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 ..

slimming snake there are parental controls. You click to say child is under 13 and then can't access the older games.

We've done that ...these are allowed for under 12s

Also on fortnite there is a creative mode where the can only explore the island and build things but no guns, no killing etc. Turn off all setting for chat and it's quite a nice game.

How strange we couldn't access the prison games etc once we clicked on that mode. Only pizza making etc.

We don’t have a problem with Roblox or Fortnight for that matter, although my kids use both.

I wasn’t even aware you could spend money on Roblox- kids know that any spending has to come from their pocket money so I don’t get asked. Eldest has spent some of his own money on fortnite, but that’s his choice.

We have limited screen time- 1hr a day at a set time, if there are issues getting off then the rules are no screen time the next day. Funnily enough, they always get off. I don’t think it matters that they know what an ak47 is at that age. We knew about tanks, machine guns, pipe bombs, Molotov cocktails and nuclear bombs. Didn’t make us homocidal maniacs.

Ok that's interesting....could he of changed the controls to allow over

12 play...it's possible .hes taken the iPad back to factory settings and wiped all over parental controls in the past...thanks for that tip ,I will definatly check out if that's the case

I haven't read the full thread but Roblox is not specifically for children. There are plenty of games suitable for children and also many that are not. I would probably go with the rule that he is allowed to play it but not the shark, machine gun or robbing games. Suggest games that he is allowed to go on and make it clear that playing the other games will result in Roblox being taken away.

I've refused access to Roblox so far at all, because it seems to be a platform that hosts games made by such an array of third-parties. I wouldn't let them play any X-box game they could find in Game, so I didn't want to allow them free rein on any other platform.

As they've been nagging and nagging, I'm intrigued to hear about the setting to restrict an account to curated games only, which another poster brought up.

YANBU. I'm a primary teacher and the effects of these games on playground play are shocking. 6 year old children who play call of duty, roblox and other violent games have massive problems with playing appropriately in my experience. Quite often I have taught children with no bedtime routine who play for 8 hours a day after school and fall asleep playing. The parents readily admit this. It's antisocial and addictive and breeds violent behaviour in my opinion.

I've not RTFT but change his account settings on the laptop so he doesn't have admin privileges, therefore he won't be able to install any software and so won't be able to reinstall Roblox.

There is also monitoring software that allows you to restrict what software he can use, how long he can use it for, and will log all his keystrokes and whatever he tries to do. You could even block access to the Roblox website via your router.

There are so many tools available to parents that allow monitoring and restriction - do some research, get the tools, and use them!

You say about an iPad too - there is a way to stop him being able to wipe it without a password (which I would make incredibly long and complicated so he can't guess it!) which means he can't get around the blocks.
Alternatively, if he can't stick to the rules you've set for using the tech then he loses access to it. Permanently.

The school sent us information to download an app called Netware. This sends you notifications and links regarding internet games for all different ages. Also NSPCA has lot's of information on their website which will help you make an informed choice. Do make 15 minutes a week to read up as it is written in a way to clarify things for parents.

Thankyou for the last few messages ,very helpful...

Quite often I have taught children with no bedtime routine who play for 8 hours a day after school and fall asleep playing.

Can you really not see that it is the complete lack of adult interaction and structure that is the problem here, rather than Roblox content?

OP, I also have an autistic son who is so obsessive about things that we just can’t allow any access to screens etc. He also would very quickly seek out the most violent of the games and become obsessive to the point of doing nothing else, just staring at the wall waiting for screen time. If I were you, I would use the holiday to wean him off and then not reintroduce the laptop to play on. I know some families that have had issues with this game, particularly the chat function.

I have heard that the kindle fire kids is very good for safe playing and you can set it up to only allow gaming after reading or educational games and it will automatically shut itself down after a certain amount of time. If we ever did allow our son some screen time, we would use this.

It is a nightmare navigating this world, and if your son is very tech savvy, it will be tough keeping up with him. I know autistic children in primary school who are managing to access the dark web and get around all sorts of controls, so you will need to work hard to stay one step ahead of your son in this field.

He's only allowed 2 hours a day....if that last comment was aimed at me..

Odd. I'm a teacher and haven't noticed anything different in their play, other than the topics of play have changed.

It's antisocial and addictive and breeds violent behaviour in my opinion

What utter bollocks. Gaming is very social - do you not realise they're playing it with friends? It doesn't breed violent behaviour, I've done masses of research into this and you're quite wrong.

My DD had roblox on her iPod for a while. I was concerned about the way it is set up, so set some simple rules, which she followed. However one of her friends got really upset by it and was sent dozens of abusive messages by other players. She decided it wasn't worth the hassle and deleted it herself.

Op you're doing a good job. You're trying to set expectations and boundaries and caring about his online safety. I can only imagine how tough life has been but You'll get through this next wee chapter.

Enjoy your break and come back to it after that. Sounds like youve an intelligent boy who'll outwit you on the gaming and technology front but there's some good advice here re admin settings etc that'll hopefully pre arm you. For what it's worth, I'd keep to the 2 week ban, give him back the laptop but try to get up to speed on the tech so you can put some controls in place some how. Can I suggest following Tim Pinto on Twitter. He's an E safety guru. I work in the child safeguarding ish field and attended a training course with him (found it quite helpful in trying to parent teens and pre teens 😂.) Good luck 💐

My DD loves Roblox and plays with all her friends, on completely non-violent stuff. My ASD son isn't that interested - but does like Fortnite and other games. Even Plants v Zombies is about violence so I'm not sure that just 'fighting' is necessarily an issue - but I would never let him watch Call of Duty or anything like that. DS is 10 so a bit older than 8 but I would just tell him that he's not allowed to play x, y or z type of games and expect him to comply. He doesn't always follow rules but he mostly does, and when he doesn't he gets the same sanctions as his sister would. Failing that - I don't know, but they all need boundaries. Good luck.

I think I've found your solution, if you click on the cog wheel in the top right, then go 'Settings', then 'Security', if you enable 'Account Restrictions' it will only allow him to use games Roblox itself promotes and blocks games like Phantom Forces, which seem to be those popular 'Call of Duty' esq/ fighting games and sets the contact settings found under 'Privacy' immediately to Off so he can't communicate outside of games with people he doesn't know, in game seems to be fine as they restrict unwanted language and chat is monitored, I say you can let him keep playing but with the setting on, and if you find out he's found out about it and turned it back on if you chat with him why you turned it on and tell him that if he wants to play it he has to agree to keep it turned on or he loses his laptop etc. all the best and hope it helps solve your family issues!

He's only allowed 2 hours a day....if that last comment was aimed at me

Every day?

That’s a lot IMO. My dcs can only have 2 hours a day at weekends. Week days, no screens two days a week. On week days where they can have screens it’s only an hour at most.