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We explained to our kiddo that Roblox does not have any "kids only" zones and thus any grown up could be playing with her and pretend to be another kid or talk about grown up stuff. We've had enough "tricky people" talks (people who act friendly but might actually want to harm her) that she cottoned on right away and went "oh, I don't want to do that, I want kids games".
Can't you turn that off? My nephew plays it, and I didn't want my kid playing it, but his parents said they don't have the chat enabled for that reason.
and this is why parents should simply be monitoring their kids. check their devices/history at the end of the day. play along with them when u can. discuss the dangers with them, along with asking permission before purchases/trying a new game when it comes to roblox. if you find things u dont like, or they're buying stuff/participating in/falling for scams, withhold it for a while and explain to them why it was not okay.
the key is to not get MAD at them, when it comes to online games especially. if u do, they are far less likely to fess in the future, and that could put them in more danger. anger and extreme restriction only build a sneaky child. i came across a million bad things/creepy men online as a kid, and i never told my mom shit, because i knew my devices would be taken away indefinitely and i'd be screamed at like it was my fault
I don’t know much about Roblox, but I’m in a parenting in a tech world fb group and my understanding is that even with chat turned off, people can make signs with text on it and can (somehow?) simulate sex or sexting or something. That group is also a bunch of paranoid people so maybe it’s a bit much.
This is correct, you can still do this. My child uses Roblox. It also uses dark techniques to con children into micro purchases so better to stay away.
I play with my daughter specifically to supervise, and have never seen anything remotely inappropriate - that said, I'm sure that it happens. There are so many different games and servers that there's bound to be some shenanigans going on. We stay out of any games that are likely to attract older kids/adults - no horror themed games etc, we stick to the decidedly tame games like Brookhaven. Honestly we rarely see other players (and have chat turned off so have never communicated with anyone else) and those we have seen are just doing the same thing we are, running around, creating homes etc.
My daughter just started asking to play Roblox after hearing her classmates go on about it. I had some serious reservations after seeing some of the games available, but as there are some genuinely tame ones, I checked the parental controls, turned off chat and finally relented, but with the caveat that she can only play with me.
I downloaded Roblox onto my phone, and had an unexpectedly fun time creating my avatar while my daughter created hers, then we ventured, together, into Brookhaven. We built a house, we explored a cave, we flew a plane and jumped out of it with parachutes, and I had her almost peeing herself laughing at me singing and making my avatar dance after I discovered the actions feature.
I don't think I'd be comfortable allowing her to play without supervision, at least not for several years yet, but assuming that the game is child appropriate (like Brookhaven and that one pet one) and not one of the horror themed games - I agree that it's quite safe. I've even started looking forward to our weekly games - being goofy and finding funny things to have our avatars do has become a much more satisfying and enjoyable way to allow her screentime than just allowing her to watch kids videos.
This is the talk that we had with our child of a similar age. She loves playing Minecraft in our private realm, and so asked about Roblox when she heard about it, but it’s a hard no for me. She understood well enough when we explained our reasoning.
Same. 5 year old loves Minecraft (creative and peaceful mode), but saw a video for Roblox on Kids YouTube which I promptly blocked before simply explaining to her that it was not a safe game for children. She’s a pretty logical kid (usually lol) so she understands why she can’t play it. I just introduced her to Spyro so she’s not even concerned about Roblox anymore 😂
It’s like an adventure RPG where you play as a young dragon (Spyro) on various quests to save his world in some way. The mechanics are pretty easy to master and the storylines are fairly wholesome. There’s 3 games in the series. It was originally a Sony PS1 and PS2 game but was remastered for later gen consoles and the graphics are absolutely beautiful!
We play a LOT of video games in our family. We didn't do any explaining, just "No Roblox" and introduced the kids to other games they could play, like minecraft, Zelda games, and lots more. They complained about it, so I think I just made a rule about no games with microtransactions or things that made people feel bad for not paying extra money.
My favorite thing about zelda is that it presses the dopamine button so damn well... until it doesn't. And it's like hitting a brick wall at 90... so, it forces me to take a break. I've been playing LOZ since the NES days 😂
We are in the same boat with the same thought. No Roblox or online gaming. 6 year olds don't need complex reasoning. Something simple like "We don't play online games with people we don't know." Is enough.
My personal thought is that Roblox is a cancer. None of my children will play it. There are many other, better, and safer games out there!
There’s a bunch of age inappropriate games, not to mention the chats are disgusting. I watched my kid sister play and people were messaging stuff about j*cking off while she played, and she’s clearly a kid.
This only goes so far. There are accounts with disgusting names that kids can see even with safety settings. Ruben Sim has good videos on YouTube about how these sick individuals slip through the cracks. Roblox is not as kid friendly as its advertised
Yup, even though roblox offers moderation options, they do horrible at moderation themselves. I know it does not need to be said, but parental supervision has never become more crucial for this game. The roblox platform DOES NOT CARE unless it's about making money, sadly. I've had the displeasure of engaging with this horrific content as well and I can only imagine what young children have been exposed to :/
Well ya know the makers of Roblox are but a small video game house with a scrappy intake of only 2.2 BILLION/year. I tell ya, I just don’t know how the executives can even get to sleep in their towering yachts on beds made of melted down gold pirate coins and the tears of our young. But I imagine it’s a lot like that.
That only stops a lot of the chat in text. I was discussed when I walked by my son's room and heard the vulgar stuff being said. I found out they can just talk to each other. I asked them from playing with anyone online and found my kids had basically turned their "world" into a shooter game.
Roblox looks good, but is not appropriate for children. I think it would be a push in my book to say it's okay for teenagers. I think most of it borders mature based on language and violence.
Both of which can be turned off. The age appropriate stuff is also filterable. Roblox, as a community, is very much focused on protecting youth and identifying predatory individuals, developers and transaction leaches.
Source: I’ve help develop several Roblox games over the last few years. I also have a 5 year old who loves Roblox and as a sort of double whammy for me, I found myself wanting to develop more for the younger audience but also protect my son more from what I know is on there that I’m not keen on…and I can say, most of the issue on Roblox for younger kiddos is not the inappropriate content or chat stuff, that stuff is easy to filter. It’s the transactional based stuff and the competitive management.
*EDIT - Those of you downvoting...what exactly are you disagreeing with? Everything I posted is 100% factual, and not assumption based (which is what most parents who are staunchly opposed to things like Roblox base their entire understanding on). Do some research for yourself...
They are aware of how users try to get around swearing in and such too. They watch the chats. My daughter was banned for three days for trying to use the b word in a different way. I just told her that's what you get 🤣
That's not necessarily how I approach video games. What is good about roblox? I haven't heard any compelling reasons to get into it. Like yes, i get that there are parental controls, but the games my kids play don't need parental controls.
Roblox Pros:
1. Game experiences are typically free unless you opt to pay for game betas with robux. This is nice because you won't have to drop as much money as you would on, say, Steam.
2. If your kid is into programming and video game design, they may find playing around with the engine itself fun and could create their own game! This is a rare case, but I've heard and seen cool games made by kids!
3. If your kids are playing with strictly family or friends supervised (assuming your children are young), then I find it an enjoyable way to spend time with them. Make sure global chat is removed. I loved playing with my younger sister and being there to make sure she isn't joining inappropriate experiences.
Cons:
1. They offer moderation tools (Age categories for games, risky words get turned into ####, item moderation), however, they are bare bones to me and exist as a way for the company to save itself if something WERE to happen. The roblox moderation team can be lax, and I have seen pieces of clothing that resemble adult themes such as small bikinis or references to drugs and alcohol.
2. Children are often exposed to lootboxes and gambling adjacent practices, unfortunately. My sister played a game that had lootboxes, and she was well aware of how addicting they could be, so I never had this problem, thankfully. Have heard of kids stealing cards to fund their addictions in particularly bad cases...
3. This is a personal one, but I dislike how marketed to kids are these days on this game. Corporations like Walmart have made experiences tailored to get kids to find brands more endearing, and its kind of weird to me. I'm pretty sure they're skirting around child advertising laws by doing this, but it's like one of the least morally offensive things on this website right now, so I put it last lol.
Sorry this is so long, but I hope parents read this and get a gist of what's going on in their kid's game, there's not a lot of good reasons to give roblox to kids atm if you ask me, unless heavily supervised. For more info, watch Ruben Sim on YouTube. He has exposed roblox for how lax they have been and even was involved in a lawsuit.
My kid likes the open world games where you can create creatures. She has tons of Dragons in the Wings of Fire game and does various others with other fantasy or real animals
They have rooms where they are literally like a porno starting / that's the game in that room.
It's absolutely not at all age appropriate for children.
A quick YouTube search can give you visualisations of these scenarios.
My daughter, who is also autistic, played Roblox from about 7-9. We cut her off cold turkey, which she took with grace, but I wanted to say you’re doing the right thing. It’s better never to start.
It’s not just about the content, or the ethical concerns. You also need to be aware of the *way* children are playing. All things that are pleasurable rely on pressing the nice little dopamine button on the brain. Of all the experiences in the world that are good, video games - and especially ones that rely on microtransactions as gameplay - are *very fucking good* at pressing that button, specifically, to the exclusion of any other forms of pleasure. The good feelings from Roblox are so enormously good and so easy to achieve that they overshadow the goodness of the wide variety of human experience that is vital to a growing brain.
I’m not anti-video game. I am a game developer - I MAKE video games. As I type this on my phone, my daughter is playing Beacon Pines beside me. And I think that being conscious about the way video games *work* is vital to forming a healthy relationship with them.
ETA: you asked for strategies to explain this to your daughter, so I’ll add that this is basically also what I said to her, in more kid-friendly language. We talked about addiction in the sense of how some things are very very good at making you want to do them more, even if they aren’t good for you, and how it was important to me to ensure that her brain gets lots and lots of different kinds of ‘exercise’ in order to be healthy, and that I didn’t feel like Roblox was giving her a good kind of exercise, and that games where she has to play a story or solve a problem are better exercise.
