AIBU to say roblox is not suitable for children and ruining our family life

[Slimmingsnake]

Murder game with a knife ,shark game with machine guns,robbing a bank with guns ....are these suitable for children?? The constant request for money to be spent on the game..we downloaded it after reading an article saying how good it was for children to learn from.well yes he now knows the names of different machine guns...oh that's an AK 47 mum...I feel duped because I would not of downloaded it if I knew there was knives and guns.....he has autism,and I've had to remove his laptop to keep him off it ..

I've got a Roblox account. The Dc's are my friends so I check what they're playing, if I don't like I'll tell them and they know I'll know! They are now 11 and 14.

@professormoody that's a little unnecessary. OP is asking for advice, on a parenting forum. Isn't that kind of the point?

OP, I haven't seen the games you refer to, but I've definitely seen unsuitable games on Roblox.
However, the fact is, you know your child and your preferences. If you deem them too graphic, or too violent, then that's your decision and it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks.
I think what you need to work on is setting the boundaries and enforcing the rules, not your gaming knowledge.

Give the laptop back with just minecraft on it, he will become interested!

My 8yr old has some SN and anxiety. He was loving ROBLOX but he started having more nightmares than usual so we took it off computer. Over and over he wanted it back on even though he knows why we took it down and then there was the story on the news about the rape on ROBLOX so we talked to him and said we won't be reinstalling it until he is older/can cope better/.cAn choose games that are suitable together.
He understood when I said some grown ups did a bad things to children over the internet on the Platform, he is aware about internet safety from school as such he has stopped asking to go on it now.

But it's not about the games that are available on there - it doesn't market itself as a platform for small children! I appreciate that your son's ASD complicates things for you and that is a complete pain for you to have to be so vigilant over stuff that might be a problem for him - but it's always going to be down to you at the end of the day. Parents have to make the tough decisions!

I think you are genuinely concerned but you are coming across as blaming Roblox.

I'm such a shit parent ,because I just can't workout what to do...all our gaming problems seemed to start when we downloaded that bloody game,it feels like he's addicted to it...that's certainly how he's acting since I removed his laptop...I don't know now weather Im Coming or going

I didn't say you did give him games for above his age, I ADVISED you to allow him games up to around a 12.

I would also advise you to speak to other parents of 8 year olds, ones you know in real life, children you actually life, as this may help you to understand that the problem is not the laptop and it's not the computer game. He likes the laptop because he has autistic spectrum conditions, not because it's GIVING him autistic spectrum conditions. By taking it away, you are taking away his link to normality, WHY would you want that?

There are some good tips on here, OP, thank heavens.

Personally I do have a problem with a society that encourages children to play violent video games. We can individually control what our own children have access to, but they are growing up in a society where a lot of other parents aren't exercising that control. I remember American pilots during the First Gulf War referring to killing civilians as if it had all just been a video game.

Colditz ,sorry I don't understand what you mean...

I do know the ones you're on about. Ds plays them, I don't like them but they're not too bad for an 11 year old. As has already been said Roblox is a complete mix of games. Some are suitable for 5 year olds some only for older ones. Problem is they're not age rated, there are thousands of games i think all programmed bythe subscribers to the programming part. If you're not happy with your Ds's choices then definately take it away.

If you send young men to war to kill actual people, they become callous. They may start speaking as though the people they killed meant nothing more to them than some charaters in a computer game. Are you seriously making the assumption that this was because computer games exist, rather than a PTSD comping mechanism after become an instrument of death?

Computers should only be used in a family area of the house until a child is responsible or old enough to be allowed to look at the entire Internet.

You wouldn't drop your ten year old off at the red light district on a Saturday night so why is it OK to allow them access to the same thing on the Internet?

Slimmingsnake, which bit don't you understand? I'll try to explain better.

Minecraft is more violent than Roblox. If you don't mind him bludgeoning farm animals to death, cool.

Any parent that lets their children game needs to do proper and thorough research into what they are letting them play.

Children have been playing violent games probably since the dawn of time.

There is no link between playing "violent" games and being violent. That's just an excuse. I manage to play Call of Duty every weekend and not shoot up my classroom.

Do you have anyone in your life that’s good with tech? A teenage niece/nephew that can help? If not then YouTube is YOUR friend not just for your DS. You should be able to set yourself as administrator on his laptop and then set him a profile up with games he is allowed to play already installed. He won’t be able to install anything without your say so.

If it’s an online platform then I’d suggest calling your internet provider as there will be a way to block the web page so he can’t access it.

My DD is 2.5 so haven’t gone Through this yet but seriously you need to educate yourself on this stuff and how to keep him safe online or he will run rings around you.

I'm sorry .im stressed ,I don't know what to do ..

@slimmingsnake - could you set up two users on his laptop - one Administrator account, that only you would have the password for, that can download games, and one for him, that is a more restricted account that can’t download games?

Slimmingsnake, I've told you what to do.

What, exactly, is the problem?

You seem to have a very unclear idea of why you don't want him to have his laptop, and you being unclear will be driving your son's stress levels very high.

So clearly tell me, like you're talking to him, why he can't have his laptop back.

If I was you I would get him a tablet with good parental controls and let him have age appropriate games. If he doesn’t like that then it is tough titties for him, he will have to find something else to do.

I get it’s hard in the meantime whilst he is getting used to not playing it but you can’t let it ‘tear your family apart’. It’s a game.

Just to let you know, I thought robox was a safe kids game but my dd7 and niece 9 came running to me saying someone had typed "you ready to have sex" !! I was shocked as didn't realise you could communicate like that. Kids are not happy but I've deleted it for now!

Ultimately you make the decisions and set the rules. However, providing there isn't graphic disturbing violence in a game, I do think to think parents tend to overreact to the concepts of weapons/violence/killing in games.

Children, including very young children, have played with these concepts forever, long before the advent of computer games. Some of the best classic family board games revolve around war, crime, piracy, murder etc! Think of the dark concepts in most classic fairy tales! Or classic children's playground games and nursery rhymes that are ultimately about death and violence.

In my own childhood, my brother and I played lots of war and crime themed computer games, including GTa. They haven't provoked any violence in our real lives. He still plays them to this day and has built a career around his aptitude with computers. My brother is literally among the gentlest people I know. He literally won't harm a clothes moth!

I would take the approach of focusing on control of real life behaviours and limiting moderation for what are basically (harmless) fantasies. Unless you observe that the game is directly provoking problems (like not sleeping enough, getting upset etc). But that is just one approach and everyone feels differently about this.

My 10yr old ds plays the pizza shop one and gets excited about earning $2 he then moans he has to work so many days to earn enough to buy a bed or something for his house so guess it's teaching him what life in a min wage job is like.

This suggests you can limit the games he plays to none violent ones. The bit I’ve highlighted in yellow

Yes, as an 8 year old, you should be with him when he's playing anything on a device. The devices should have parental locks that you never let your child know the passwords to.
Failing to do this is basic neglect. As a teacher with responsibility for safeguarding, if a child tells us that he's been playing o these games, we get the parents in and point out how damaging such games can be. We see so many children enacting those violent games in th playground it's scary!

I took the laptop because he won't accept any limits on the content of the games ,and he thinks he should be allowed to play for 10 hours in a row,and when we set limits of 2 hours a day he has screaming fits.the laptop is I not the main family room ,so I've seem the games ,and asked him not to pay them ,and he's carried on