The kid's account in my family app was well set and everything looks ok. But the screen time control and the lock devices do not work at all!

Question

The kid's account in my family app was well set and everything looks ok. But the screen time control and the lock devices do not work at all!

Peter Pan 0

In detail, I can see Connected devices and Locked devices. But none of these User's image

work at all on my kid's computer!! It means the kid's account cannot be controlled by the family app at all. But I can see the statistics of the scream time of the kids' accounts in real time. For example, in my family app, I see the screen time setting for today is 15 min, but I also see today's statistics is 55 min, which is > 15 min. Then, I click the "Lock devices" button in my family app, but the kid's account keeps unlocked.
I tried to solve this problem many times, but it still remains unsolved. Please help ASAP. Thank you!

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Answer 1

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Hi Peter Pan

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A Forum!

I understand how frustrating it is when everything in Microsoft Family Safety looks correctly configured, yet the controls simply do not work on your child’s PC. You set clear screen‑time limits, you can even see accurate live usage statistics, but the limits and the Lock Devices command do nothing.

You can give these a try:

Run the Family Safety policy refresh task This forces the child’s PC to resync its Family Safety policies. On the child’s PC:
- Press Win + R
- Type cmd and press Enter
- Run this command: schtasks /run /tn "Microsoft\Windows\Shell\FamilySafetyRefreshTask"
- Restart the PC
Verify the child’s Microsoft account On the child’s PC:
- Settings > Accounts > look for a Verify button
- If you do not see Verify, use https://aka.ms/familyverify in Microsoft Edge
Ensure diagnostic data is enabled
- Settings > Privacy & security > Diagnostics & feedback
- Set Diagnostic data to Required
Refresh the Family Safety relationship This reset fixes many enforcement issues where tracking works but blocking does not.
- Remove the child from the family group
- Have the child sign out of the PC
- Restart the PC
- Add the child back to your family
- Have them sign in again
- Allow 24-48 hours for full resync

Hope this will work. Feel free to update here if anything comes up!

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Peter Pan 0 Reputation points

2026-02-24T15:58:19.0333333+00:00

Thank you for your answers. But actually, I tried every method on the internet, including the ones you mentioned, before posting the question here. Simply, all methods failed again! I asked Microsoft customer service, and they said my question exceeded their capacity and suggested I post it** here.**
Alex-L 3,530 Reputation points Microsoft External Staff Moderator

2026-02-25T14:51:48.0633333+00:00

Hi Peter Pan

Thank you for the clarification. Since you’ve already completed all documented troubleshooting steps and Microsoft Support has confirmed this is beyond standard troubleshooting, this behavior strongly indicates a service‑side enforcement issue with Microsoft Family Safety.

In this state, activity reporting may continue to function while screen‑time limits and device lock actions fail to enforce, which cannot be corrected through local settings or reconfiguration.

At this time, the only reliable workaround is to create a new child Microsoft account and re‑add it to the family group, as enforcement policies are applied at account provisioning. Alternatively, you may submit logs through the Family Safety app (Help & Feedback → Send logs) for engineering review, though resolution is not guaranteed.

We appreciate your patience and understand the impact of this limitation.

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The kid's account in my family app was well set and everything looks ok. But the screen time control and the lock devices do not work at all!

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