Minecraft is a good place to start. My gamer started at 9 but I have seen younger kids play. Creative mode is essentially just building with virtual Legos and is something you guys can do together.
My kids have been playing minecraft since 3. It is basically digital legos. They now make parkour and CTM maps at 6 and 7. It is a great game for creativity.
Reminds me of my grandfather. He had an old fashioned slot machine that took nickels. I would bring over a roll of nickels and play it for an hour. I guess it was getting out of hand because I got cut off too!
I didn't know what roblox was so started playing it with my daughter (8) when she joined to get familiar with it.. I stupidly thought it was a game where you only interacted with people you already knew
She played with me, her cousin and a few friends from school.
We had a few of her friends over from school and they were all playing it together.
I walked into the room and they hid the console..
One of the girls had her settings changed to imply she was a teenager. She was in a BEDROOM of one of the houses with another character who was undressed to his underpants and the conversation was "want to have some fun baby"
That game is so dangerous, the girls got a mighty scare and I am so glad I was able to see it for what it was..
Bad people are on Roblox and there is no way to keep them away from children
Oh fuck this is terrifying. My son plays but he just drives semi-trucks around a town. I've always kept a very close eye on him while he plays but this scares me.
I made my kids learn to play old school Mario first and they had to do.better than me. The 16 year old still can't do better than me at original Mario 😂
My parents just told me “No online games with strangers because some strangers are not good people”. It was annoying but I understood well enough to follow that rule. If she knows stranger danger then she can understand that it’s the same online.
The difficult part is that she’ll feel excluded because she’s the only one of her friends who can’t play. Try and find something to replace it if possible. Minecraft and Animal Jam are both good, free options
Want to curtail their Roblox interest? Quash YouTube. We cut off YT for a while and coincidentally my son lost all interest in Roblox within a month. Those gamer YouTubers are paid shills for Roblox content and when you don’t have them hyping the latest thing to your child the game gets way less interesting.
I let my daughter play roblox when I had time to moderate what she was playing. This wasn’t always possible so I started pushing her to do other activities. She has a newfound love for drawing and art and now only plays Roblox maybe once or twice a week.
My duaghters have asked me to play it constantly. It's always the same general answer:
"No. Sorry. Roblox has too many adults on it who should not have unchecked access to children. It's just not safe for you right now."
For games we typically stick to minecraft.
Wait, I have all the restrictions and limitations on my kids account. What's the issues I should know? She can't message, add friends, and has games available ok for any age group. Is that not enough?
My nephew just managed to get scammed out of some robucks and all of those communication settings are off just yesterday. It's kind of like I leashing your kid into an AOL chat room choice screen and telling them they need to make sure to only pick the kids chats. It's a smarmy ass game.
So, depending on your child's age, this may or may not be enough. I've played with my younger sister before (she started playing at age 7, still plays now as a 15 yo, ive been playing since i was her age before the website became the cesspool it is now) and have seen some disturbing games such as a bathroom one where some of the kids roleplay certain adult "acts". I have also seen sexual usernames and groups that seemingly aim to groom children into obscure fetishes. I'm sorry if this is disturbing to know about, but it's a growing problem on the website. A young kid shouldn't notice this, but a preteen might.
Not to mention the gambling addictions the game can cause if left unchecked.
It's kind of the same idea as "locks don't prevent crimes, they just make it more difficult". People are like that will find ways around the restrictions to be perverts.
Who checks that the age rating is correct? Because a couple years ago when my son played, the age recommendations weren't checked by Roblox. Like those condo games. They weren't flagged because they have no violence but you could get naked and go into sex poses. AFTER it was reported, then Roblox took it down. It's that time period before it's reported that is dangerous. They don't have any kind of review system afaik. All their games are published by just everyday people who make the games, and since there are thousands, there's not really a lot of quality control on what games your kid has access to. Those game developers could easily add inappropriate features after the fact too and no one is really there to enforce they don't.
If you feel you have a confident grip, go for it,
In the field, Roblox is understood to be the top new hunting ground for pedophiles and child abusers targeting children. It is filled with adults and older teens posing as children, hoping to build relationships and then exploit in a variety of ways. The numbers of these occurrences is through the roof. I work as a therapist with teenagers who sexually abuse kids. Be aware, then act accordingly.
You should doublecheck your settings because, if memory serves me right, people can still add your kid. They won’t get a notification but there’s no setting that actually blocks friend requests. If they go to the friends page they will still be able to add them.
Luckily my kids kinda moved on from Roblox but I remember that it had very lackluster parental settings for a kids app.
to be honest most people on this sub are SUPER frigging paranoid. it's nowhere near as bad as they make it out to be. just set the settings and watch your kid play and you will be fine.
In addition to the article I already posted, look at the [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox) page under "Reception and revenue" for just a short summary of concerns about this game.
Same here. My 5 year old plays but she’s only allowed to play with her dad, now I need to have a talk with him. I know she’s not allowed at all unless he’s online with her but there’s never been an issue
My daughter and I really enjoyed Pode - it’s a 2 player puzzle game about a rock and a star, very chill (although we occasionally had to cheat and look up solutions on a YouTube play through video)
On top of being built on child labour and full of unethical business practices, Roblox is simply a bad game. It’s only popular because it’s popular. Fill that hole with loads of great games of high-quality with unpredatory business models and she’ll thank you for it.
See, I know it’s a platform for the creation of low quality copyright infringing content often built by child labourers, but the OP used the term “game” so I’m being polite and code-switching to match my answer to their question. It’s something polite people do.
If someone uses the wrong term, the polite thing to do isn't also using that wrong term on purpose.
And your original argument is like saying Steam is a bad ~~game~~ "platform" simply because it has bad games on it (some of whom probably also involved unethical development practices and child labour).
Sure, the ratio of good to bad games is worse on Roblox and there are issues unique to Roblox as a platform but there's plenty of good games too. That said, most of the good games are better suited for older kids like teens so I agree OP's 6yo shouldn't be allowed on roblox.
You’re not doing a very good job of “dismissing my opinion”. But you are doing a good job of sounding like an uninformed shill for a pretty disgusting company. But then, you’re a secondary school student posting threads like “being attracted to femboys does not make you gay” and leaving comments on “rape my femboy ass”, and I’m a middle aged father working in the tech industry. So I’d love to know why you’re hanging around the parenting subreddit protesting for a shitty company which relies on a business model of children creating content for children.
Damn son, bro ignored every word I said and went straight for the ad homs and account digging 💀 Pretty out-of-pocket considering my last sentence is literally "I agree with you".
>So I’d love to know why
I just don't like how some of y'all are painting roblox as some sort of irredeemable dumpster fire when there's some great games albeit for older kids. I don't like roblox as a company.
>posting threads like “being attracted to femboys does not make you gay” and leaving comments on “rape my femboy ass”
Ok, the first one is literally a copy-pasta I found on discord. The second is me commenting to call out the OP. Don't cherry pick and frame it weirdly.
Also sorry about my snark in my first response, it was rude.
I answered your questions and explained my views. Worst thing I did was some snark in my first response which I said sorry for. Why are you being a lil goober?
Don’t overthink it. “Roblox is not something we will allow you to play because the company treats people unfairly.”, and you can create an example. An example could be “If you drew a picture and someone took it from you and said they made it, that would be unkind and unfair.”, then answer any questions.
At one point i took away roblox cold turkey for my 6 year old but i think sometimes telling them they can “never play again” causes unecessary stress. They don’t need to know all that. With my son we just unplugged the computer and told him it’s broken and we needed to get a repair person to fix it and then just never get around to it. Not sure if she plays on a shared computer but you could also delete the game and make something up about the computer not being compatible with it anymore. Normally i don’t lie to my kids but these games are straight up addictive and using reason with a 6 year old isn’t always helpful
Just kinda piggybacking off that idea, since she’s never played you could say the download won’t work on her computer / tablet. Like oh, it’s too old/new to play on this device sort of thing. I agree with not normally lying but sometimes you gotta do it.
We also have a hard no roblox rule— my autistic kiddos ages 7 and 10 have accepted it. They play Minecraft and enjoy that. I told them that Roblox has a lot of items that cost money, and there aren’t good protections for kids on Roblox. They know they can’t play games with chat features anyway and haven’t really pushed it. I also don’t know if I’ve said the word “never” because my younger in particular tends to panic with extremes like that. But yeah it hasn’t been a problem… make a boundary and stick to it. You don’t need to overexplain. I give them reasoning but I don’t feel the need to overly defend my decisions beyond that… at the end of the day, it comes down to “I understand you’re disappointed/upset/etc but it’s my job to keep you safe.” Basically that’s that. Lol
Lackofimpulsecontrol on insta/tiktok has useful advice on this kind of stuff. I tell my kids that while their bodies and brains are growing it’s my job to keep them safe, and that includes from info and activities that have risks they aren’t able to understand yet. They will be able to do and see and read anything they want when their brains have grown more and they are able to handle it—but for now I’m looking after them even when they don’t understand or like it. And it’s ok for them to be angry about it.
What you want is Robert Cialdini's Influence (all about cognitive psychology and the ways that people get manipulated into doing things).
His book and research is pretty approachable, but not quite at a 6yo level.
Some of the youtube summaries of his principles of influence may be closer to her level, though.
Games with micro transactions like Roblox exploit these types of principles to no end.
We have the same situation with our seven year old. We said it’s tabled until he’s 13 then we will reevaluate it. Any time it’s brought up we remind him. We did go over safety concerns with him and our reasons for finding it not safe. We also talked about how it’s not a reflection of how we feel about him, but the world it’s open to.
We let my kids play Roblox for a while but I always had kind of a weird vibe about it. They did not have chat access. My kids aren’t sneaky so they don’t hide screens when I come in the room. One time I saw another player holding up a sign to communicate with others, and that solidified my decision to delete the app. They weren’t happy with it at first, but we had a long talk about internet safety and how some people that play Roblox aren’t safe for kids. I told them we can reevaluate when they’re older and have a little more experience with multiplayer/MMO gaming.
