AIBU to worry about Roblox and safeguarding?

[Grimbelina]

I don't know if anyone else has read the article below but I have a child who has just discovered Roblox and I am trying to understand how a 15 year old knows they are playing with a 6 year old. Here's a quote from the article:

“It’s a free game, you download it in 30 seconds and you’re playing against six-year-olds,” one 15-year-old trans player said.

Does this mean they are chatting with them? That the 6 year old is telling them they are 6?

Another worrying quote from the person heading up their safeguarding:

"...since we have this community of young players just starting out their journey online, we also want to go beyond safety and actually give them some life skills as they are growing up, through promotional campaigns and by highlighting different voices in the Roblox community."

What are these life skills? What is going 'beyond safety'?

www.theguardian.com/games/2021/apr/24/in-the-game-i-knew-myself-as-hannah-the-trans-gamers-finding-freedom-on-roblox

I had to ban my child from Roblox when he was around 9 or 10 at the time, he is now 13.

Players were asking him vulgar questions.

Also a youtuber that I follow, her story on her child's experience on Roblox are quite shocking that she stopped him playing for a while, I believe but now supervises him whilst he is on it. Whereas, I would not allow at all. Same with among us, I am not entirely keen on that either.

Ds plays roblox. I regularly monitor the inbox for private messages and in his defence he has never spoken to anyone he doesn't know. He has had a few chats with school friends which I'm OK with.

However there is a chat function within each individual game that doesn't save. So unless you are monitoring them constantly while they play then there's no way to see what is being said. To my knowledge, any bad language gets censored.

At nearly 10, my son is savvy enough to know never to give any details out or engage with anyone acting strangely. Mostly the chat within the game is to encourage or plan with other players how to complete it as a team.

It really depends what you're comfortable with and how sensible your dc are in my opinion. Like pp said, I've had more issues with Skype and friends we know causing drama than strangers on roblox.

@PopsicleHustler

I had to ban my child from Roblox when he was around 9 or 10 at the time, he is now 13.

Players were asking him vulgar questions.

Also a youtuber that I follow, her story on her child's experience on Roblox are quite shocking that she stopped him playing for a while, I believe but now supervises him whilst he is on it. Whereas, I would not allow at all. Same with among us, I am not entirely keen on that either.

I hope her child or images of them never feature on her youtube child .

My 8 year old plays. Only friends are kids I know. No chat permitted. Rules are broken, game is deleted.

@AccidentallyOnPurpose I agree. It's almost lazier to put a complete blanket ban on this sort of stuff than it is to spend time educating your kids, risk assessing, setting boundaries and monitoring their usage.

Am I happy that my son loves roblox? Not really. But the world has changed. He can't be outside playing upsupervised all day like when I was a child. This is what kids do now. It's not all he does but I'm loathe to take something he enjoys away from him when he's proven he can be trusted with it and understands any risks. We all know there are bad people online just like there are bad people in real life. We can't always totally shield our kids from that but we can teach them how to be safe and how to communicate with us.

Turfing your kids outside to play without supervision has its dangers too. Tell me again which online game Ian Brady used to lure children to his house? Which game was Jamie Bulger playing with those nice little boys who took him for a walk? Oh wait...

There have always been nasty types out there, murderers at the rare extreme, paedophiles sometimes, bullies very commonly. The difference with online contact is that there is far more of it and that you can't see who anyone really is, you totally have only their word for it. So yes, it brings its own dangers, but they are manageable if a parent is alert and sensible. You can leave a child playing safely (you thought) in its room and the next thing you know the little devil is letting itself out of the window on a sheet it fondly believes is secured to the bedpost (similar happened when I was small, fortunately nobody was hurt). Basically, you have to be aware that a PC is not a substitute for supervising your child, it's yet another activity that you have to keep an eye on. At least you have the advantage, with a game, that the child is physically in front of you where you can see what's going on.

This does not, of course, exonerate games publishers from including as many safeguards as possible, but it does in the end come down to how human beings behave. A car manufacturer can make the best brakes in the industry, but it relies on the driver to apply them (and not drive like a maniac in the first place). We put our children into car seats to keep them as safe as possible; most of us don't simply refuse to take them in a car in the first place in case something happens that a car seat can't prevent. Nobody would get anywhere or do anything without some risk.

