parents more oversight and ensuring a safer experience for teens. The updated features allow parents to link their accounts with their children’s and set various restrictions such as quiet hours and content filters.
### Enhanced Controls for Parents
Starting today, parents can connect their ChatGPT accounts with those of their teenagers. This connection enables parents to set limits including quiet hours, disabling voice mode and image generation, and restricting the use of memory and model training. Importantly, these settings can only be adjusted by parents, ensuring teens themselves cannot alter the restrictions.
### Stronger Protections Against Inappropriate Content
Teen accounts linked with a parent will automatically benefit from enhanced safeguards. These protections reduce exposure to graphic content, viral challenges, romantic or violent roleplay scenarios, and extreme beauty ideals. While parents have the option to disable these protections, teens are not able to do so on their own.
### Self-Harm Detection and Alert System
One crucial safety feature added is a notification system that alerts parents if ChatGPT detects indications that their teen might be considering self-harm. In extreme situations where there is an imminent threat, law enforcement or emergency services may be involved to ensure the teen’s safety.
### Supporting Parents with Resources
OpenAI has also launched a dedicated parent resource page. This hub provides detailed information about how ChatGPT works, guides for setting up parental controls, and ideas for positive, creative, and educational use of ChatGPT in schoolwork and family activities. OpenAI plans to expand this resource with expert advice and conversation tips over time.
### Looking Ahead: Age Prediction Technology
To further improve user safety, OpenAI is developing an age prediction system intended to automatically apply teen-appropriate settings for users under 18. This future update aims to streamline protections without requiring manual setup.
With these new features and resources, OpenAI is taking important steps to make ChatGPT a safer and more controlled environment for teenagers while empowering parents with the tools to monitor and guide their children’s AI interactions.
https://www.newsbytesapp.com/news/science/openai-rolls-out-parental-controls-for-chatgpt/story
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