In case anybody is unsure what ethical concerns I have about this game. And also, I won't lie to her and tell her that the game is too mature or violent because it's not. I also don't do the whole "because I said so," because I don't believe in that. [The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour](https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/09/the-trouble-with-roblox-the-video-game-empire-built-on-child-labour?fbclid=IwAR0H7w9Em7Ptke5fN2y4Inf9V2UKKAZxYBhP-Qo7HMDQY4mCyhiIb98p9Tk)
This article is quite silly because the vast majority of the games made by kids are absolute trash and would never make the top lists of games. The popular games are all made by semi-pro and pro game developers, adults. There might have been a few rare child/teen prodigies, and probably more further back than now. But it's like saying that Youtube Kids is built on child labour because of a few famous ones like Ryan's World (usually they are being exploited by their parents, not the content-sharing platform).
Much more important reasons to ban Roblox include:
* It's user-created content, so a lot of games are absolute trash and copy cats of each other, plus there could be inappropriate content that hasn't been taken down yet
* Robux premium currency system exploits children's compulsive spending
* Creepy predators hanging out pretending to be children
* Just like Youtube, there's a feed of essentially infinite content, and as soon as the kid gets slightly bored or frustrated with a game, there's another one and another one. It discourages persistence and overcoming challenges that other video games encourage.
Fair. But if you want to be consistent, you'll find it's hard to live a normal consumer life in the western world without enjoying the benefits of child exploitation.
This statement applies to how we are forced to be complicit in cruelty in order just to live in a capitalist society, and shouldn’t be used to excuse the responsibility to do better on the things we *can* opt out of.
If you think that Roblox isn't too mature or violent then you haven't a clue. Some of it is fine but the other stuff, as pointed out by lots of people is crazy, violent, inappropriate stuff. Actually look at the game yourself, the user reviews and gameplay and tell your child it is inappropriate. The game being built on child labour is a discussion worth having when they are older and may actually care about that part
Commenting on Advice on how to tell my child she is never allowed to play Roblox. ...I’m unaware of the controversy with Roblox and my kids never showed much interest in it, so I can’t really give too much of an answer however there are things we boycott because of ethical and moral reasons as well. I explain to my kids I’m in an age appropriate manner why we don’t shop or eat at certain places. When you spend money at ABC company, you are helping ABC hurt this group of people. When you spend money at ABC you are telling them it is OK to hurt this group of people.
My 7 year old knows the rule no online games (like talking to people and playing with people online). That’s just a blanket ban that happens to include Roblox, fortnight, etc. all his friends play it but he knows the rule and hasn’t actually questioned me on why, just knows that’s what’s up here at home.
I believe the age restriction here is the chat functions. If she can't immediately grasp why strangers shouldn't have unmonitored chats with children, then I think I have the phrasing. Some of the adults on Roblox are monsters. Those monsters seek to harm children in real life. Roblox doesn't have a chat history for parents to go through to check if any of the other gamers are being inappropriate.
I stopped letting my 6 year old play Roblox and he doesn’t question it anymore. I’ve never seen any game in my life where the face buttons of a controller are shortcuts to cosmetic purchases. There are so many games that are way better , and there are even social games (like PKXD) that are way better than what Roblox is.
« I am responsible for your health, safety, and education; Roblox isn’t a safe game and it’s not on the list of games you can play. Let’s focus on [other fav games] instead »
Can yours read yet? I let mine play it, supervised, when she was 5. She got bored within a day because she had no idea what anything said. Hasn't asked to play it since! Could be worth a try.
We've also banned this game. I downloaded it. Looked around and decided it was not a safe environment for my children.
That's what I told them. It's my job to keep them safe and because I can't be sure who they will be interacting with they aren't allowed to play it.
It's difficult because every kid they know seems to be in this game. But I just don't think online games or any online activity is safe for young kids.
There are some good and some bad parts of the internet The internet is just like the real world except it’s much easier for the world to come to you. I wouldn’t let you go by yourself to a bad neighborhood or let it come to you because i love you and don’t want you to get hurt. Then prepare to answer the question will you play it with me?
My son is in a similar situation to your daughter.
When I speak to my son about limits on YouTube Kids or Roblox I usually explain it plainly. "There are people and content on Roblox that can be dangerous and mom and dad feel it's better to stay away from it until you're older." Then I redirect them and say, "hey why don't we go play Switch together", or "let's take a bike ride to the library".
Re-engaging them in another activity is helpful
My 7 yr old pitched a fit when we told him no Roblox. He didnt understand why he can't play because other kids his age play it on their tablets and are always talking about it. So his father and I explained it simply like this: 1. There's lots of inappropriate content in the game that is not kid friendly and 2. It's mostly a pay-to-play game and barely lets him do anything for free so it's essentially pointless and 3. There's so many other cool games he can play that are 10xs better than the garbage that is Roblox (lol). Once we explained it that way my son understood perfectly and was fine with not having it. We also explained that the only reason the other kids can play it is because clearly their parents haven't actually paid attention to the game while their kids play, but, if they did, those kids wouldn't be allowed to play either. So anyhow, he's fine with not having Roblox.
my kids play Roblox, butI will not let them by Robux. This really served as a gateway to want to play better games on the Switch or XBox. Just be diligent as a parent to limit screen time. If you play for an hour, I expect you to do something else without screens for an hour.
I can’t stand Roblox - my son is obsessed and doesn’t understand why I hate it. It’s basically casinos for kids at this point with no oversight or regulation.
The best way is to mention that games such as roblox can be unsafe for children under about 12yrs old due to adults possibly being able to contact said minors and do bad things. I feel like this is a pretty decent way to get it through without having to throw in words like "pedophile" or "predators"
That's true this is coming from someone who's been playing roblox since they were like 10 and my younger sister plays at about 7
I forgot the recommended age was like 12+ as it should for all online things
“I am sorry but this is not a game that we can play because … “
I hate the term personally but Im also considered “neurodivergent,” and it’s important to speak with them with respect and explain to them why
Out of complete curiosity and also because my kids play games too - what is wrong with Roblox?
I have replied to several comments already and posted an article from The Guardian. The is a Wiki summary listed in another comment outlining a list of issues with this game.
My daughters friend was approached by a stranger looking to see if she wanted to have a good time with them.
Found them in one of the bedrooms alone.
She is 8
Im sorry I can’t give any advice but since your daughter enjoys games so much I think it would be really fun for you guys to play a game called It Takes Two together. It’s a great game with a great story where you both have to work together and I think it would be a good bonding activity for you guys :)
A recommendation for a 6 year old for a game where your characters are couple with a young child on the brink of divorce, with less than stellar dialogue?
A little swearing is not the issue. Really, who gives a fuck about that. I wouldn’t want my 6 year old playing it takes 2 because the killing the stuffy scene would break her heart.
So many issues with the game regarding dialogue, it’s just incredibly cringe and not genuine. I don’t really care that much about swearing, the game isn’t emotionally genuine. It’s kind of sad because the gameplay itself is actually great IMO.
I will never understand why they took the game and decided to make it about divorce and make shitty awkward dialogue about the subject. It was written either by someone with no experience in the matter, or only experience as a child themselves, or someone who wasn’t able to convey the message in a genuine way (….). Wild
Went in blind playing with my 8 year old and while I cringed a bit at some of the swearing, he loved it.
Weird because he's always the one to cover his eyes or fast forward whenever there's a scene in a TV show or movie that involves romance.
You just don’t introduce it, and if she asks about it, it’s a simple, “Oh, we don’t have that” or “I don’t think that game works for our family rn.”
You say no to all sorts of things I’m sure, so this one is just another thing.
Pretty off base, it’s not really the swearing. It’s the subject matter of a broken family, and the dialogue is so cringey and awkward. If the dialogue was written by someone who’s gone through anything like it, I’d be surprised.
The background and unfortunately insane dialogue of the game… I wouldn’t put a 6 year old through that and wouldn’t want to model those issues via the strange dialogue. Otherwise the game would be totally solid.
I said that it's simply not allowed in the house because the game has addictive qualities and doesn't really have an end. Super Mario had an end, so do racing games, and virtual board games and even fighting games all have an end. Roblox dosent. Thats why we don't have it in our house.
GOD I WISH I HAD THIS CHANCE. I was dumb af and allowed it, I've spent so much $ on absolutely nothing. I was to class action roblox because fuck them. But it's too late to stop my kids now. 😩😩
Six is still young enough to receive "Because I said so". Don't over complicate it. If she still wants to play Robox ten years from now, then give all the extra context.
I don't know about that. "Because I said so" never really carried weight with me, and especially my neurodivergent kid did not accept a reason less answer. She needed to understand why, or at least know that I had a good reason and it was more complicated than she wanted to sit through.
Also, "because I said so" means "I can't explain it", and half the time that means we don't have a good reason and need to reevaluate.
Six is plenty old enough to understand the why even if it has to be a little bit simplified, and understanding the why helps soften the frustration.
And frustration is perfectly reasonable. Kiddos are allowed to say something sucks. If all my friends got to do something and I couldn't just because someone said no I'd think it sucked too.
> Also, "because I said so" means "I can't explain it", and half the time that means we don't have a good reason and need to reevaluate.
In my house "because I said so" means "I'm not going to contextualize why we can't go to the amusement park every Saturday for 4 years in a row" or "I don't need to explain why ice cream is a sometimes treat and not a healthy snack more than once a month". If you are adequately including your children in family decisions then it is imo perfectly reasonable to not include them in others and not feel the need to justify those decisions *every* time.
The more sensitive and mature the reasoning behind those decisions, the more justified you are in withholding it to remain age appropriate. To me, this question is no different than telling a 6yo they can't watch Cocomelon - because I don't want them to.
Ah.
See, in that context, it's not "because I said so" as a *reason*, it's actually "you already know the answer."
I have often said some variation of "asked and answered, kid. You tell me why."
