My five year old is becoming interested in my Chromebook as he wants to type letters on it. I don't want him modifying my files so I figured I need to make him his own Google account. But I don't want to make him a regular account. Well, I found out Google has this service called Family Link that allows you to establish a parent-controlled Google account for your child under the age of 13. Just keep in mind that once a child turns 13, they can choose to stop using Family Link and you lose parental controls. Another thing to keep in mind is that you can't convert current accounts of 13+year old children into parent-controlled accounts.
The setup is mainly through the app on your phone and there are lots of screens to go through in the process but it is an awesome feature. So I created my son's Google account and this gives him his own email. He can sign into his Nexus 7 tablet with his own Google account as well as sign into my Chromebook with his Google account. You can add restrictions to the child accounts, require permission for installing and buying apps, and you can supervise what your child is looking at on the web.
The cool thing is that any apps that I purchase under my account are also available to my son through the "Family Library" in the Google Play Store. But there are annoyances. I bought a digital book through his account on the play store (I entered my password) but the book is not shared to the Family Library. Another issue is with Minecraft, the worlds don't load, my guess is an issue with his account being "restricted". So I need to sign into my account in order for him to play Minecraft. Another issue is around saving game progress to the cloud. You can play video games and store the data on the storage of the device, but the game progress cannot be uploaded to your Google account on the cloud. It does not sign into the games services through the restricted account. So, if you lose your device or it fails, you lose your game progress.
*9/3/18 - The Minecraft worlds are now loading on my son's account.
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