A safe Minecraft server for your child: a guide for parents
There is a good chance that Minecraft has been a favourite in your house for a while now. So let us start with the good news: the game itself is one of the most innocent titles out there. It is digital Lego — building, exploring, working together — and millions of children play it every day without any trouble at all. The question that occupies parents is therefore not whether Minecraft is safe, but who your child is playing with.
As long as your child is playing on their own or next to a brother or sister on the sofa, there is nothing to worry about. It only becomes something to think about the moment your child wants to play online with other people. And for exactly that there is a surprisingly simple solution, one that takes no technical knowledge whatsoever: your own private server.
Why public servers were never built for children
Anyone who wants to play Minecraft online soon ends up on one of the big public servers. Hundreds or even thousands of people play there at the same time, from primary school children to adults. Three things are worth knowing about that:
- Open chat with strangers. On most public servers everyone can chat with everyone. There is no age check, and how closely anyone keeps an eye on things varies enormously from server to server. So your child can receive messages from people you do not know.
- Scams and tricks. Think of promises of "free stuff", requests to carry on the conversation somewhere outside the game, or attempts to prise passwords or account details out of someone. Adults see straight through that; children very often do not.
- Inappropriate content. Players sometimes build and type things you would rather not see on the screen of an eight-year-old. Foul language in the chat is the rule rather than the exception on busy servers, too.
No reason to panic — the vast majority of players are simply there to build and play. But it is a reason to take a look as a parent, because on a public server you decide precisely nothing: not who comes in, and not what happens in the chat.
The solution: your own server with a guest list
A private server is a Minecraft world of your own that only the people you choose can get into. You arrange that with what is called a whitelist: a guest list, exactly like the one for a children's party. If your name is not on it, you simply do not get in. No strangers and no uninvited guests — only the friends you add as a parent.
The lovely part is that the world is always there waiting for them. Carrying on with the castle together after school, playing at the weekend with a cousin from another town — it all works, and everything they build is neatly saved. Meanwhile you keep control: taking a name off the guest list is one click, and you can switch the server off at any moment. And because everyone on the server knows each other in real life, the chat is suddenly no longer a worry, but simply the playground continued online.
You need zero technical knowledge for this
You might be thinking: lovely story, but I am really not going to sit down and install a server. You do not have to. With a hosted plan you order a server online and it is ready within a few minutes. Everything you have to do after that goes through a clear web page with ordinary buttons: server on or off, adding names to the guest list, changing a setting. Can you fill in a form on the internet? Then you can do this too.
At MC-Node a Minecraft server starts at € 0,50 per month; reckon on roughly € 1,10 per gigabyte of memory. For a small group of friends a small plan is more than enough, so you quickly end up at a couple of euros a month — less than a single round of birthday treats for the class. Everything is cancellable monthly as well, which is handy if the Minecraft phase blows over again in a year. The servers run on our own hardware in a Dutch data centre (Previder in Hengelo), and protection against online attacks is included as standard, although you will rarely notice anything of it on a small private server.
Handy settings for parents
A few settings are all it takes to make the server a perfect fit for your child. All of them can be arranged from the control panel or from the game's own settings:
- Turn on the guest list (whitelist). This is the most important step: the server locks its doors and only the names you add can get in. In the control panel it is a matter of switching it on and typing in the names.
- Limit the chat or switch it off. In Minecraft's own settings you can hide or limit the chat. On a server with only familiar faces that is usually unnecessary, but for young children who cannot read fluently yet it brings some peace of mind.
- Choose a suitable difficulty. On the "peaceful" setting no monsters appear and your child can build without a care — ideal for the youngest players. Slightly older children often find "easy" more exciting: monsters included, but without harsh consequences.
- Make agreements about playing. Treat the server like any other playdate: agree how long they play for, and that your child comes to you if something unpleasant happens. That habit is worth its weight in gold, well beyond Minecraft.
Does your child play on a tablet, phone or console?
Worth knowing: Minecraft comes in two flavours. The computer version is called Java Edition; the version on tablets, phones, Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo Switch is called Bedrock Edition. Those two do not simply play together, so do check which version your child and their friends are on before you choose a server.
If they mainly play on a tablet or console, go for a Bedrock server — it starts at € 2,50 per month and works with exactly the same guest list approach. Joining in on a tablet or phone is a matter of typing in the server address; on a console it is possible as well, although that takes one small extra step. You can read exactly how that works in our separate guide to Bedrock servers (see the reading tips below). That way the friend on the Switch builds along with the classmate on the iPad.
Honestly: what your own server does not solve
A private server takes away the biggest worry — strangers in the chat — but it is not a complete answer to everything around gaming. Screen time stays an agreement between you and your child. Minecraft videos on YouTube fall outside it too. And if your child does want to play on a public server at some point later on, because an older cousin plays there for instance, a good conversation about it is worth more than a ban.
So think of your own server as a safe home base: a place where your child can learn what playing together online means, in an environment you can oversee. In practice, many parents notice that the question "can I play online?" turns from something nerve-racking into something cosy. And that is exactly the idea.