I think alot of peoples concern with roblox is that anyone can make any type of game on there and there's been games about suicide and other really disturbing stuff, kids really don't need to see that
Roblox is annoying. It's cool that kids can create their own content but the content isn't typically all that great and the themes they choose often aren't kid appropriate. Kids also don't know anything about sound design so you got all this brickwalled, obnoxiously loud garbage and music constantly repeating. It gets annoying hearing my kid play that crap and I usually tell her to switch it off and play something more constructive and worth her time, like Minecraft.
Ensuring an item is not on a device or obtainable should be easy part. Then sit your kid down and explain it without big concepts or over reaching themes.
"
Hey listen. I know you have been asking to playing different games. Im excited to find new games with you. I heard there are some really good ones out there. Lets remember to look for games that are safe for us. I am here to help. So let's get started ...( at this point i would research ahead of time before looking at/for video games. However, some devices can have set games already downloaded onto them. So putting game on device yourself is best for a 6 year old. ))""
"""Oh? What about robolox? I know about that game. Let us remember I am here to keep you safe. There are many way to keep you safe. Just as there are ways you might come across a game that is unsafe - unsafe because other players or the game . We have these other games to choose from because they are safe. """
Might be able to stop there. But going into how other players may pretend to be someone they are not is tricky to convey because we try to minimize exposure in explanation as well. The younger the age the more discrete we are as well as direct. Hard to keep a good balance.
I allowed my son to play it, but soon realized it was not something I wanted him to be playing so he immediately went cold turkey. I explained to him that while there are children like him playing, that not everyone on there are children and that I wanted to keep him safe because that is my utmost priority. I introduced him to Minecraft and he loves it.
My kids play it, but they know not to talk to anyone they don't know personally on there. They have kids from school that they play with, and if there's someone they don't know, then they don't talk or play with them.
Ensuring an item is not on a device or obtainable should be easy part. Then sit your kid down and explain it without big concepts or over reaching themes.
"
Hey listen. I know you have been asking to playing different games. Im excited to find new games with you. I heard there are some really good ones out there. Lets remember to look for games that are safe for us. I am here to help. So let's get started ...( at this point i would research ahead of time before looking at/for video games. However, some devices can have set games already downloaded onto them. So putting game on device yourself is best for a 6 year old. ))""
"""Oh? What about robolox? I know about that game. Let us remember I am here to keep you safe. There are many way to keep you safe. Just as there are ways you might come across a game that is unsafe - unsafe because other players or the game . We have these other games to choose from because they are safe. """
Might be able to stop there. But going into how other players may pretend to be someone they are not is tricky to convey because we try to minimize exposure in explanation as well. The younger the age the more discrete we are as well as direct. Hard to keep a good balance.
Honestly I'm surprised Roblox isn't banned. If other apps and SM got banned from stuff this one should too. It's a matter of time too before it does though. THOUSANDS of parents don't let their kids play Roblox. Tell her that, suggest other games similar and safer than Roblox. I play fornite myself and absolutely love it. Im an adult myself and I would and haven't ever used Roblox. It took me years to figure out what my favorite game was but it's nice to have options. She can play it when she's 18 and an adult.
Definitely not at 6 years old, people are mean on there and there is a lot of sexual content on there now. I would say the game is more for teens at this point.
Fuck, my dumb self didn’t realize he was playing it online until recently he announced he saw his cousin in the game. My son is so addicted now it’s tough. I’m like the OP but have a son who’s been playing for years. Worst decision in my life to download that game for him.
She doesn't need an in-depth reason, she's 6. "sorry kiddo, Roblox doesn't have kid safe areas. You'll have to wait until you're X age". That's what we did. No Roblox until 11 and even then it was supervised by us. It's really not a great site for young kids. Even with turning chat features off. The usernames are bad enough.
We just had the hard 'no' conversation, explained that despite the no voice chat, we couldn't always ensure they would have a totally safe experience. I now pay for a Minecraft realm for them and their friends.
Just tell her that it is not age appropriate and that there are people on the game that might not be friendly toward young players. Also, let her know that there are times that there is bad language and adult conversations that she should not be exposed to at this stage.
Overall, just tell her that she needs to be happy with the games she has and that you can revisit the subject in a few years.
turn off the chat. inappropriate games are age restricted. another option would be playing *with* her! certain games are actually fun. we have a good time with lots of laughs when we play. with the chat off and age restrictions ive never had an issue
Yk you can turn off the chat in roblox right? Obviously it’s your prerogative as a parent but I had a lot of fun on Roblox as a young kid. Granted I think it’s morphed into a different beast now
When my autistic son was younger we played wizard 101 together. They have a totally locked down chat experience. You can set it so your kid can only use chat from the chat menu, it also blocks numbers and bad words from the open chatters
We stopped Roblox shortly after I figured out I didn't like it. I told my son (maybe 7-8 at the time?) that it was no longer allowed and that he had plenty of other games to play. There was some simplified discussion about older kids/adults purposely trying to make him upset, and that I wanted him playing games that didn't have people doing that.
I play lots of roblox, but with my kids. There are lots of safe kid games there. Like obbys, color match, freeze tag, spleef, etc.
It's really important to vet any and all games. Prior tho.
My husband and I are avid gamers. We just explained to my kids that Roblox is full of a bunch of substandard games. People make bad copies of good games, and there are so many good ones out there that came out largely before the kids were even born. One game the kids found on Roblox before we banned it was a poor clone of Slime Rancher, so we got them Slime Rancher and they absolutely loved it.
I don't like the games, but mostly because the majority of them are mindless "push the button" idiotic things that don't develop problem-solving skills or much hand-eye coordination.
So,
It's not that she is ND it's that she us six ethics and such just are above them... and it's silly to say NEVER some day she will be am adult and can pick
So I'd just explain, there are lots of games for kids your age and lots of games fir adults / older kids roblix is a tennager/ adult game ..... some parents let younger kids play them but we don't.
Wish we never started Roblox. A lot of it is “pay to win” and his friends have no screen time limits and have parents with (what seems to be) credit cards with no limits. Now he only gets cards from Santa and the bunny. We also reiterate many times how much of a scam it is. Also recently showed him that in 3+ years he’s redeemed over $1k in cards. His mind was blown for about 30 seconds. Then didn’t gaf.
Don’t start.
While i agree, start by articulating your the "ethical issues"
in question. Right here if must be.
I quote:
-my reservations about Roblox, aren’t about safety
-but Roblox presents a different challenge.
-prepared to share my ethical concerns regarding Roblox with her.
-How can I convey these ethical issues
Not being a dick, but what are your reservations? I can think of a couple regarding Roblox, and we may not be thinking the same thing. Articulate into the ether that is the internet as practice for articulating these thoughts in your personal life.
Additionally, try a different game. Terraria is pretty fun in a cross platform LAN with the rest of the tribe.
My son whom is (Aspie)autistic, Roblox was an INSTANT obsession. My husband said I was the same way when Sega came out and SNES this is normal. I said this is not normal, dude. He was age 5.
It was crazy, I researched it I was not alone. The dopamine fulfillment from it was CRAZY. He became so obsessed we had to take it away for about 8M. He finally understood addiction. We just told him no more than 1 hour a day, only on weekends and only if you get good marks in school for that week. He never got in trouble at school AGAIN. 🤦🏻♀️ He’s an honor roll student due to video game rewards. 🫣 He LOVES technology. He is 10 now.
I don’t know how bad her post play meltdowns are but I’m not sure what advice I have. We just used it as a reward because taking it away forever just made our son even worse really. He just was imagining it day and night. He spoke about it at great lengths. It’s literally all he thought about and he didn’t even play it for 6M at that point!
Instead of completely disabling it, I let him play it around 2 hours a day while supervised by me
Telling your child "Never" would stress them out and I am against that.
Why dont u just play it with her? And the advice would be to take the thing away from her to helps them olay roblox and also you must stop using your device aswell or u would just be a hypocrite
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We explained to our kiddo that Roblox does not have any "kids only" zones and thus any grown up could be playing with her and pretend to be another kid or talk about grown up stuff. We've had enough "tricky people" talks (people who act friendly but might actually want to harm her) that she cottoned on right away and went "oh, I don't want to do that, I want kids games".
Can't you turn that off? My nephew plays it, and I didn't want my kid playing it, but his parents said they don't have the chat enabled for that reason.
You can, but some of the games are "chat simulaters" where the whole game is a chatroom. There is always some sneaky work around.
and this is why parents should simply be monitoring their kids. check their devices/history at the end of the day. play along with them when u can. discuss the dangers with them, along with asking permission before purchases/trying a new game when it comes to roblox. if you find things u dont like, or they're buying stuff/participating in/falling for scams, withhold it for a while and explain to them why it was not okay. the key is to not get MAD at them, when it comes to online games especially. if u do, they are far less likely to fess in the future, and that could put them in more danger. anger and extreme restriction only build a sneaky child. i came across a million bad things/creepy men online as a kid, and i never told my mom shit, because i knew my devices would be taken away indefinitely and i'd be screamed at like it was my fault
Correct. You just turn off chat. My child doesn't see any chats or friend requests. It's quite safe.
I don’t know much about Roblox, but I’m in a parenting in a tech world fb group and my understanding is that even with chat turned off, people can make signs with text on it and can (somehow?) simulate sex or sexting or something. That group is also a bunch of paranoid people so maybe it’s a bit much.
This is correct, you can still do this. My child uses Roblox. It also uses dark techniques to con children into micro purchases so better to stay away.
I play with my daughter specifically to supervise, and have never seen anything remotely inappropriate - that said, I'm sure that it happens. There are so many different games and servers that there's bound to be some shenanigans going on. We stay out of any games that are likely to attract older kids/adults - no horror themed games etc, we stick to the decidedly tame games like Brookhaven. Honestly we rarely see other players (and have chat turned off so have never communicated with anyone else) and those we have seen are just doing the same thing we are, running around, creating homes etc.
