[integrii]

Both of my kids played a lot of Roblox until we banned it. They easily became obsessed and were violent when removed, even with a tightly controlled schedule. They would try to connect to offer WiFi networks to get access and would steal our phones to get access. We ended up having to detox them like it was a drug.

Beyond that we found that the openly mod-able nature of the game allowed some remarkably disgusting 3D models and game modes. Just Google it. It was not hard to find a room with 50 kids holding adult store items and doing extremely inappropriate things.

The system is also rife with predators. One game let them share pictures somehow. Some guy was asking my daughters to send them pictures of their feet. Try to censor that request in chat, I guess.

This if course sets aside the caste system that is built on their in-game currency. Scammers can convince your kids to trade their favorite items away in a "trust trade".

Roblox is not appropriate in my experience.

[koonsolo]

My own son had this period where he was obsessed with playing on the XBox. When I tried to limit his time, he became agressive. So I said "Wow, if XBox has this influence on you, maybe you should stop completely. What do you think?". His smart reaction was to show that he could play a limited time, and be good afterwards. Now I don't have any problems with him.

The thing with kids is that you will not be there all the time, especially when they get older. So banning something they like, doesn't seem like a good solution to me. They will have to handle such impulses themselves. So if you can let them handle their own impulses, that is way better.

For example I will never tell my kids that they cannot smoke, because that will be out of my control anyway. But when we walk to a hospital, there are always patients outside smoking (who obviously look sick). Then I tell them "look at those smokers, how sick they are. And it really smells bad too" etc. When I ask them about smoking, they have very negative associations with it.

So if your kids are doing inappropriate things to play, maybe talk to them as if they are adults, and make a reasonable deal. And show them how their decisions will impact them.

Raising kids is not about enforcing rules, it's preparing them for the real world where they need to make their own decisions.

[spaceribs]

As a kid, when gay marriage was legalized in Massachusetts, one of the anti-advocates made the statement on the radio: "I am the gatekeeper for what is appropriate for my child, and the state telling my child that homosexuality is an appropriate lifestyle infringes on my role as a parent".

I asked my Dad what he thought of that statement, and he responded that gatekeeper was the completely wrong approach to parenting. The role is closer to a bodyguard or the secret service, you protect from harm and provide context when appropriate, but leave enough room to explore without your biases.

Self-sufficiency in ones own behaviors, responsibilities and statements should be your goal, just make sure they have a safe environment to explore and carve their own path.

[windexh8er]

> I asked my Dad what he thought of that statement, and he responded that gatekeeper was the completely wrong approach to parenting. The role is closer to a bodyguard or the secret service, you protect from harm and provide context when appropriate, but leave enough room to explore without your biases.

Agreed. In my opinion being a gatekeeper with hard and fast limits often only fuels the wrong outcome. Safety nets and moderation are a core approach in our household. They can do most things with some boundaries and aren't afraid to ask for something outside those boundaries which is often met with a conversation vs just a yes or no answer.

[vnnkov]

> The role is closer to a bodyguard or the secret service, you protect from harm and provide context when appropriate, but leave enough room to explore without your biases.

I and my wife chose to be "support" in a gaming style. So far so good.

[sky_rw]

I was only allowed 2 hours of Sega Genesis play, which was just enough to get to the final boss in Sonic and die. Never beat it.

In hindsight this prepared me for the 2 constants in the real world: Never having enough time, and constant disappointment.

[wil421]

Rookie mistake. You have to leave the Sega on come back the next day when you have your allotted time. God forbid someone vacuums and uses your plug.

[jonnydubowsky]

This reminds me of when my brother and I beat Legend of Zelda and left the end segment on the tv for a few days to bask in the glory

[OoOOo]

"WHO THE EFF UNPAUSED MY GAME!"

[varren]

heh, i had 1h limit and back in the days it took me 1-2 month to complete Half-Life and i played UFO for like 6 month. The first time my parents left me alone for 2 weeks i played pretty much all the time. I think i actually had like 5-6 meals and seeped less then 6h a day during that time.

