To stand firm on Roblox

[SpangleTwangle]

A year ago I was a parent who had never had a personal device for my kids, now ages 10 and 12. I had all the usual worries that we know about, addiction, inactivity, online grooming, poor quality and even damaging/age inappropriate content.

When my eldest turned 11 her one best friend moved far away to a different country and I wanted her to be able to maintain the relationship. This could not be done on a "dumb phone" due to the high cost. With huge caveats I allowed her a smart phone and whatsapp.

Now. We have mainly managed OK, it has been uneventful. We have tight parental controls, great screen time limits, phones stay in shared social areas at home and never in bedrooms. Apps are all pre-approved. My eldest now seems to have all of her bloody homework on apps- which I don't like... but they both have other hobbies, read plenty and are healthy and active. I check their phones regularly as well, there has been no drama. Eldest is great at the boundaries and just complies.

My 10 year old got her own phone for her birthday recently too. This has been a lot harder, mainly because of her personality. She is much more pro-social and eager to fit in, she is also more pushy, entitled, always seems to feel she is very hard done by. We have had several meltdowns because she wants the apps (some) of her mates have that I deem unsafe/inappropriate. EG tiktok, snapchat, roblox. Roblox seems to be the main one as "Its just a game!!" "Everyone has it!!" etc.

I am worried it is addictive, monetised and unsafe- not least because two mums in my eldest's class had to spend hours deleting bits of content and locking it down after their boys found some wildly inappropriate stuff on the platform back in her y3. The whole parent body at their school was warned afterwards.

However my youngest is adamant I am a horrible person for not letting her have it. She was crying bitterly about not fitting in last night (she has plenty of mates and is popular but apparently felt she couldn't join conversations this week)

I actually feel awful. I remember what it was like being a kid and I was always the weird kid as my parents had lots of odd things I wasnt allowed to do like go trick-or-treating, have barbies, go to McDonalds etc. I don't doubt they were, as I am, doing their best to keep us safe from things they deemed damaging or unsafe, but for me as a kid they made me feel left out. So... am I being unreasonable? Or should I stick to my guns?

I agree @MagnoliaParks that is interesting. Personally we live in a busy urban area- inner city, highly populous, a bit rough and lots of traffic. The kids are allowed to take a bus to school alone, walk to the local shop crossing roads, go to the park 5 minutes down the road. Technically they are allowed to go to town alone on the bus but they haven't wanted to next.

I think of the internet as like a bar or a pub. An adult space you wouldnt let your kids go in unsupervised. Some spaces are like parks, you would let an older kid go in alone, knowing the risk of an occasional weirdo, hoping they wont encounter one but also knowing that the majority of folk are ok and hopefully your kid is old enough to handle it. I am sort of worried that ROBLOX kind of poses as a park but is actually full of secret seedy bars!!

Remove the phone if you are not willing to supervise your child.

When DC were younger they used to call Roblox “padeo- central”. I’m sure it’s not that bad but it was definitely something kids used to mock and it didn’t really take off around schools here. Also most kids didn’t have phones before secondary school and definitely not smartphones. If they were “weird kids” then so are the majority of kids I know and no one is harmed by it.

This is my thinking. Children need to be monitored and taught what to look out for but in my experience they're more savvy than me! 10 is young side but going forward they will be left out if not on these platforms.

Also, What's so bad about WhatsApp???

My two have it, but it is heavily monitored. They have screen time limits, it’s set to their appropriate ages, they are not allowed to add people unless I know who they are, all chats are disabled, I get a notification if they request to add a new game, and they only ever play on their tablets downstairs and they tend to be playing in the same game together. When they’ve gone to bed, I check what they have been doing and if I don’t like it, I block that game. I also check the friends’s list every day to double check that it is just the kids that I know. I’ve spoken to them about online safety and they know to come to me if something happens and they don’t like it or are not sure.

This.

Recent programme discussing The Com. Targeting children.

Keep children away from roblox.

As someone who is married to a v techy developer, spent ten years with a game designer and has a lot of friends in the industry, yanbu. Those thinking kids under 12 should be on Roblox in case they are the weird kids abvu. It’s a cesspit and whether or not you lockdown chats, most content is user generated and can easily hide an awful lot of disgusting content which kids are absorbing.

And there are much safer ways to ensure your kids keep up with developing tech, if that’s really the object.

My 17yo wasn’t allowed it under 16. She wasn’t amused but now is so grateful. Her stepbrother was allowed, and it shows. There were some risky incidents too - kids are smart at bypassing controls. It’s naive to think it’s just about predators - these games are designed to stimulate dopamine responses and that is just plain stupid to let loose on developing brains.

Teach them that some rules are inviolable and parents know best - it’s not hard.

I think with a 10 year old, I'd stick to your guns. She's very young to have a smartphone anyway!

I hate Roblox, it's a pile of shite even without all the additional safety issues. DC1 was feeling a little left out as all their friends were playing it so we came to an agreement that they can play online with friends, in the family living room only on the console. They do not have it on their phone. They chat via their phones on a video call, not in the game. DH is quite a gamer so they DC have always been very clued up on not accepting friend requests from people they don't know IRL and sharing personal info etc.

That way we can keep an eye on what's going on and because they're not allowed to play it unless it's socially with friends they're not on it for hours rotting their brains, but they don't feel like a social pariah. Stand firm. We stayed for a weekend with some friends and their teenagers recently (similar ages to our DC) and the difference in behaviour around screen time generally where they have been much more lax was 😮

With all the available information out there about Roblox, I am astounded that anyone still allows it! It’s dangerous, addictive and most kids are smart enough to get round any controls you think you’ve done a good job of setting. Evil adults out there are also very good at getting round restrictions.
DS has a mix of friends who are and aren’t allowed it so does ask occasionally but I will stand firm on this, no matter what.

