New Xbox 360 user. Help needed parental controls and Gold membership

Help!!! I cannot get my head around some, what I assume to be, fairly basics with the 360.

Our Xbox came with a free gold membership. I do not know if we really need this or not, so I guess it would be easier if I tell you what we want from it.

I am aware that as of June all users will have access to the entertainment apps and Gold memberships, are no longer required, so I will skip that part.

Basically my son wants to play games. His cousin has an Xbox at home, but so far he has been unable to play him online, although we can clearly see him online. His cousin thinks it may be because he doesn't have Gold membership. So firstly, do you need gold
membership to play others online? That said,I don't want him to be able to add others online, but cannot find the parental controls to stop him from doing this!

Secondly, I added my Paypal account the other day as he wanted a Minecraft Skin Pack. Again, I cannot find any means to control any future purchases. ie A password requirement at the point of purchase. Also, if he wants to purchase these skin packs in future,
does he require a membership.

Thank you in advance, and to all those know-alls out there, no sarky irritable answers that usually come with forums.

:)

 

Only 1 of 5 profiles can play COD on XBox Live

Hello KIOWADOC58D, Is your sons profile (old/new) a gold account? Also Im guessing you have tried: Xbox 360 console parental controls?

support.xbox.com/.../xbox-live-parental-control

 

1 Gold Account for the whole family

I don't have a 360 anymore, and don't have an Xbox One, but I would imagine that adding the account to console will automatically open up multiplayer to all users on the console.

 

You do need a gold membership to play online.

Details of parental settings etc. can be forund here support.xbox.com/.../xbox-360-online-safety

 

Just as a side note, I believe he should be able to buy skin packs with or without a membership, but as Daft said, yes you do need gold to play online (or an xbox gold trial that come with some games).