@PrincessTuna

"Basically, with Roblox and the rest of the internet, you have to teach your children to look for the good stuff"

Good luck with @GeorgeandHarold66! My DC is 6. I'll be shutting down anything with violence and suicide themes.

I agree, but although these definitely exist on Roblox there's more out there that's actually fun and innocent. I like the tycoons they seem harmless and fun!

@PrincessTuna

"Basically, with Roblox and the rest of the internet, you have to teach your children to look for the good stuff"

Good luck with @GeorgeandHarold66! My DC is 6. I'll be shutting down anything with violence and suicide themes.

You know in minecraft you can kill people and animals? In some world is even necessary to get items from animals to get food or whatever, or to keep yourself safe in survival mode.

It's a great game really and building worlds is good for their imagination, but it's not exactly 100% violence free is it?

You can play in creative mode though, Accidentally. No killings there.

That article is flagging up loads of safeguarding issues and I am shocked that The Guardian has printed it with such enthusiasm. My 7 year old stepdaughter was groomed on Roblox and then suddenly started asking other children if they were lesbians or pansexuals and eventually, another parent alerted us to the fact she was making their child really uncomfortable and creeped out because she kept going on and on about asking them to declare their sexual preferences. All the friends of my kids who have autism are addicted to online gaming and the various communities - especially Roblox - where they seem to without fail emerge with a sparkling new identity.

Parents seem blissfully unaware, yet the Guardian is publishing shit like this with zero accountability.

@Workingfromhomeishell

I honestly don't understand parents who let their kids play online in any kind of format. Except that its easier for for parent.

It's wildly open to abuse and screen time at a young age is proven to be detrimental at anything more than a very minimum amount, most of which they will get at school. (See WHO guidelines)

I have seen first hand the dangers to children on line (paediatric doctor).

Take them to the park or give them a book instead.

So as a “paediatric doctor” you will be fully aware that not all children are the same. Not all children like to play at the park, I remember a thread not so long ago where a child was forced to play at the park by a grandparent, the child was terrified. Not to mention parks were closed for a long time during lockdowns and in built up urban areas finding a park is not necessarily easy. You will also be aware not all children like to read, especially when they have learning difficulties. And forcing a child to do something they struggle with can cause more harm than good. That the damage to children’s mental health over the last 14 months has been horrendous because children have been so isolated and have been lacking in social interaction. Most people in the UK don’t actually have big houses with gardens that they can send there children to play in. These games for so many children have been their only interaction with others including their friends who play them. Then their are children who have difficulties with social skills altogether, technology is a huge benefit to them.

We live in an age of technology whether you like it or not. Schools use technology for this reason, coding is now taught in schools. Given how backwards and behind the rest of the world the uk education is I certainly wouldn’t say what they teach in schools is sufficient enough for children these days.

I would have thought as a “paediatric doctor” you would understand the benefits for some children far outweighs the harm.

Roblox has safe chat which I found usuefull. It hashtags out any inappropriate language.

@AvocadoBathroom

That article is flagging up loads of safeguarding issues and I am shocked that The Guardian has printed it with such enthusiasm. My 7 year old stepdaughter was groomed on Roblox and then suddenly started asking other children if they were lesbians or pansexuals and eventually, another parent alerted us to the fact she was making their child really uncomfortable and creeped out because she kept going on and on about asking them to declare their sexual preferences. All the friends of my kids who have autism are addicted to online gaming and the various communities - especially Roblox - where they seem to without fail emerge with a sparkling new identity.

Parents seem blissfully unaware, yet the Guardian is publishing shit like this with zero accountability.

Why was a 7 year old allowed unsupervised access to the internet? Why was no research done into using the parental controls?

I'm 42 and have been on the internet for over 25 years, there is absolutely no reason for people of my age and younger to be ignorant to the dangers of the internet.

A lot of chat is censored so you can't exchange phone numbers, sexual words, names, there is ways around it f*ck etc.
It is a platform for many creators you can get games aimed at teenagers.
Afaik it's safe enough with privacy settings on maximum.
Obviously you need to supervise what content they access.
DD spends hours on it, she's 12 she's aware of Internet safely she wouldn't give personal information she plays against a group from school.

If you've ever played roblox it's pretty obvious that a lot of the players there are very young. My ds plays it with his friends, he enjoys it. He uses the chat function, it filters out any inappropriate language.