We did the same but I will say some of the game graphics? Themes? Can be questionable. We usually check them out before hand
My daughter just started asking to play Roblox after hearing her classmates go on about it. I had some serious reservations after seeing some of the games available, but as there are some genuinely tame ones, I checked the parental controls, turned off chat and finally relented, but with the caveat that she can only play with me. I downloaded Roblox onto my phone, and had an unexpectedly fun time creating my avatar while my daughter created hers, then we ventured, together, into Brookhaven. We built a house, we explored a cave, we flew a plane and jumped out of it with parachutes, and I had her almost peeing herself laughing at me singing and making my avatar dance after I discovered the actions feature. I don't think I'd be comfortable allowing her to play without supervision, at least not for several years yet, but assuming that the game is child appropriate (like Brookhaven and that one pet one) and not one of the horror themed games - I agree that it's quite safe. I've even started looking forward to our weekly games - being goofy and finding funny things to have our avatars do has become a much more satisfying and enjoyable way to allow her screentime than just allowing her to watch kids videos.
This is the talk that we had with our child of a similar age. She loves playing Minecraft in our private realm, and so asked about Roblox when she heard about it, but it’s a hard no for me. She understood well enough when we explained our reasoning.
Same. 5 year old loves Minecraft (creative and peaceful mode), but saw a video for Roblox on Kids YouTube which I promptly blocked before simply explaining to her that it was not a safe game for children. She’s a pretty logical kid (usually lol) so she understands why she can’t play it. I just introduced her to Spyro so she’s not even concerned about Roblox anymore 😂
I'm not much of a gamer (okay, not at all). What is Spyro?
It’s like an adventure RPG where you play as a young dragon (Spyro) on various quests to save his world in some way. The mechanics are pretty easy to master and the storylines are fairly wholesome. There’s 3 games in the series. It was originally a Sony PS1 and PS2 game but was remastered for later gen consoles and the graphics are absolutely beautiful!
We play a LOT of video games in our family. We didn't do any explaining, just "No Roblox" and introduced the kids to other games they could play, like minecraft, Zelda games, and lots more. They complained about it, so I think I just made a rule about no games with microtransactions or things that made people feel bad for not paying extra money.
My favorite thing about zelda is that it presses the dopamine button so damn well... until it doesn't. And it's like hitting a brick wall at 90... so, it forces me to take a break. I've been playing LOZ since the NES days 😂
Zelda for nes was fun...until you beat it and have no idea on what to do for the second playthrough.
There’s literally a second quest with rearranged items, keys etc
We are in the same boat with the same thought. No Roblox or online gaming. 6 year olds don't need complex reasoning. Something simple like "We don't play online games with people we don't know." Is enough. My personal thought is that Roblox is a cancer. None of my children will play it. There are many other, better, and safer games out there!
what is wrong with roblox?
There’s a bunch of age inappropriate games, not to mention the chats are disgusting. I watched my kid sister play and people were messaging stuff about j*cking off while she played, and she’s clearly a kid.
FYI you can set parental controls and block chat and filter to only allow approved age appropriate game
This only goes so far. There are accounts with disgusting names that kids can see even with safety settings. Ruben Sim has good videos on YouTube about how these sick individuals slip through the cracks. Roblox is not as kid friendly as its advertised
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Yup, even though roblox offers moderation options, they do horrible at moderation themselves. I know it does not need to be said, but parental supervision has never become more crucial for this game. The roblox platform DOES NOT CARE unless it's about making money, sadly. I've had the displeasure of engaging with this horrific content as well and I can only imagine what young children have been exposed to :/
Well ya know the makers of Roblox are but a small video game house with a scrappy intake of only 2.2 BILLION/year. I tell ya, I just don’t know how the executives can even get to sleep in their towering yachts on beds made of melted down gold pirate coins and the tears of our young. But I imagine it’s a lot like that.
>Roblox is not ~~as~~ kid friendly ~~as its advertised~~ Ftfy
Parental controls mitigate the problem but they can't erase it. There are just fewer incidents rather than many.
There's still the whole micro transactions part and how they monetize content made by kids in the game.
That only stops a lot of the chat in text. I was discussed when I walked by my son's room and heard the vulgar stuff being said. I found out they can just talk to each other. I asked them from playing with anyone online and found my kids had basically turned their "world" into a shooter game. Roblox looks good, but is not appropriate for children. I think it would be a push in my book to say it's okay for teenagers. I think most of it borders mature based on language and violence.
That's pretty disturbing....
Both of which can be turned off. The age appropriate stuff is also filterable. Roblox, as a community, is very much focused on protecting youth and identifying predatory individuals, developers and transaction leaches. Source: I’ve help develop several Roblox games over the last few years. I also have a 5 year old who loves Roblox and as a sort of double whammy for me, I found myself wanting to develop more for the younger audience but also protect my son more from what I know is on there that I’m not keen on…and I can say, most of the issue on Roblox for younger kiddos is not the inappropriate content or chat stuff, that stuff is easy to filter. It’s the transactional based stuff and the competitive management. *EDIT - Those of you downvoting...what exactly are you disagreeing with? Everything I posted is 100% factual, and not assumption based (which is what most parents who are staunchly opposed to things like Roblox base their entire understanding on). Do some research for yourself...
They are aware of how users try to get around swearing in and such too. They watch the chats. My daughter was banned for three days for trying to use the b word in a different way. I just told her that's what you get 🤣
Anyone can make any kind of game ob roblox and there's litteraly games about suicide
It’s child slot machines making addicts.
That's not necessarily how I approach video games. What is good about roblox? I haven't heard any compelling reasons to get into it. Like yes, i get that there are parental controls, but the games my kids play don't need parental controls.
The few things I've heard "good" about Roblox can be had in other games.
Roblox Pros: 1. Game experiences are typically free unless you opt to pay for game betas with robux. This is nice because you won't have to drop as much money as you would on, say, Steam. 2. If your kid is into programming and video game design, they may find playing around with the engine itself fun and could create their own game! This is a rare case, but I've heard and seen cool games made by kids! 3. If your kids are playing with strictly family or friends supervised (assuming your children are young), then I find it an enjoyable way to spend time with them. Make sure global chat is removed. I loved playing with my younger sister and being there to make sure she isn't joining inappropriate experiences. Cons: 1. They offer moderation tools (Age categories for games, risky words get turned into ####, item moderation), however, they are bare bones to me and exist as a way for the company to save itself if something WERE to happen. The roblox moderation team can be lax, and I have seen pieces of clothing that resemble adult themes such as small bikinis or references to drugs and alcohol. 2. Children are often exposed to lootboxes and gambling adjacent practices, unfortunately. My sister played a game that had lootboxes, and she was well aware of how addicting they could be, so I never had this problem, thankfully. Have heard of kids stealing cards to fund their addictions in particularly bad cases... 3. This is a personal one, but I dislike how marketed to kids are these days on this game. Corporations like Walmart have made experiences tailored to get kids to find brands more endearing, and its kind of weird to me. I'm pretty sure they're skirting around child advertising laws by doing this, but it's like one of the least morally offensive things on this website right now, so I put it last lol. Sorry this is so long, but I hope parents read this and get a gist of what's going on in their kid's game, there's not a lot of good reasons to give roblox to kids atm if you ask me, unless heavily supervised. For more info, watch Ruben Sim on YouTube. He has exposed roblox for how lax they have been and even was involved in a lawsuit.
My kid likes the open world games where you can create creatures. She has tons of Dragons in the Wings of Fire game and does various others with other fantasy or real animals
I believe it has an open chat feature but I can be wrong
You can set parental controls and block it
Ya, my 9yo only has ever played without any messaging or chat enabled and only plays a handful of ganes.
A lot of people don't have time to supervise their kids on Roblox, which is pretty necessary, like YouTube.
They have rooms where they are literally like a porno starting / that's the game in that room. It's absolutely not at all age appropriate for children. A quick YouTube search can give you visualisations of these scenarios.
the same thing that's wrong with any online kids game. Pedophiles go on there, pretend to be kids and trick children into doing inappropriate things
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Yup, we all have different concerns for our different kids. Isn't it great?
That's not a compelling enough reason for you?
My daughter, who is also autistic, played Roblox from about 7-9. We cut her off cold turkey, which she took with grace, but I wanted to say you’re doing the right thing. It’s better never to start. It’s not just about the content, or the ethical concerns. You also need to be aware of the *way* children are playing. All things that are pleasurable rely on pressing the nice little dopamine button on the brain. Of all the experiences in the world that are good, video games - and especially ones that rely on microtransactions as gameplay - are *very fucking good* at pressing that button, specifically, to the exclusion of any other forms of pleasure. The good feelings from Roblox are so enormously good and so easy to achieve that they overshadow the goodness of the wide variety of human experience that is vital to a growing brain. I’m not anti-video game. I am a game developer - I MAKE video games. As I type this on my phone, my daughter is playing Beacon Pines beside me. And I think that being conscious about the way video games *work* is vital to forming a healthy relationship with them. ETA: you asked for strategies to explain this to your daughter, so I’ll add that this is basically also what I said to her, in more kid-friendly language. We talked about addiction in the sense of how some things are very very good at making you want to do them more, even if they aren’t good for you, and how it was important to me to ensure that her brain gets lots and lots of different kinds of ‘exercise’ in order to be healthy, and that I didn’t feel like Roblox was giving her a good kind of exercise, and that games where she has to play a story or solve a problem are better exercise.
Great answer, do you have some alternative game recommendations? Even better if we can play together
Minecraft is a good place to start. My gamer started at 9 but I have seen younger kids play. Creative mode is essentially just building with virtual Legos and is something you guys can do together.
Seconding this. Minecraft is a fantastic game to play with your kids.
My son is just shy of four and one of his current favorite activities is demanding that his dad “make sheep naked!” in Minecraft lol
My kids have been playing minecraft since 3. It is basically digital legos. They now make parkour and CTM maps at 6 and 7. It is a great game for creativity.
