Chat and voice in games
Who can message them?
Chat and voice can make gaming feel social, fun, and connected. They can also be where things get uncomfortable, fast, or hard to manage.
This page helps you make practical choices about who can message your young person, invite them into chats or parties, and talk to them live.
Match chat options to fit your young person’s skills as they grow in confidence and self-control.
Text chat and voice chat
Both text and voice let people contact your young person, but they do not feel the same in practice.
Text contact can include
- public text chat
- friends-only chat
- party or squad chat
- private messages, DMs or whispers
- friend requests and invites.
Voice contact can include
- in-game voice chat
- party or squad voice chat
- platform voice chat
- open mic or push-to-talk
- invites into parties.
Why this matters
- text can be quieter and easier for adults to miss.
- private messages can feel more private, even when they are not safe.
- voice happens live, so it can feel faster and more intense.
- voice can also be harder to supervise because it moves quickly.
You do not have to make one rule for everything. A child might be allowed to use text chat, but not voice, or use voice with known friends, but not private messages.
Ways whānau may choose to manage chat in games
There is not one right answer.
These are common set-ups families use depending on the game, the young person, and what is happening at home.
Can fit when: your young person is new to online play, gets overwhelmed easily, or you want the game to stay focused on play rather than conversation.
What this can look like
- public chat off
- private messages off
- friend requests and invites limited
- voice chat off
- headset or mic off unless it is planned.
Watch for: frustration if they’re missing out on teamwork or friend connection — or if they start trying to use other apps to chat instead.
Can fit when: your young person mainly wants chat to coordinate with friends or cousins they know offline, and they’re starting to use safety tools with support.
What this can look like
- friends-only text chat
- private messages off, or friends-only
- friend requests require approval
- voice chat only with known people
- party invites restricted
- push-to-talk where possible.
Watch for: 'friends list creep' (adding people they don’t really know), social pressure to move into private messages or off-game chat, or not feeling able to leave a party.
Can fit when: your rangatahi is using safety tools confidently, understands what not to share, and will come to you when something feels off.
What this can look like
- Public chat may be on in some games, with agreed boundaries
- Private messages may still be limited (because they’re harder to supervise)
- Voice may be on in some games, off in others
- One-to-one voice with unknown people is not OK
Watch for: chat becoming normalised even when it’s toxic ('that’s just how games are'), secrecy about who they’re talking to, or pressure to move chats off-game.
- Regular review of settings, friends list, and how chat is going
Where are the controls?
Chat controls can sit in the game, the platform account, the device, and sometimes another app or headset.
If you can’t find a control for something, treat that as useful information about whether that game or type of chat is the right fit right now.
Adjusting over time
If your young person wants more chat or voice access, it can help to make small changes instead of one big jump.
A simple way to build up is:
- Start with friends-only text chat
- Keep private messages off for longer
- Add voice in one game only
- Start with one small group
- Review how it went before changing anything else
It can help to agree on a check-in point, like after a week or two.
Safeguards you could use
A few settings can make a big difference.
Chat safeguards
- limit who can contact them
- keep private messages off longer than other chat
- lock down friend requests and invites
- mute notifications if needed
Voice safeguards
- restrict who can invite them to parties
- turn off open mic where possible
- use push-to-talk or mic toggle
- make voice more visible sometimes by gaming in shared spaces
Skills to build over time
These are the skills that help young people stay in control when contact gets messy.
- knowing what not to share
- knowing they do not have to reply
- knowing they do not have to stay in a party or call
- spotting pressure like ‘keep this secret’, ‘move to another app’, ‘prove it’, or ‘send a pic’
- recognising when chat or voice has turned nasty
- using mute, block, leave, and report quickly
- coming to a trusted adult early when something feels off.
A simple message that can help is: ‘If something feels weird, you can mute or leave first, then come tell me.’
Practise together
Goal: make it easy for your young person to control direct contact and get out quickly.
- Find it: Ask them to show you how to leave a party, mute notifications, mute the mic, and mute, block, and report someone in the game they’re playing most right now.
- Try it once: Practise muting a player (or turning chat off and on) together when nothing is going wrong.
- Agree a simple next step: If something feels uncomfortable, they can mute/block first and then come and tell you.
If something's gone wrong
If something has already happened, it can help to act on the contact settings first.
- Turn off or tighten chat
- Turn off private messages
- Pause voice chat, or keep it to known people only
- Save screenshots, usernames, times, message logs, or clips if available
- Report where it happened
- Stay calm and supportive
- Get support — go to the app's Getting Help page.
If the issue also involves strangers, public servers, or mixed-age spaces, look at Playing with others too.
