How to access child account which is also a organiser account within a family

Question

Hi,

I manage several accounts within our Microsoft Family. One of our accounts is currently stuck as a child account, but it is also the organizer account. This account is currently inaccessible.

I’m unsure how it’s possible for a child account to also be an organizer, since the account holder in reality is an adult. When I try to sign into the organizer account, it prompts for guardian approval. Since the guardian is effectively the same account, all approval requests are sent to the mailbox (which we have access to) of the organiser account, creating an infinite approval loop.

All the other accounts in the family are regular adult accounts, so we are unable to change the status of the organiser account.

We need assistance to:

1. Restore access to this account (if this is not possible, to at least remove this user from the family, so that it frees up a spot for someone else who can use it - since this user is not currently using office)

Remove or reset the broken family association if necessary.

1. Ensure that the account is correctly recognized as an adult.

Answer 1

Hi, Andrew Gosden

Sorry for this unwanted experience. This usually happens when the Family Safety role and the account’s age status get out of sync, so Microsoft still treats the organizer as a child and keeps sending the approval flow back to itself. Similar cases on Microsoft Q&A describe it as a consent/family-state mismatch, not a normal password problem.

Here are some suggestions you can try:

Sign out of all Microsoft accounts everywhere, then try again in an InPrivate/Incognito window, or use the Family Safety mobile app instead of the browser. This can help if the loop is being caused by cached session data rather than the account itself.

Check the stuck account’s birth date and country/region on the Microsoft profile. If the DOB is wrong, an adult account can keep being treated as a child until that info is corrected.

If you can get into the family page at all, try removing consent for that account first, then remove it from the family group. Microsoft’s Family Safety troubleshooting page lists that as the removal path for child accounts.

If none of that works, contact Microsoft Support and explain that the organizer account is locked in a parental-consent loop and needs the Family Safety association checked/reset. In similar forum cases, users were told this can be a backend state issue when the loop never clears on different browsers/devices.

Hope this helps. Feel free to get back if you need further assistance.

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