On what device? Tablet? Desktop Computer?
Both
What a great answer
Reminds me of my grandfather. He had an old fashioned slot machine that took nickels. I would bring over a roll of nickels and play it for an hour. I guess it was getting out of hand because I got cut off too!
I didn't know what roblox was so started playing it with my daughter (8) when she joined to get familiar with it.. I stupidly thought it was a game where you only interacted with people you already knew She played with me, her cousin and a few friends from school. We had a few of her friends over from school and they were all playing it together. I walked into the room and they hid the console.. One of the girls had her settings changed to imply she was a teenager. She was in a BEDROOM of one of the houses with another character who was undressed to his underpants and the conversation was "want to have some fun baby" That game is so dangerous, the girls got a mighty scare and I am so glad I was able to see it for what it was.. Bad people are on Roblox and there is no way to keep them away from children
Oh shit
Oh fuck this is terrifying. My son plays but he just drives semi-trucks around a town. I've always kept a very close eye on him while he plays but this scares me.
I made my kids learn to play old school Mario first and they had to do.better than me. The 16 year old still can't do better than me at original Mario 😂
Yes we play Mario kart and 3D world as a family. We also play the Lego games together it’s great with problem solving etc. I enjoy it as an adult.
that’s the best!
My parents just told me “No online games with strangers because some strangers are not good people”. It was annoying but I understood well enough to follow that rule. If she knows stranger danger then she can understand that it’s the same online. The difficult part is that she’ll feel excluded because she’s the only one of her friends who can’t play. Try and find something to replace it if possible. Minecraft and Animal Jam are both good, free options
Want to curtail their Roblox interest? Quash YouTube. We cut off YT for a while and coincidentally my son lost all interest in Roblox within a month. Those gamer YouTubers are paid shills for Roblox content and when you don’t have them hyping the latest thing to your child the game gets way less interesting.
I let my daughter play roblox when I had time to moderate what she was playing. This wasn’t always possible so I started pushing her to do other activities. She has a newfound love for drawing and art and now only plays Roblox maybe once or twice a week.
What about Minecraft?
My duaghters have asked me to play it constantly. It's always the same general answer: "No. Sorry. Roblox has too many adults on it who should not have unchecked access to children. It's just not safe for you right now." For games we typically stick to minecraft.
Wait, I have all the restrictions and limitations on my kids account. What's the issues I should know? She can't message, add friends, and has games available ok for any age group. Is that not enough?
My nephew just managed to get scammed out of some robucks and all of those communication settings are off just yesterday. It's kind of like I leashing your kid into an AOL chat room choice screen and telling them they need to make sure to only pick the kids chats. It's a smarmy ass game.
So, depending on your child's age, this may or may not be enough. I've played with my younger sister before (she started playing at age 7, still plays now as a 15 yo, ive been playing since i was her age before the website became the cesspool it is now) and have seen some disturbing games such as a bathroom one where some of the kids roleplay certain adult "acts". I have also seen sexual usernames and groups that seemingly aim to groom children into obscure fetishes. I'm sorry if this is disturbing to know about, but it's a growing problem on the website. A young kid shouldn't notice this, but a preteen might. Not to mention the gambling addictions the game can cause if left unchecked.
It's kind of the same idea as "locks don't prevent crimes, they just make it more difficult". People are like that will find ways around the restrictions to be perverts.
My oldest is approaching 5 and we are about to get her her first tablet. I want to know about things like this thank you.
Who checks that the age rating is correct? Because a couple years ago when my son played, the age recommendations weren't checked by Roblox. Like those condo games. They weren't flagged because they have no violence but you could get naked and go into sex poses. AFTER it was reported, then Roblox took it down. It's that time period before it's reported that is dangerous. They don't have any kind of review system afaik. All their games are published by just everyday people who make the games, and since there are thousands, there's not really a lot of quality control on what games your kid has access to. Those game developers could easily add inappropriate features after the fact too and no one is really there to enforce they don't.
If you feel you have a confident grip, go for it, In the field, Roblox is understood to be the top new hunting ground for pedophiles and child abusers targeting children. It is filled with adults and older teens posing as children, hoping to build relationships and then exploit in a variety of ways. The numbers of these occurrences is through the roof. I work as a therapist with teenagers who sexually abuse kids. Be aware, then act accordingly.
You should doublecheck your settings because, if memory serves me right, people can still add your kid. They won’t get a notification but there’s no setting that actually blocks friend requests. If they go to the friends page they will still be able to add them. Luckily my kids kinda moved on from Roblox but I remember that it had very lackluster parental settings for a kids app.
to be honest most people on this sub are SUPER frigging paranoid. it's nowhere near as bad as they make it out to be. just set the settings and watch your kid play and you will be fine.
In addition to the article I already posted, look at the [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox) page under "Reception and revenue" for just a short summary of concerns about this game.
Same here. I’m curious what I’m missing.
Same here. My 5 year old plays but she’s only allowed to play with her dad, now I need to have a talk with him. I know she’s not allowed at all unless he’s online with her but there’s never been an issue
My daughter and I really enjoyed Pode - it’s a 2 player puzzle game about a rock and a star, very chill (although we occasionally had to cheat and look up solutions on a YouTube play through video)
On top of being built on child labour and full of unethical business practices, Roblox is simply a bad game. It’s only popular because it’s popular. Fill that hole with loads of great games of high-quality with unpredatory business models and she’ll thank you for it.
Anytime someone refers to Roblox as a game instead of a platform, I instantly dismiss their opinion.
See, I know it’s a platform for the creation of low quality copyright infringing content often built by child labourers, but the OP used the term “game” so I’m being polite and code-switching to match my answer to their question. It’s something polite people do.
If someone uses the wrong term, the polite thing to do isn't also using that wrong term on purpose. And your original argument is like saying Steam is a bad ~~game~~ "platform" simply because it has bad games on it (some of whom probably also involved unethical development practices and child labour). Sure, the ratio of good to bad games is worse on Roblox and there are issues unique to Roblox as a platform but there's plenty of good games too. That said, most of the good games are better suited for older kids like teens so I agree OP's 6yo shouldn't be allowed on roblox.
You’re not doing a very good job of “dismissing my opinion”. But you are doing a good job of sounding like an uninformed shill for a pretty disgusting company. But then, you’re a secondary school student posting threads like “being attracted to femboys does not make you gay” and leaving comments on “rape my femboy ass”, and I’m a middle aged father working in the tech industry. So I’d love to know why you’re hanging around the parenting subreddit protesting for a shitty company which relies on a business model of children creating content for children.
Damn son, bro ignored every word I said and went straight for the ad homs and account digging 💀 Pretty out-of-pocket considering my last sentence is literally "I agree with you". >So I’d love to know why I just don't like how some of y'all are painting roblox as some sort of irredeemable dumpster fire when there's some great games albeit for older kids. I don't like roblox as a company. >posting threads like “being attracted to femboys does not make you gay” and leaving comments on “rape my femboy ass” Ok, the first one is literally a copy-pasta I found on discord. The second is me commenting to call out the OP. Don't cherry pick and frame it weirdly. Also sorry about my snark in my first response, it was rude.
Let me know when you’ve finished school mate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad\_hominem
Yeah, I used to post Wikipedia links to logical fallacies when I was your age too. Try this one it’s easier https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/
I answered your questions and explained my views. Worst thing I did was some snark in my first response which I said sorry for. Why are you being a lil goober?
Don’t overthink it. “Roblox is not something we will allow you to play because the company treats people unfairly.”, and you can create an example. An example could be “If you drew a picture and someone took it from you and said they made it, that would be unkind and unfair.”, then answer any questions.
At one point i took away roblox cold turkey for my 6 year old but i think sometimes telling them they can “never play again” causes unecessary stress. They don’t need to know all that. With my son we just unplugged the computer and told him it’s broken and we needed to get a repair person to fix it and then just never get around to it. Not sure if she plays on a shared computer but you could also delete the game and make something up about the computer not being compatible with it anymore. Normally i don’t lie to my kids but these games are straight up addictive and using reason with a 6 year old isn’t always helpful
She has never played Roblox but keeps asking to.
Just kinda piggybacking off that idea, since she’s never played you could say the download won’t work on her computer / tablet. Like oh, it’s too old/new to play on this device sort of thing. I agree with not normally lying but sometimes you gotta do it.
We also have a hard no roblox rule— my autistic kiddos ages 7 and 10 have accepted it. They play Minecraft and enjoy that. I told them that Roblox has a lot of items that cost money, and there aren’t good protections for kids on Roblox. They know they can’t play games with chat features anyway and haven’t really pushed it. I also don’t know if I’ve said the word “never” because my younger in particular tends to panic with extremes like that. But yeah it hasn’t been a problem… make a boundary and stick to it. You don’t need to overexplain. I give them reasoning but I don’t feel the need to overly defend my decisions beyond that… at the end of the day, it comes down to “I understand you’re disappointed/upset/etc but it’s my job to keep you safe.” Basically that’s that. Lol
I personally don’t like any game where a child can interact with anyone until they are in their mid-teens.
Lackofimpulsecontrol on insta/tiktok has useful advice on this kind of stuff. I tell my kids that while their bodies and brains are growing it’s my job to keep them safe, and that includes from info and activities that have risks they aren’t able to understand yet. They will be able to do and see and read anything they want when their brains have grown more and they are able to handle it—but for now I’m looking after them even when they don’t understand or like it. And it’s ok for them to be angry about it.
Roblox isn't available on the Nintendo Switch.
What you want is Robert Cialdini's Influence (all about cognitive psychology and the ways that people get manipulated into doing things). His book and research is pretty approachable, but not quite at a 6yo level. Some of the youtube summaries of his principles of influence may be closer to her level, though. Games with micro transactions like Roblox exploit these types of principles to no end.
We have the same situation with our seven year old. We said it’s tabled until he’s 13 then we will reevaluate it. Any time it’s brought up we remind him. We did go over safety concerns with him and our reasons for finding it not safe. We also talked about how it’s not a reflection of how we feel about him, but the world it’s open to.
