How To Deal With Roblox

What to do next if your kid has Roblox

So…Roblox is a little sketchy. Alot has been written and said about Roblox in the last several weeks. This week’s post gives you what you need to deal with it safely. Then, in Worth Flagging, I share about a cool new communication device for kids that is NOT a watch! Plus, Paid subscribers get a quick tutorial on where to find and set up Roblox Parental Controls.

Roblox

The main issues for parents are twofold:

1. Group chat with strangers

2. Inappropriate content

Photo by Oberon Copeland @veryinformed.com on Unsplash

What To Do

If your kid has Roblox and you aren’t sure what to do next, here’s my advice

1. Sit down with your kid and their Roblox account

2. Make sure your child is using their real age

3. Have them show you the games they are playing

4. Enable the parental controls. *Roblox is clearly making changes so you may either get prompted for a parental pin or get the ability to enable restrictions which completely shuts down chat. If you get prompted for the pin, set it up but do not show it to your kid. That pin–that is for you.

5. If you child’s account is pin enabled, limit the chat to friends only or disable chat altogether

   1. If you keep chat–make sure you know the friends they are already connected to. Like know who they are IRL.

6. Make sure your child is playing in a public area of your house

My $0.02

1. There are enough controls to limit the chat. Please do this.

2. I am less confident in the content. 

Anywhere you have a game that has age gates for younger kids and a more mature version for adults, you run the risk of mistakes and bad actors trying to sneak inappropriate content past the age gates.

If you continue to allow Roblox, consider evaluating every game before allowing it. Seriously. There are games whose topics are awful (eg The Hindenburg report found games about beating pregnant women, shooting up a hospital & more). There are also games with sneaky inappropriate stuff (a game that takes place in a school where pornographic pictures were surreptitiously placed on the chalkboards in certain classrooms.

3. A few additional tips 

Avoid Adults Studios- there are many, many inappropriate games in this area and the age gating appears to be inconsistent

Avoid anything with an XYZ room.  An XYZ room, which I learned about from Nicki Reisberg’s Scrolling2Death Podcast, is a place where characters in a game go have sex, apparently. Thank you Scrolling2Death for teaching me about this!

Resources

If you’re interested in diving deeper on Roblox, please check out:

• The Hindenburg report

• Roblox’s response to the Hindenburg report

• This very good episode of the Scrolling 2 Death podcast.

• The Gamer Educator on Instagram. They have some really great perspective on how to frame video games to kids in a healthy way.

Worth Flagging

The BoT Talk Communication Device.

This is interesting for the parents of younger kids. The BoT Talk is an audio message communication system that allows parents to communicate with kids without a smartwatch or phone. Its a Japanese product that has just recently launched in the US. Essentially you have the BoT Talk app on your phone and your kid has the BoT device attached to their backpack or in the case of my son who helped me test it, as a necklace a la Flavor Flav. Its pretty cool! And great, I think, for giving little kids a little independence– think walking to school, going on a neighborhood bike ride or running an errand for you. There is literally nothing else you can do except send messages with your parent so the distraction factor is almost zero.

Events

More local events on the horizon. I am looking forward to two local events with GCDS Techwise Tigers in Greenwich, CT this month.

Setting up Roblox Parental Controls

Paid Subscribers get a video of where to find the parental controls and how to set them up!