I'm pretty sure that overall this 1h limit rule made me completely obsessed with computer games and the only thing that brought me back to the real life was WoW. Yeah it sounds funny, but i actually had "/played" 360 days of 2years period. And after the disband of my guild i had no interest in any other game. Yeah i play from time to time, but don't have the hunger to play every new thing out there.

I'm pretty sure that i would have burn out of this games addiction much faster in my childhood without the limitation and probably could start coding earlier. Probably would have eye problems by now because of a cheap crt monitor back then and would never meet lots of good friends in wow. So honestly i don't know was it good or bad, but i'm sure the time limit had a huge impact and not in a favor of my parents intentions.

[ianhawes]

Reminds me of playing GTA3 on my PS1 which did not have a memory card.

[Topgamer7]

GTA3 was released for the PS2

[cl0ne]

Or Jurassic Park for SNES, which didn't allow you to save.

[mnsc]

> Then I tell them "look at those smokers, how sick they are. And it really smells bad too" etc. When I ask them about smoking, they have very negative associations with it.

I do this as well but I also try to explain the upside so that they can understand why smokers exists at all.

"When they smoke they feel excited for a short time but after a while, if you do it often enough, you get hooked and then you don't get that excited feeling anymore but you feel sick if you don't do it". Something like that.

[crusso]

That's a pretty good description of my effective parenting strategy. I've always stated that my goal was to raise kids who could make good decisions as adults. To that end I've tried to err on the side of being more permissive while using potentially corrupting influences as teaching opportunities.

That said, I don't pretend that my approach would have worked in all situations. For example, you gave your son a choice about being aggressive with his XBox with a threat that he would have to stop completely. What if you had to follow through on your threat because your son escalated his aggression?

Sometimes, some kids need an adult to make a decision for them that their brains just aren't mature enough to make.

[gitgud]

Very wise words, I'm not a parent, but I like the idea of giving them the choice and allowing them to come to their own conclusions.

"A man convinced against his will. Is of the same opinion still" ― Dale Carnegie

[watwut]

Not every kids is like your son. Some have more addictive tendencies and wont self regulate that easily and wont stick to agreements - even as they had an intention to follow up in advance.

[austhrow743]

Well sure but the ability to self regulate doesn't come out of nowhere. It's learned behaviour and xbox or a video game is a relatively harmless thing to train them on because the consequences for failure are minimal. That they're going to fuck up occasionally or even a lot isn't good reason to not keep trying to train them on it.

[watwut]

It does not come from nowhere. And for many kids it simply does not appear just because you threatened to remove xbox. And followed up on that threst.

The poor impulse control remains poor impulse control. They will grow up from that, but in the mean time if you expect self regulation they are not ready for yet, both you and them are in for very unhappy time when they both play too much and are regularly punished for that - despite not being capable to self regulate yet. One would almost say that it is unfair.

[Ensorceled]

As someone with 6 alcoholic uncles ... yeah, I agree, that doesn't always work.

[Scarblac]

Of course (I say as someone with a lot of built in addictive tendencies).

But those kids need to be taught how to self-control those impulses more, not less than those who can already do it easily.

[integrii]

Good feedback and I agree. We have Roblox several chances. Each time it became out of control. We definitely do not hover-parent.

To be clear, my kids have an xbox1, ps4, xbox360, two gaming PCs, a Vive VR headset, their own macbooks, a switch, their own dedicated Chromecast TVs, and one even has a pixel 3a. Roblox is the only thing we have ever had to perma-ban. Fortnite got a one week hold once, but Roblox had to go forever.

They play fortnite, Minecraft, and lots of other stuff. Unfortunately, as soon as I find out my daughter joined a server where lego looking avatars were walking around with massive hard penises doing sex acts on each other, we were done with moderation and guardrails.

[thelittleone]

I typically use this approach also. One of the most successful developments was the gamification of tasks to earn play points (minutes of playtime). Vacuuming could earn 10 mins for example, with a maximum of 90 minutes, and only possible after doing homework etc. They ended up enjoying both the tasks and the reward.