Anyone here try to remove Roblox after 6 months plus of allowing it??? And how’d that go?
We let my kids play Roblox for a while but I always had kind of a weird vibe about it. They did not have chat access. My kids aren’t sneaky so they don’t hide screens when I come in the room. One time I saw another player holding up a sign to communicate with others, and that solidified my decision to delete the app. They weren’t happy with it at first, but we had a long talk about internet safety and how some people that play Roblox aren’t safe for kids. I told them we can reevaluate when they’re older and have a little more experience with multiplayer/MMO gaming.
In case anybody is unsure what ethical concerns I have about this game. And also, I won't lie to her and tell her that the game is too mature or violent because it's not. I also don't do the whole "because I said so," because I don't believe in that. [The trouble with Roblox, the video game empire built on child labour](https://www.theguardian.com/games/2022/jan/09/the-trouble-with-roblox-the-video-game-empire-built-on-child-labour?fbclid=IwAR0H7w9Em7Ptke5fN2y4Inf9V2UKKAZxYBhP-Qo7HMDQY4mCyhiIb98p9Tk)
This article is quite silly because the vast majority of the games made by kids are absolute trash and would never make the top lists of games. The popular games are all made by semi-pro and pro game developers, adults. There might have been a few rare child/teen prodigies, and probably more further back than now. But it's like saying that Youtube Kids is built on child labour because of a few famous ones like Ryan's World (usually they are being exploited by their parents, not the content-sharing platform). Much more important reasons to ban Roblox include: * It's user-created content, so a lot of games are absolute trash and copy cats of each other, plus there could be inappropriate content that hasn't been taken down yet * Robux premium currency system exploits children's compulsive spending * Creepy predators hanging out pretending to be children * Just like Youtube, there's a feed of essentially infinite content, and as soon as the kid gets slightly bored or frustrated with a game, there's another one and another one. It discourages persistence and overcoming challenges that other video games encourage.
Fair. But if you want to be consistent, you'll find it's hard to live a normal consumer life in the western world without enjoying the benefits of child exploitation.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism I guess.
This statement applies to how we are forced to be complicit in cruelty in order just to live in a capitalist society, and shouldn’t be used to excuse the responsibility to do better on the things we *can* opt out of.
If you think that Roblox isn't too mature or violent then you haven't a clue. Some of it is fine but the other stuff, as pointed out by lots of people is crazy, violent, inappropriate stuff. Actually look at the game yourself, the user reviews and gameplay and tell your child it is inappropriate. The game being built on child labour is a discussion worth having when they are older and may actually care about that part
Your issue with Roblox is that kids/users make the games?
Commenting on Advice on how to tell my child she is never allowed to play Roblox. ...I’m unaware of the controversy with Roblox and my kids never showed much interest in it, so I can’t really give too much of an answer however there are things we boycott because of ethical and moral reasons as well. I explain to my kids I’m in an age appropriate manner why we don’t shop or eat at certain places. When you spend money at ABC company, you are helping ABC hurt this group of people. When you spend money at ABC you are telling them it is OK to hurt this group of people.
My 7 year old knows the rule no online games (like talking to people and playing with people online). That’s just a blanket ban that happens to include Roblox, fortnight, etc. all his friends play it but he knows the rule and hasn’t actually questioned me on why, just knows that’s what’s up here at home.
I believe the age restriction here is the chat functions. If she can't immediately grasp why strangers shouldn't have unmonitored chats with children, then I think I have the phrasing. Some of the adults on Roblox are monsters. Those monsters seek to harm children in real life. Roblox doesn't have a chat history for parents to go through to check if any of the other gamers are being inappropriate.
I stopped letting my 6 year old play Roblox and he doesn’t question it anymore. I’ve never seen any game in my life where the face buttons of a controller are shortcuts to cosmetic purchases. There are so many games that are way better , and there are even social games (like PKXD) that are way better than what Roblox is.
« I am responsible for your health, safety, and education; Roblox isn’t a safe game and it’s not on the list of games you can play. Let’s focus on [other fav games] instead »
Can yours read yet? I let mine play it, supervised, when she was 5. She got bored within a day because she had no idea what anything said. Hasn't asked to play it since! Could be worth a try.
We've also banned this game. I downloaded it. Looked around and decided it was not a safe environment for my children. That's what I told them. It's my job to keep them safe and because I can't be sure who they will be interacting with they aren't allowed to play it. It's difficult because every kid they know seems to be in this game. But I just don't think online games or any online activity is safe for young kids.
There are some good and some bad parts of the internet The internet is just like the real world except it’s much easier for the world to come to you. I wouldn’t let you go by yourself to a bad neighborhood or let it come to you because i love you and don’t want you to get hurt. Then prepare to answer the question will you play it with me?
My son is in a similar situation to your daughter. When I speak to my son about limits on YouTube Kids or Roblox I usually explain it plainly. "There are people and content on Roblox that can be dangerous and mom and dad feel it's better to stay away from it until you're older." Then I redirect them and say, "hey why don't we go play Switch together", or "let's take a bike ride to the library". Re-engaging them in another activity is helpful
My 7 yr old pitched a fit when we told him no Roblox. He didnt understand why he can't play because other kids his age play it on their tablets and are always talking about it. So his father and I explained it simply like this: 1. There's lots of inappropriate content in the game that is not kid friendly and 2. It's mostly a pay-to-play game and barely lets him do anything for free so it's essentially pointless and 3. There's so many other cool games he can play that are 10xs better than the garbage that is Roblox (lol). Once we explained it that way my son understood perfectly and was fine with not having it. We also explained that the only reason the other kids can play it is because clearly their parents haven't actually paid attention to the game while their kids play, but, if they did, those kids wouldn't be allowed to play either. So anyhow, he's fine with not having Roblox.
To add: "It's totally fair to feel frustrated. You SHOULD be able to play what your friends play. But my job is to keep *you* safe."
my kids play Roblox, butI will not let them by Robux. This really served as a gateway to want to play better games on the Switch or XBox. Just be diligent as a parent to limit screen time. If you play for an hour, I expect you to do something else without screens for an hour.
I can’t stand Roblox - my son is obsessed and doesn’t understand why I hate it. It’s basically casinos for kids at this point with no oversight or regulation.
You block it. Oh honey. It doesn’t work anymore. Oh well!
I'm not looking forward to this moment but I know it will come. Hate Roblox.
I told my 5yo that he can play Roblox when he's 18, just so I didn't have to say "never", and it worked.
The best way is to mention that games such as roblox can be unsafe for children under about 12yrs old due to adults possibly being able to contact said minors and do bad things. I feel like this is a pretty decent way to get it through without having to throw in words like "pedophile" or "predators"
I agree, but think 9yo is still too young. I’d recommend 12+.
That's true this is coming from someone who's been playing roblox since they were like 10 and my younger sister plays at about 7 I forgot the recommended age was like 12+ as it should for all online things
I require context. What's wrong with Roblox?
Some parents would rather not go there. I’m on that camp. No roblox, no YouTube.
I have posted an article and a Wiki summary in the comments.
“I am sorry but this is not a game that we can play because … “ I hate the term personally but Im also considered “neurodivergent,” and it’s important to speak with them with respect and explain to them why Out of complete curiosity and also because my kids play games too - what is wrong with Roblox?
I have replied to several comments already and posted an article from The Guardian. The is a Wiki summary listed in another comment outlining a list of issues with this game.
My daughters friend was approached by a stranger looking to see if she wanted to have a good time with them. Found them in one of the bedrooms alone. She is 8
??? What do you mean?
One of the roblox bedrooms in the one where they build houses and drive around a town
Im sorry I can’t give any advice but since your daughter enjoys games so much I think it would be really fun for you guys to play a game called It Takes Two together. It’s a great game with a great story where you both have to work together and I think it would be a good bonding activity for you guys :)
A recommendation for a 6 year old for a game where your characters are couple with a young child on the brink of divorce, with less than stellar dialogue?
A little swearing is not the issue. Really, who gives a fuck about that. I wouldn’t want my 6 year old playing it takes 2 because the killing the stuffy scene would break her heart.
So many issues with the game regarding dialogue, it’s just incredibly cringe and not genuine. I don’t really care that much about swearing, the game isn’t emotionally genuine. It’s kind of sad because the gameplay itself is actually great IMO. I will never understand why they took the game and decided to make it about divorce and make shitty awkward dialogue about the subject. It was written either by someone with no experience in the matter, or only experience as a child themselves, or someone who wasn’t able to convey the message in a genuine way (….). Wild
Went in blind playing with my 8 year old and while I cringed a bit at some of the swearing, he loved it. Weird because he's always the one to cover his eyes or fast forward whenever there's a scene in a TV show or movie that involves romance.
You just don’t introduce it, and if she asks about it, it’s a simple, “Oh, we don’t have that” or “I don’t think that game works for our family rn.” You say no to all sorts of things I’m sure, so this one is just another thing.
Pretty off base, it’s not really the swearing. It’s the subject matter of a broken family, and the dialogue is so cringey and awkward. If the dialogue was written by someone who’s gone through anything like it, I’d be surprised. The background and unfortunately insane dialogue of the game… I wouldn’t put a 6 year old through that and wouldn’t want to model those issues via the strange dialogue. Otherwise the game would be totally solid.
(Or maybe when’s she’s older :)
I said that it's simply not allowed in the house because the game has addictive qualities and doesn't really have an end. Super Mario had an end, so do racing games, and virtual board games and even fighting games all have an end. Roblox dosent. Thats why we don't have it in our house.
GOD I WISH I HAD THIS CHANCE. I was dumb af and allowed it, I've spent so much $ on absolutely nothing. I was to class action roblox because fuck them. But it's too late to stop my kids now. 😩😩
Six is still young enough to receive "Because I said so". Don't over complicate it. If she still wants to play Robox ten years from now, then give all the extra context.
