When you created your child's EA account did you use the same email address as the Xbox account which you made for him? If you did then the two should connect without much effort, otherwise I'd suggest that you check the EA account itself as the account information will show "Connected Accounts" and you should see your child's Xbox account listed there if they are successfully connected.
If that all checks out then I'm not certain what the issue may be, but EA customer service might be able to help you figure it out.
i am going to look into all those things when i get home. i do know this EA acct i am typing on isn't the main one attached to my xbox live acct. i just figured that out so not sure if that matters. it also wasn't verified with EA so i am not sure if that had much to do with anything either. I verified on both my acct and his now so am hoping that makes a difference.
i am also wondering how a 2nd acct would log into PvZ since my xbox live acct is the one that logs into it. hopefully i can figure out how to add a sub account to it. I wonder if there is a way to have both accts on split screen but have my kids acct share all the characters i have. it would seem pointless to have him have to start all his own new characters after all the work i had to put in.
I'm afraid you cannot transfer any progress from one account to another. As for the rest, I don't know enough about the ins and outs of xbox. Hopefully customer service can fix the login issue. You definitely should be able to have both children play together on split screen on their own accounts.
After 1 hr of chatting online with one of EA's reps i got a bunch of auto answers and a few repeating questions. i thought after awhile that i might be chatting with a help bot instead of an actual real person. after many "hold on a minutes" the final verdict from the person was to download an EA game from my son's Xbox acct and then to log in with my EA credentials and after that i would establish an account for him and when i went back to PvZ i should be playing with my son in splitscreen from my couch.... lol.
I was excited to try it so waited 30mins to download fifa 2014 for free. i launched the game, tried to log into the same window as in PvZ, and i got the same error message.....grrr.
Then i tried contacting them again and was disconnected. i decided to try calling as i figured it was easier than typing on my tablet the same story for a 3rd time. so after speaking with a girl for 5 mins and 5 hold on's she decided this was a "technical support" issue. she told me she would transfer me. on hold for almost 30 mins i finally get a guy and i go thru the same speal. in the end he told me that he figures i need to contact xbox and get them to add my sons xbox acct to my xbox live acct so that EA can recognize it or something.
So that is where i left off. i was busy today so didn't get much time to check but did go to xbox's website and i couldn't find anything about having to add a family member to xbox live. the only thing it talked about was adding a family member the normal way everybody does.
i'll try to contact xbox today or soon to ask. i just don't get why this is such a difficult issue to answer. doesn't EA know why their system does these things? i can't be the first person to have this problem.
Argh. Sorry we couldn't help more. I myself have also had an unsatisfactory experience with customer service.
I'm going to flag this post again in the same place as before, perhaps something may come of it yet. Good luck!
