What is Roblox?

[Bmidreams]

I've just been saying no to it as I don't know what it is. It seems everyone has it though. Is it suitable for a 9 year old? Is it good? Problematic?

It's a gaming platform mostly used by children. It contains lots of different games to choose from mostly creating by other roblox users/developers. My 9 year old uses it and plays with her friends. You can control who can speak to them and what they see on chat, but swearing is banned and censored anyway.
You can use real money to buy in game purchases or outfits to wear, but it's not something you have to do, they can get on fine without it.
I think it's safe and have no concerns with my daughter using it. It's also nice for her to be able to interact and play imaginary games online with her friends, especially now when they can't meet in real life.
Hope that helps?

Thanks. It does. It's just hard to figure out how safe it is.

www.commonsensemedia.org/website-reviews/roblox

This website is always handy if you need to check something out.

Ds is 11 and plays roblox. He loves it and plays it with his cousins, they mainly play in a private server together

My ten year olds have had it a couple of weeks. It's fine, I've turned off the chat which makes me evil apparently as they can't access some games.

Make sure and use your child's birth year for the registration, rather than your own. This limits access to some features.

How can you control who they speak too?

My dd plays it I also think its fabulous, as all games you need t keep an eye on it, some dodgy things have happened on there.
But it's brilliant, lots of variety, funny...

My 9yo loves it, he can play with cousins in different countries or his mate up the road during lockdown. Chat is turned off. If they want to chat, they use WhatsApp video on my/other parents' phones.

Be prepared for the Roblox Monologue, slightly different from the Minecraft Monologue, but not much

Oh, he also plays Among Us, nice appropriate game, too.

I haven't encountered any problems. DS8 plays it and, occasionally, DS12. My youngest has added his friends and it's been great for him to be able to log on and see that someone he knows is playing and join their game. He has spent money buying various 'upgrades', but this is in no way necessary. It's his own money which would, in non Covid times, be spent on plastic throwaway crap, so I try to control my twitchy urge to say 'no' every time!

My ds aged 8 plays it. We’re always in the same room as him, mostly next to him on the sofa so we can see what he’s doing and never had any issues with it. The chat seems mostly group chats / total gobbledygook. We’ve had a lot of chats about online safety and not sharing personal things etc but there are some parental controls and you can block chat if you wish - although as others have said this does restrict some of the games.

The most annoying thing we’ve found is the constant asking for money for “Robux” (the online money you can spend in the game on clothing and accessories for their character). You can add the occasional £5 through the App Store or you can buy gift cards for it from W H Smith. You can play it without these things but once they get into it they really want all the extra stuff!

My DD was groomed on there in the chat function. She kept hiding the screen from me and when I saw it there was someone obviously sending sexual messages. To be fair, the rude words were asterixed out and at 9 she didn't seem to understand they were inappropriate.

DD got it at the start of lockdown 1, it's been a lifeline for her laying with her friends. I turned the chat off but she and her friends also use Skype so they run that in the background so they can talk to each other.

*playing

Like @Sirzy common sense media has been my go to site for anything my DS's want to get into

I used to use it so much that the boys started using themselves and would use it as evidence that what they were asking for was ok🤣.

If the feedback on there was bad they didn't bother asking.

It worked for me and I would recommend it to anyone with kids who are trying to balance the requests of kids who want to do what their friends are doing with o line safety.

I found about it on here many years ago.

My 10yo plays it and so does his 6yo brother (nearly 7 now). I dont like it but the chat is disabled for safety so they phone their friends and play together that way. Its the only way they can play with friends. I limit their time as it's addictive and can result in excitable behaviour from the younger or sulking from the elder if taken off it. 45mins is enough but we do allow an hour or even 90mins for the 10yo at the weekend.

They do bang on about it and it seems to me to have little redeeming features apart from being able to make your own games which ds1 has been doing with a more proactive friend.

So a way of playing but without the chat is to turn of the chat function?

Mine play without the chat function so if they know someone in RL on their they have to WhatsApp video them while playing.

The only problem we’ve found is that the game bugs and shuts off a lot loosing their latest gaming, it’s caused tears a few times as my daughter has lost ‘rare’ creatures that she had just got.

We don’t allow any real money to be spent on it as we don’t think it’s a well created game.

There*