Seriously I’ve heard worse stuff over mics on fortnite than I seen in chat in WoW.
Depends on the kid and how they deal with it. My daughter is pretty good at brushing off idiots who are aggressive so I just keep her out of trade chat, and taught her how to ignore people.
Nah he gotta be dis tall to play it
There are parental controls you can set on his account that you control via your own email.
They can be handy for setting options that he can’t change on his own, including disabling the in game shop and I believe some of the chat features. If you just disable them directly on his account in game, sooner or later he’ll figure out to turn them back on by himself.
Full disclosure: I turned on parental controls on my own accounts to disable the in game shop to avoid any temptation to make a rash and soon to be ill considered purchase that my bovine kind are want to do from time to time.
And no, I have no impulse control issues, thank you very much.
/moo 
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Yea thanks for the advice. He’s way better than me at fortnite, he’s pretty damn good actually so I think he will probably pick it up faster than I expect and I’ll just show him the basics and turn him loose leveling and that will give him a few weeks to learn before he’s jumping into any multi player stuff. I keep forgetting kids at 10 now are pros on electronics bc they grew up on it where as I spent my 10 year old year blowing into nes cartridges hoping they would work (when I wasn’t outside)
Also I’m sure he’s heard worse on Fortnite. That’s a good point
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It’s probably not a popular view here, but I really wouldn’t any of my kids (if I had any) to pick up video gaming as a serious hobby from me, either.
I’ve had a lot of fun with it over the literal decades, but I also can see it clearly as the huge time-waster that it has been for me that has kept me home alone more often than not instead of doing things with offline friends out and about.
Given the fact he’s 10, I would honestly just disable / turn off chat and let him enjoy the experience of just venturing into the world first. Some people say vile things with little regard as to who they’re actually speaking to.
Dont give them a guided path unless they ask for it, let them sandbox and experiment around.
The smallest, most insignificant game mechanics to us can often be fascinating to someone completely new. Be ready to answer questions. Lots of questions. Some may be stupid but you should try to entertain each one if you can.
Other than that, you should warn them that players CAN be quite rude. Not all, just some.
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i believe they need to be at least 13 to play and even then they need to have their own account set up by their guardian until age 18 their account can be moved to their own later.
you can also enable parental controls in your own account settings for setting specific permissions ie when hes allowed to play from x time to y time, what hes allowed or not allowed to do per your restrictions.
edit: links here: https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/14213 | https://us.battle.net/support/en/article/32243
Disable chats and perhaps walk him through the game until he can get the basics, maybe even quest/do dungeons with him (unless you’re already planning to do so of course).
teach your kids how flower picking and ore mining works.
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You need to slowly act toxic to him yourself, so he can build up a resistance to it.
This is the way
Absolutely disable chats. I killed a horde in war mode yesterday and got a whisper that nobody loves me and to kill myself.
Of course I reported it, that’s taking it way too far.
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When my son was little, I turned off all chat channels, blocked whispers, and let him play when he was on the computer next to mine so that I could keep an eye on what was going on. He was younger than yours, but he wasn’t allowed to do multiplayer content like dungeons or raids or join a guild, or party with people that he didn’t know.
I loosened up the restrictions over time, as he got older, but there were still moments when I had to restrain the inner Mama Bear from going absolutely ham on people and embarrassing him when he’d get called terrible and kicked out of a dungeon while he was learning to play better.
These days, as an adult, he’s much better at the game than I am and makes fun of me for clicking and keyboard turning. It’s really just something that you have to keep an eye on and feel out over time.
If he turns out to like it and you can afford it, I’d recommend getting him his own account so that he can keep his characters and collections after he’s not allowed to play on yours anymore.
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It will take years for him to do any group content so I doubt you need to worry. It’s most likely he will never even read chat since his focus will be on the graphics.
This is a great idea and I second it. Disable every chat except bnet whispers, system messages, NPC chat, and guild chat (only if you approve of the guild and the people in it). And disable chat bubbles if they aren’t disabled already. Please protect him.
The worst part is that most of the people who would be saying heinous things to your child are adults.
I say this as a 19-year-old who has been playing for twelve years now. I wish you and your son the best luck.
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It would be a cold day in Hell before I’d let a 10 year old child anywhere near this community.
What race is he thinking?
I say this with all seriousness: if your first worry about the kid logging into the game is the toxicity of the community, maybe he shouldn’t be logging into the game.
There’s a reason the WOW community has a reputation for toxicity: it’s earned it.
The WOW community is like that one kid you never want your child to be around: the one who mistakes vulgarity and rudeness for maturity. Seriously, I wouldn’t want my nephew to set foot near these degenerates in real life, much less a game where they’re protected by anonymity and trash-level penalties for being a jackhole. Granted, things might be worse with Fortnite, so maybe he’s prepared, but who knows.
But if you have to, keep him away from trade chat, stay out of dungeons, and confine him to the questing areas.
And for God’s sake, turn War Mode off.
The game has parental controls that can curb access to voice and text chat among other things.
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