[p1esk]

Or you could make a game out of vacuuming, or you could explain why vacuuming is needed, or ...

The alternatives have merits too.

[antpls]

What if multiplayer video games actually teach your kids to not blindly trust people ? At first they will be scammed a few time, but they will learn, and with minimal consequences.

Isn't it better for your kids to experience the "worst" behaviors in a virtual simulation under your control rather than in real life when they will be adult and possibly alone ?

I believe it's fine to have your kids safely experience "unethical" behaviors, as long as you speak with them.

I guess there have been studies about it, I'm wondering. Does anyone have scientific pointers about it ?

[tyleo]

This is a great thought. When I was around 12 years old I played RuneScape. After grinding away for weeks I bought a legendary item which I lost shortly after in a scam.

This was a big wake up call for me. Having previously seen how obvious some scammers were I didn’t think it could ever happen to me: I thought you had to be a fool to be scammed. The core lesson was that it could happen to everyone and by thinking that scams would only happen to fools I had lowered my own defenses to the point that I was susceptible.

[ianhawes]

I came here to say exactly this. I played RuneScape as a kid and was scammed. It molded me into the skeptic I am today.

Plus, downloading a keylogger masquerading as a RuneScape hack taught me the importance of not running random executables.

[tapland]

It's also important to have clear distinctions between things that are questionable but not harmful, and that the kids feel that they can sound the alarm when things are really wrong.

There are a lot of pictures and words that are inappropriate and shouldn't be in kids games. But it's really important to convey that there is a difference between that, and even pictures of feet, to pictures of you nude or pictures with your face in them.

I met people from chatrooms some 16 years ago when I was 14, with friends, at a public space and my friends parents knew the place well and knew when and where we were going. Was a fun double date. A lot of people I know would not tell any adult and lie about where they are going to avoid shame and anger.

[b_tterc_p]

I feel like most people would put pictures of children’s feet in the absolutely not ok bucket

[tapland]

If you feel that it's in the same bucket as sending full frontal nudes with identifiable face, that's your decision to make as a parent.

Your kids are going to send pictures to other people.

[b_tterc_p]

I’m not sure how you imagine communicating such things to a child. Do you have a flip chart with full frontal nudes in red and feet pictures in orange? It’s not like there’s anything more prohibitive than “absolutely not ok”. Both are beyond that. Your argument sounds like needing to clarify that Fentanyl is worse than heroin, and that if I don’t make it clear that fentanyl is worse, they’re going to do both?

If you can prevent either, you should prevent both.

[tapland]

It seems unlikely that your child knows about every fetish adults have, and if they happen to send pictures of their feet to someone they have not done anything bad, they have not broken any unspoken general rule, there isn't a lot saying that is a thing you shouldn't do or any obvious signs as to why it would be bad. It hasn't exposed them in a dangerous way, but they have been victims to an adult going online and asking children for feet pictures to satisfy themselves.

Your reply implies that the child has been taught why it's just as bad to send a picture of their feet as of their hair as of their ankle as of their entire body as of anything. Or that they have parents who wouln't agree to them doing things that seem totally reasonable to them, and just freak out without any explanation.

Children are taught what nudity is very early. They aren't taught people's weird kinks. The difference between the two cases I mentioned is much greater than that between fentanyl and heroin. Both are not ok, but they are not even close in terms of possible adverse effects. You can't judge everything assuming the child has knowledge of the intentions of the abuser online. If your child sends the pictures because 'it's just feet, it can't hurt me' that's a much better reason, even though the child hasn't finished developing it's brain than 'my dad doesn't want me to send any pictures'.

[okusername]

Their brain is not developed yet, especially critical thinking and social capabilities. It's not just a question of explaining / learning, they often don't have the mental capabilities to understand whats going on and can be taken advantage of.

[Mirioron]

I don't believe that there are many kids above the age of 10 that don't understand what scamming is after they are scammed.