The problem with WhatsApp is that children are put in social situations they’re not emotionally mature enough to deal with (see all the posts about kids being excluded from WhatsApp groups maliciously, subgroups being set up, cyber bullying) and they don’t have a safe space to retreat to - as when they get home the bullying is still there, whereas historically even if school was awful then home could be a protected sanctuary from that.

My 10 year old plays Roblox but plays it in the lounge on the pc where we are so we can see what they are doing. They are not allowed it on any other device. We have had a lot of discussion about internet safety, they don't use the chat function and never give out any personal details. They have a phone so they can message their family who live abroad but again lots of rules about that. The phone always stays downstairs. They are allowed two best friends from school on whatsapp. They cannot add anyone without my consent, they are not allowed to be added to any groups and I regularly read their messages. Thankfully they hardly use their phone, just very occasionally when talking to their friends whilst playing online.

However you need to be strong in your boundaries. My eldest two were never allowed Snapchat or tiktok etc until they were 16. This never caused issues for them socially, they weren't the weird kids,they knew why I didn't want it and that this was something I was not going to move on.

Roblox is one thing I really put my foot down on.

Yanbu. My three children will certainly not be allowed Roblox

https://www.theguardian.com/games/2025/nov/05/roblox-game-robux-children-child-kids-safety-parental-controls

I am very lax on screens but the one thing my kids cannot have is Roblox. Not until they are older - I think DS1 had it when he was 15 or so. He is 18 now and I don't stop him playing it.

People assume it is harmless because it is popular among primary school aged children, but what they don't always realise is that it's similar to Youtube in that anybody can upload anything they like to it, there is as a result SO much content that it's impossible to keep track of all of it, meaning the built in parental controls are not reliable. And some creators are churning out such amounts of crap that flood the entire thing with the use of bots/AI that it can be hard to find anything made by real people or which is of any reasonable quality.

It uses algorithms to suggest games/content, and the algorithm favours games which keep people returning or keep them playing longer, which rewards creators making games more addictive. Children are much more vulnerable to this kind of thing because their brains are still developing.

Remember, if it's free you are the product. In this case your attention.

I think it's possible to use it safely but it needs a LOT of supervision that a 12yo is not likely to want to let you do, and which is very boring as the adult.

There are plenty of other games in the world, get her something else. She will get over it.

One thing to consider on whatsapp is that if you choose not to allow your DC social media, they will likely have friends who do use it. They may then send memes/videos/etc to their friends via whatsapp.

There was a news story recently where a young lad aged 12 or so was distracted watching a video on whatsapp as he walked over a level crossing on his way home from school. He was hit by a train and killed. We can have rules for them but these platforms are expertly crafted to keep us coming back, keep us thinking "Oh I'll just quickly look at this", it's just one message/video/whatever and it creeps into us looking when we shouldn't.

Plenty of adults have difficulty controlling their use of apps. I don't personally use whatsapp this way, and I don't have issues with my use of whatsapp. I literally use it as a text messaging app. But children do use it more as a platform to share jokes and images and videos in a way that I might use instagram or facebook. It made me think about the fact that we might ban certain platforms for younger children and then not necessarily make the link to the fact that without that platform, they are getting the same use out of a different app, one which might seem mundane to us.

Perhaps this is in fact an argument for supervised use or keeping the conversation open. I do agree that we can't protect them from everything just by banning it. But I think we all ought to be aware that social media and platforms like Roblox are engineered to keep us coming back and devoting more and more time to them, because that is what makes the site owners money, and that time and time again the big site owners have shown that they care far more about making money than they do about preventing harm caused by use of their platform.

Roblox is the online activity that people who work in tech are least likely to let their children on. And presumably they know what they’re talking about. As someone who’s worked in safeguarding children in the past several cases involved children under 7 and inappropriate content or messages on Roblox. My DC are getting nowhere near it, and yes, a lot of their friends are on it.

My son is in year 8 and not allowed it. As a teacher I’ve heard of some awful things there and as a platform are appalling at keeping children safe. Absolutely I will never allow it whilst my children, are children

Roblox was one I stood firm on. There was no chance they were having it. A lot of the boys especially started getting it around the age of 10, but mine knew my stance on it so have never bothered even asking. I explained the reasons why I didn’t think they should be on it and they understood. Now they’re mid teens, I’m not sure their peers even use it any more.

Absolutely stand firm on bloomin Roblox.

The case study at the top is - you need to read the full article as there is a huge amount about issues/videos/accounts on Roblox.

Mine have it with Chat disabled and their screen time limits are 30 minutes per day anyway. They are only allowed to play it in the same room as me and the only friends they have are 3 or 4 people from school. They mostly play the same quiz type games whilst sat next to each other; they also have plenty of other things they're interested in so it's not really been an issue.

I'm actually quite permissive with tech. My DC got a phone at 10, and was allowed WhatsApp at 12. I've encouraged coding, online music learning, digital art etc. Lots of restrictions, but in general I'm happily for them to play video games (like fortnight, Among Us, etc) online with friends.

BUT one thing I have never, and would still never allow is Roblox. It is just not possible to restrict to a guaranteed safe level for children, and it encourages in-app spending in a way that I don't think is healthy.

I have a 25 year old, 14 and 10 year old and they all play Roblox together and have for years. Never had a problem with it 🤷🏻‍♀️. Younger ones don’t have Snapchat, instagram,TikTok or Facebook though.

You’re right not to allow Roblox. Grooming issues aside it’s a platform where anyone can make games and many include themes like beating up pregnant women and it’s been proven age restrictions don’t work.