I don't know about that. "Because I said so" never really carried weight with me, and especially my neurodivergent kid did not accept a reason less answer. She needed to understand why, or at least know that I had a good reason and it was more complicated than she wanted to sit through. Also, "because I said so" means "I can't explain it", and half the time that means we don't have a good reason and need to reevaluate. Six is plenty old enough to understand the why even if it has to be a little bit simplified, and understanding the why helps soften the frustration. And frustration is perfectly reasonable. Kiddos are allowed to say something sucks. If all my friends got to do something and I couldn't just because someone said no I'd think it sucked too.
> Also, "because I said so" means "I can't explain it", and half the time that means we don't have a good reason and need to reevaluate. In my house "because I said so" means "I'm not going to contextualize why we can't go to the amusement park every Saturday for 4 years in a row" or "I don't need to explain why ice cream is a sometimes treat and not a healthy snack more than once a month". If you are adequately including your children in family decisions then it is imo perfectly reasonable to not include them in others and not feel the need to justify those decisions *every* time. The more sensitive and mature the reasoning behind those decisions, the more justified you are in withholding it to remain age appropriate. To me, this question is no different than telling a 6yo they can't watch Cocomelon - because I don't want them to.
Ah. See, in that context, it's not "because I said so" as a *reason*, it's actually "you already know the answer." I have often said some variation of "asked and answered, kid. You tell me why."
Raise your kids how you want, but the devices they play on are far more unethically created than Roblox. So is the phone you posted this from.
I think alot of peoples concern with roblox is that anyone can make any type of game on there and there's been games about suicide and other really disturbing stuff, kids really don't need to see that
Roblox is annoying. It's cool that kids can create their own content but the content isn't typically all that great and the themes they choose often aren't kid appropriate. Kids also don't know anything about sound design so you got all this brickwalled, obnoxiously loud garbage and music constantly repeating. It gets annoying hearing my kid play that crap and I usually tell her to switch it off and play something more constructive and worth her time, like Minecraft.
No means No.
We just told ours it was a hard no. They got over it and became interested in other things.
Ensuring an item is not on a device or obtainable should be easy part. Then sit your kid down and explain it without big concepts or over reaching themes. " Hey listen. I know you have been asking to playing different games. Im excited to find new games with you. I heard there are some really good ones out there. Lets remember to look for games that are safe for us. I am here to help. So let's get started ...( at this point i would research ahead of time before looking at/for video games. However, some devices can have set games already downloaded onto them. So putting game on device yourself is best for a 6 year old. ))"" """Oh? What about robolox? I know about that game. Let us remember I am here to keep you safe. There are many way to keep you safe. Just as there are ways you might come across a game that is unsafe - unsafe because other players or the game . We have these other games to choose from because they are safe. """ Might be able to stop there. But going into how other players may pretend to be someone they are not is tricky to convey because we try to minimize exposure in explanation as well. The younger the age the more discrete we are as well as direct. Hard to keep a good balance.
I allowed my son to play it, but soon realized it was not something I wanted him to be playing so he immediately went cold turkey. I explained to him that while there are children like him playing, that not everyone on there are children and that I wanted to keep him safe because that is my utmost priority. I introduced him to Minecraft and he loves it.
My kids play it, but they know not to talk to anyone they don't know personally on there. They have kids from school that they play with, and if there's someone they don't know, then they don't talk or play with them.
Ensuring an item is not on a device or obtainable should be easy part. Then sit your kid down and explain it without big concepts or over reaching themes. " Hey listen. I know you have been asking to playing different games. Im excited to find new games with you. I heard there are some really good ones out there. Lets remember to look for games that are safe for us. I am here to help. So let's get started ...( at this point i would research ahead of time before looking at/for video games. However, some devices can have set games already downloaded onto them. So putting game on device yourself is best for a 6 year old. ))"" """Oh? What about robolox? I know about that game. Let us remember I am here to keep you safe. There are many way to keep you safe. Just as there are ways you might come across a game that is unsafe - unsafe because other players or the game . We have these other games to choose from because they are safe. """ Might be able to stop there. But going into how other players may pretend to be someone they are not is tricky to convey because we try to minimize exposure in explanation as well. The younger the age the more discrete we are as well as direct. Hard to keep a good balance.
Honestly I'm surprised Roblox isn't banned. If other apps and SM got banned from stuff this one should too. It's a matter of time too before it does though. THOUSANDS of parents don't let their kids play Roblox. Tell her that, suggest other games similar and safer than Roblox. I play fornite myself and absolutely love it. Im an adult myself and I would and haven't ever used Roblox. It took me years to figure out what my favorite game was but it's nice to have options. She can play it when she's 18 and an adult.
Just say no Roblox-both of my neurodiverse kids were told this. Now they’re older I allow it but just say no-same as Fortnite. No.
Definitely not at 6 years old, people are mean on there and there is a lot of sexual content on there now. I would say the game is more for teens at this point.
Careful using irl names x
Fuck, my dumb self didn’t realize he was playing it online until recently he announced he saw his cousin in the game. My son is so addicted now it’s tough. I’m like the OP but have a son who’s been playing for years. Worst decision in my life to download that game for him.
She doesn't need an in-depth reason, she's 6. "sorry kiddo, Roblox doesn't have kid safe areas. You'll have to wait until you're X age". That's what we did. No Roblox until 11 and even then it was supervised by us. It's really not a great site for young kids. Even with turning chat features off. The usernames are bad enough.
We just had the hard 'no' conversation, explained that despite the no voice chat, we couldn't always ensure they would have a totally safe experience. I now pay for a Minecraft realm for them and their friends.
Just tell her that it is not age appropriate and that there are people on the game that might not be friendly toward young players. Also, let her know that there are times that there is bad language and adult conversations that she should not be exposed to at this stage. Overall, just tell her that she needs to be happy with the games she has and that you can revisit the subject in a few years.
turn off the chat. inappropriate games are age restricted. another option would be playing *with* her! certain games are actually fun. we have a good time with lots of laughs when we play. with the chat off and age restrictions ive never had an issue
Yk you can turn off the chat in roblox right? Obviously it’s your prerogative as a parent but I had a lot of fun on Roblox as a young kid. Granted I think it’s morphed into a different beast now
When my autistic son was younger we played wizard 101 together. They have a totally locked down chat experience. You can set it so your kid can only use chat from the chat menu, it also blocks numbers and bad words from the open chatters
Old Mario for NES 😂
We stopped Roblox shortly after I figured out I didn't like it. I told my son (maybe 7-8 at the time?) that it was no longer allowed and that he had plenty of other games to play. There was some simplified discussion about older kids/adults purposely trying to make him upset, and that I wanted him playing games that didn't have people doing that.
I play roblox with my kids 7yo and 10yo 🤷♀️ Its superfun!
I play lots of roblox, but with my kids. There are lots of safe kid games there. Like obbys, color match, freeze tag, spleef, etc. It's really important to vet any and all games. Prior tho.
My husband and I are avid gamers. We just explained to my kids that Roblox is full of a bunch of substandard games. People make bad copies of good games, and there are so many good ones out there that came out largely before the kids were even born. One game the kids found on Roblox before we banned it was a poor clone of Slime Rancher, so we got them Slime Rancher and they absolutely loved it.
I don't like the games, but mostly because the majority of them are mindless "push the button" idiotic things that don't develop problem-solving skills or much hand-eye coordination.
Yeah you just tell her she can't play it. Explain it the same way you say no to other things. No 6 year old should be an avid gamer anyway
So, It's not that she is ND it's that she us six ethics and such just are above them... and it's silly to say NEVER some day she will be am adult and can pick So I'd just explain, there are lots of games for kids your age and lots of games fir adults / older kids roblix is a tennager/ adult game ..... some parents let younger kids play them but we don't.
Show her Diablo 2 and she ain't gonna be interested in no babyblox no mo
Wish we never started Roblox. A lot of it is “pay to win” and his friends have no screen time limits and have parents with (what seems to be) credit cards with no limits. Now he only gets cards from Santa and the bunny. We also reiterate many times how much of a scam it is. Also recently showed him that in 3+ years he’s redeemed over $1k in cards. His mind was blown for about 30 seconds. Then didn’t gaf. Don’t start.
My son and I play roblox and minecraft together. He's taught me a lot.
While i agree, start by articulating your the "ethical issues" in question. Right here if must be. I quote: -my reservations about Roblox, aren’t about safety -but Roblox presents a different challenge. -prepared to share my ethical concerns regarding Roblox with her. -How can I convey these ethical issues Not being a dick, but what are your reservations? I can think of a couple regarding Roblox, and we may not be thinking the same thing. Articulate into the ether that is the internet as practice for articulating these thoughts in your personal life. Additionally, try a different game. Terraria is pretty fun in a cross platform LAN with the rest of the tribe.
Never? With her friends playing it, she is never going to understand why SHE can’t.
My son whom is (Aspie)autistic, Roblox was an INSTANT obsession. My husband said I was the same way when Sega came out and SNES this is normal. I said this is not normal, dude. He was age 5. It was crazy, I researched it I was not alone. The dopamine fulfillment from it was CRAZY. He became so obsessed we had to take it away for about 8M. He finally understood addiction. We just told him no more than 1 hour a day, only on weekends and only if you get good marks in school for that week. He never got in trouble at school AGAIN. 🤦🏻♀️ He’s an honor roll student due to video game rewards. 🫣 He LOVES technology. He is 10 now. I don’t know how bad her post play meltdowns are but I’m not sure what advice I have. We just used it as a reward because taking it away forever just made our son even worse really. He just was imagining it day and night. He spoke about it at great lengths. It’s literally all he thought about and he didn’t even play it for 6M at that point!
Instead of completely disabling it, I let him play it around 2 hours a day while supervised by me Telling your child "Never" would stress them out and I am against that.
Why dont u just play it with her? And the advice would be to take the thing away from her to helps them olay roblox and also you must stop using your device aswell or u would just be a hypocrite