[koonsolo]

From my own experience of my product that is used by teenagers, they are well aware of the risks. In chat, they will not give their email, name, place or even reveal what timezone they are at. Most boys will say they are boys, but girls will not even mention that (it's a gaming related product). It seems they are well educated on this topic, and are very cautious.

[Cthulhu_]

I agree, but I think it's one of those ratio things - MOST kids are well educated on the subject, but you know there's going to be a nontrivial amount that isn't, or who despite the education still fall for it (case in point: my GF's son was scammed by a guy in Fortnite who befriended him over the span of over two weeks, an eternity in a child's mind. It was just some stuff he earned playing the game of course but still, his trust in people took a big hit there).

Anyway point is, it only takes one case for the media to pounce on e.g. Roblox and drive it into the ground. And there will be a lot.

[nkrisc]

It really depends on the age of the child. At a certain age, they're just no match for adults. I had a coworker who's daughter was conned out of her Roblox password you've by the same person. She's not dumb, the other person was just very effective and maintain against a nine year old kid.

As a parent your primary duty is the safety and well-being of your child. That comes first, lessons second. Sometimes you might just need to ban Roblox for their own good and help them learn like lessons another way. Every kid is unique.

[Nextgrid]

> Sometimes you might just need to ban Roblox for their own good and help them learn like lessons another way.

I guess it depends on what the worst-case scenario is? You're advocating for banning the game altogether just because they have the opportunity to get scammed and lose some in-game items. I'd rather lose items and still have permissions to play the game than not be able to play altogether because "otherwise I'd get scammed".

[nkrisc]

It really depends on the child and how they cope and react to getting scammed. Some might take it in stride and learn. Others may not yet be ready to deal with it. It really depends on the kid and their maturity, which as a parent is for you to determine for your own child.

[smaddox]

> As a parent your primary duty is the safety and well-being of your child. That comes first, lessons second.

That's a false dichotomy. When you over-protect your children, you deprive them of the life lessons that will keep them safe in the future. You can't protect them forever.

[nkrisc]

What is safe for your child changes over time as they mature. As a parent you need to understand what is and isn't acceptable risk for them at their current developmental stage. There's no one answer, each child is different.

[jacobr]

If safety is always the number one priority there will be no climbing trees, no swimming, no bicycling, etc.

Some dangers, like traffic, have consequences that are extreme and irreversible. Getting frauded online is not.. although grooming is a more difficult issue.

[nkrisc]

Safety is the number one priority but as a parent you have to determine what is acceptable risk. Getting in a car is an everyday risk that many of us choose to accept. You have to determine for your own children what "safety" is depending on their individual needs.

[clinta]

This happened to my daughter and was the attitude I had about it, and I think she's healthier for it. She gave away some item in the game she liked and got scammed, now she knows better.

Before I allowed her to play I discussed with her that she is not allowed to tell anybody her real name or the state she lives in. I think and hope the experience of being scammed might have cemented the reasons for that.

[Rotdhizon]

As someone in their early 20s who dabbles on Roblox with some frequency, this completely contradicts my own experience. Granted I only play games that show up in the popular games section on the homepage. I don't go out of my way to find the weird stuff. I suppose it is similar to the Elsagate stuff kids were getting into on Youtube, kids have a remarkable talent to go down rabbit holes you didn't know existed and find the disturbing content. Roblox also has a really bad problem with child/teen dating, so much so that they now have an in game report option specifically for dating behavior.

I imagine it is extremely difficult for the Roblox staff to moderate the disturbing content as they have their hands full around the clock. From people creating thousands of bot accounts to boost their games, security problems revolving around people getting their games/assets/money stolen, people constantly finding new ways to cheat in game, to the issues that you described. I'd also think that the people who engage in the behavior that you described are seasoned in what they do, knowing how to avoid the watchful eye of moderation and parents alike.

[Lendal]

Reminds me of GTA. I stayed far away from it because it had an awful reputation in the media. Finally when GTA5 came out I tried it for the first time and it was nothing like the stories. I was expecting terrible awful very bad things. But it wasn't anything like that when I tried it.

