Roblox
Millions of mini games made by the users themselves, with chat, its own currency and constant pressure to spend.
Agree on a number of Roblox games rather than a number of minutes. A session has a natural end when the game changes, and an agreement your child understands holds better than an alarm. The platform's own parental controls can add a cap on top.
The limits by age, and the moves that make them stick: Screen time for kids and teens, a complete guide.
The most important things to know
Roblox looks like a game, but in practice it's a social network with games inside. Roblox calls them “experiences”; let's call them Roblox games. They're made by other users, ranging from brilliant to inappropriate, and chat is on by default in many of them.
That's why there's no blanket yes or no to Roblox. One Roblox game is quiet building, the next is something else entirely. The agreement that works is per game: you agree on which ones are fine, and new ones go past an adult first.
The parental controls have grown genuinely good: content levels by age, chat that can be restricted or switched off and spending limits. All of it rests on two things: the controls actually being switched on, and the birth date on the account being real.
What's positive about Roblox for your child?
Roblox is play, genuinely: millions of worlds, many built by kids and teenagers themselves, and for many children it's where play with classmates carries on after school. A child who moves from playing to building Roblox games of their own has found a proper way into creating with technology rather than just consuming it. The tool is called Roblox Studio, it's free, and it comes with templates and tutorials to start from. The bar is lower than it looks, and the skill is worth something far beyond Roblox.
How can Roblox affect your child negatively?
Roblox is free because Robux isn't. The pressure to spend sits inside the Roblox games themselves and is built to nag, so have the money agreement in place before the first euro.
And because anyone can create and anyone can chat, there are things in there, both content and people making contact, that a child shouldn't face alone. Without parental controls, Roblox is an open city.
Settings you set together
- Real birth date on the account. It's what drives the content levels: Roblox Kids (about 5 to 8) gets “Minimal” and “Mild” by default, Roblox Select (about 9 to 15) up to “Moderate”, and from 16 everything except “Restricted and 18+ Content”.
- Link a parent account and set the cap for content and chat together, under Settings → Parental controls → Content restrictions → Content maturity for your child. The levels are “Minimal”, “Mild”, “Moderate”, “Content May Vary”, “16+ Content” and “Restricted and 18+ Content”, Roblox's own overview explains them, and games above the cap still show up in search but won't open.
- Switch on “2-Step Verification” on your child's own account, under Account Settings → Security, with email or an authenticator app, following Roblox's own guide. It isn't part of the parental controls, so you do it logged in on your child's device, and it stops anyone who gets hold of the password from taking the account, the avatar and everything bought with Robux.
- A PIN or block on purchases, and a standing agreement about Robux.
- Make the list together: which Roblox games are fine for now, and new ones get shown to you before they're tried.
Ask your child about the game
- Which Roblox game are you into right now, and what makes it better than the others?
- If you could build your own game in Roblox, what would it be about?
- Who do you usually end up playing with in there, and how did you get to know them?
- Robux: what do you think is worth spending them on, and what's a waste?
Glossary
- experience
- Roblox's own word for a Roblox game, which is what this guide calls them; every one is made by a user, so one is a quiet building game and the next is a horror maze.
- Robux
- The currency inside Roblox, bought with real money and the only way to pay for anything in there; a parent PIN can block the buying.
- obby
- An obstacle course you jump and climb through, one of the simplest and most popular kinds of Roblox game, and often a child's first.
- avatar
- The figure your child plays as, dressed in clothes and accessories that are bought with Robux.
- game pass
- A one-off purchase inside one Roblox game that unlocks an extra, like a pet or a VIP area, and only counts in that game.
- Premium
- Roblox's monthly subscription, which pays out Robux every month and lets players trade items with each other.
- Roblox Studio
- The free tool for building Roblox games of your own, on PC or Mac, with templates and tutorials to start from.
- noob
- A new or unskilled player, and the default-looking avatar that marks one out; usually said as a tease rather than an insult.
Sources
- Roblox Safety Center: parental controls and content maturity levels ↗
- Roblox Support: Parental Controls Overview ↗
- Roblox Support: Content Maturity Ratings, the six levels ↗
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The full guide to Roblox, with the research and the settings: A parent’s guide to Roblox
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