If Your Kid Is On Roblox, Do This

How to set up Roblox Parental Controls

Hello! Roblox was in the news quite a bit last fall over predators and the gross and disturbing content that kids could access on their platform. (Read more in my previous post here).

They have made some updates to their parental controls so today I’m showing you how to actually set up Roblox Parental Controls and explaining what, specifically, is still risky even with everything set up correctly.

In Worth Flagging I highlight my favorite time management tool and a recent YouTube Shorts solve. In ICYMI I round up some recent tech/parenting headlines

Let's dive in!

Roblox

Get Set Up

• First create your own account, verify your age and then link to your child's account. You can do this on their website or by downloading Roblox on your phone.

• Then go to your child’s account settings and enter your email address to access the parental controls.

Manage Content Maturity

• Go to Settings >> Parental Controls >> Settings You Manage

• Scroll down and select Content Maturity

• Adjust the slide bar to the content maturity level you want.

Manage Communication

• Go to Settings >> Parental Controls >> Settings You Manage >>Communication

• Select Experience Chat.

• Select who can message and text chat with your child. You are selecting for Experience Chat¹ and Experience direct chat².

Manage Time

• Go to Settings >> Parental Controls

• Click Manage next to the chart at the top of the screen

• From there you can see and change the existing daily limit

View Friends

• Go to Settings >> Parental Controls >> Friends

• Note that you cannot manage Friends only view them (that's not great)

View Chat Logs

• Go back to the home page of Roblox >> select Party from the bottom navigation. From there you will see all chats with all friends.

• Note that messages cannot be deleted from Roblox (thats a good thing)

Any thing else parents need to know?

• It is CRITICAL that your child use their actual age. There are some age based default settings. Some content is not available to under 9’s, some is not available to under 13’s. If your kid is pretending to be older they are getting access to mature content.

• Video Games should be played out in the open, not behind closed doors

• Parents should review every game their child plays on Roblox. And yeah that may be as overwhelming as it seems but this is not a safe space for kids.

Summary of Outstanding Risks

• You cannot manage contacts, you can only see who they are

• I am not confident that kids can’t be contacted by strangers trying to chat with them. I feel this way because of this caveat written repeatedly all over their parental control overview: settings do not apply to chat features developed independently by developers. YIKES!!

• I am not confident that kids are protected from inappropriate content. I feel this was because I am not super confident that age gating works. This is the former tech executive in me speaking. I am not super confident in age gating because I know that

  • Some game developers will try to sneak easter eggs³ into games

  • Content Moderation is far from perfect

If you can avoid Roblox, I really really would!

Additional Roblox/Video Game Resources

If you're interested in learning more

• Watch my Video Tutorial on setting up these parental controls below in the Bonus for Paid Subscribers Section

• The Roblox Episode of Scrolling2Death (podcast)

• Gamer Educator’s IG account for great practical info on all things Video Game

• Common Sense Media for accurate game reviews. I trust them way more than the ESRB ratings

Worth Flagging

• The Brick. The Brick is a key to lock up a phone. Use it to lock yourself out of Instagram or to lock your child out of Snapchat. Or go further and lock all the non-essentials effectively turning the device into a dumbphone. I’ve been using my Brick alot lately during the work day to minimize distractions. I think it’s a great helper for iPhone kids—especially since time limits don’t currently work in Apple Parental Controls. Use this link and get 10% off.

  

• A YouTube Shorts Removal Hack. No, your can’t fully remove it but you can get it off the main feed by doing this:

ICYMI

• Sweden plans to ban smartphones in schools and have schools collect phones at the start of the day. More here.

• Adolescence is the #1 series on Netflix. I haven’t finished watching yet but everyone is freaking out talking about it. Trailer here.

• Careless People by former Meta Exec Sarah Wynn-Williams debuted at #1 on the NYT Bestseller List this month. Its a look at her experience as a policy maker at Meta. Jonathan Haidt has called it “riveting.” Meta tried to block the publication and has obtained a court oder barring her from speaking publicly about the book. Pick up a copy at your local bookstore if you can. Or, buy it here on Amazon.

Thank you for reading!

BONUS for Paid Subscribers

Roblox Parental Control Tutorial Video