So I think the bad stories are more a reflection of the players playing it than the game. For whatever reason certain types of people will gravitate toward the cesspool hidden underneath the actual game and find a way to turn the whole experience into a monstrous tragedy.

[asdff]

Keep in mind early GTA was a different beast, especially in the eyes of the rampantly vocal suburban moms whose understanding of videogames consisted of frogger and tetris, if they were particularly savvy. How should they react when they see their 8 year old beat a policeman and a dozen civilians to death with a three foot purple dildo on the living room tv, then get head in an alley in a stolen car?

It really does seem outrageous on paper, but we know now that M games are no worse than a kid seeing an R rated movie.

[Faark]

"Protect the kids" reporting about an offline game hardly compares to the dangers from online communities. I don't behave like a 12 year old girl, thus I'll never be treated like one. Even if I wanted to experience it, I'd probably be unable to even imitate one. So its a bit more than just people finding it awesome that you can get your money back by killing the hooker.

[pastrami_panda]

I just wanted to point out that the main thing about Elsagate was how easily you'd get caught in an infested recommendation spiral without actively searching for it. The whole thing was especially disturbing due to the fact that you could watch a popular theme and the recommendation engine would quickly find more and more sinister videos.

[frgotmylogin]

You are spot on about the weird stuff being down rabbit holes of suggestions. There is also a lot of weird/disturbing stuff you can search up in their IDE/level editor app thing. The rules I put in place for my kid were:

-grown ups do any content searching in the level editor

-ask before you try new games

-no games that haven't been voted on much

-chat filter stays on

[wizzard]

Roblox games are 95% garbage in my experience. Apparently there are a few good ones, because somehow they are allowed to sell merch in toy stores — but those are certainly not the ones my kids encounter. All I ever see them play is some variation on running around jumping on buttons, while half the screen is covered in ads trying to get them to do IAPs.

[skrebbel]

My six year old plays the "theme park tycoon" game a lot in Roblox and it's truly splendid. No need to spend any real money, the social part is very minimal and very nice (you can visit theme parks made by others). The controls are a bit wacky here and there but nothing unlearnable.

[wizzard]

Maybe I’ll try to steer them towards that. We tried roller coaster tycoon but the learning curve is pretty steep.

[smaryjerry]

Most games are free copies of other popular full games and most use copyrighted music in them. I'm surprised they haven't had a big copyright crackdown. As far as I know only the pokemon roblox game was shutdown due to copyright. Nintendo is notorious for that though so no surprise.

[mevile]

My daughter plays roblox and I've never seen anything like this when watching her play. I've tried to educate her about this kind of stuff because I know she'll be exposed to it eventually. I'd hope she come talk to me about it if she sees it.

[mac01021]

> I'd hope she come talk to me about it if she sees it.

What should that conversation look like? If you've educated her already, wouldn't it be fine for her simply to dismiss it and move on when she encounters it?

[sidlls]

Children don't process things the same way adults do, partially because just about everything they experience is new in a fundamental and total way that isn't true for adults. They can be prepared by adults for events but typically they'll still have questions and anxieties about them.

[russdpale]

Always the same shit from these companies also:

“We started Roblox over a decade ago with a vision to bring people from all over the world together through play,”

A vision. To bring people together. Im over the whole 'vision to bring people together and closer thing.'

[kimberlythomp99]

Video games can have a very similar reaction on the brain as drugs in the release of dopamine. This is my biggest fear raising my kids in this technology driven age.

[Cthulhu_]

You should be afraid for yourself as well. I mean I'm not going to poo-pooh my kids for getting engrossed in video games, I was just like him and if I had my way I'd be in there all the time. And you know this would go for you as well. I'd argue it's even worse today, with e.g. mobile phones being always within reach and games and media being always-on, infinite in content (Roblox has millions of user-generated games, youtube gets more videos a day than anyone could watch in a lifetime, Reddit / Twitter / etc are infinite, etc).

I mean our games back when were singleplayer and story-driven, but they were still super engrossing. It came to a point with me when after obsessively playing Pokemon for a few weeks (getting super red in the face and everything) I went sick for a week. Probably not related since my dad got the same bug but still, it felt related. Didn't enjoy Pokemon after that.

eve online and other MMOs on the other hand <_<

[mhh__]

As do food, love, sex etc.

Some video games are worse than others but I think the video games themselves are more of a symptom than a root cause.

[weq]

This isnt just games. Lets be frank. We can become addicted to anything given the right physiological triggers.

Capitalism has optimised itself to the point where you are nothing more then meta data. Its at the point where a team of accredited people can sit infront of the meta data, and your product, and they can design ways to trigger dopamine responses.

Putting "any" kind of "modern product" in your childs hand will lead to one thing. Now put a connected device in their hands, and your putting your child in the hands of unlimited amounts of teams, using unlimited amounts of tickery, to earn profit from your child.

Now add back in a dynmically manipulated game environment, where these tools are utilised by predators to exploit your child for their version on profit.

This is the challenge of being a modern parent. Junk food, everywhere, all the time.

https://www.sparringmind.com/supernormal-stimuli/

[saiya-jin]

Well take an inspiration from ultra-rich - don't cheap out on raising your kids and entertain them with potentially addictive games on phones/tablets/computers. They don't expose their kids to any of this till age 7-8 IIRC.

I see it so many times around us - parents are tired, so here ya go kiddo, play with a phone so daddy/mommy can rest. Kids get addicted quickly, then when you take their game away they go mental, try emotional extortion, break stuff, whatever just to get it back.

I know I must have had a mild addiction to PC gaming when being teenager, so many hours, days, weeks and months of wasted life. I won't allow the same thing for my kids, if I can help it. Replace it with physical activities, adventures, travelling, education. Harder, but much more rewarding for everybody involved

[maccard]

At some point (particularly with teenagers) you have to accept they're making a decision. 16 year old me certainly wouldn't have been impressed with a parent pulling the plug on me playing Counter Strike so I could go do something "wholesome" on my own outside. Video games can be a heslthy release/form of entertainment - is it any worse to spend 10 hours a week playing Roblox than watching whatever garbage I was plonked in front of when I was 8 or 9?

[slavik81]

I wonder how many adults would respond better in that situation. It's been a long while since I've had anyone tell me what I'm allowed to do with my free time.

[TomMarius]

If the kid is more interested in playing counter strike than to go geocaching or build a robot with a parent, something is wrong. Obviously everything has limits, too much parent activity is too much, but that applies to counter strike as well.

[maccard]

Just because youre more interested in geocaching and building robots doesn't mean everyone else is. I get that these are just examples, but it's ok for kids to be interested in things their parents aren't.

[IG_Semmelweiss]

No.

First, the super rich can afford it: they have full-time nannies that can help raising children.

Second, an exhausted parent is not going to be parenting. Everyone needs a break.

Third, your approach would have left Bill Gates a nobody. Instead , he was "addicted" to computers. Many high performing and successful individuals are so because they have in effect an addiction which makes them go beyond the ordinary person.

This clues you in on to what is next: parenting does not stop because you turned the TV or Xbox on. It means work:

- work to select and make sure your child can only watch YouTube clips that are beneficial : for example advanced math, learning a foreign language , etc (so that by age 4 he is fluent in at least 2 New disciplines)

-discipline so that you reinforce the learned material, for example sit down to review math, only speak to a child in the foreign language you are trying to teach, practice the sport he sees on a videogame

-patience to review video games so hes only playing games that will help him learn (Crusaders Kings, Europa, MS simulator, etc)

Parenting doesn't stop with videogames. My niece could type faster than her mach teacher because of Minecraft. If she had been my daughter, she would probably been a sysadmin by age 16 (server rental anyone?)

[Cthulhu_]

For sure; I'm addicted to distractions, in a way, in that I get restless from just sitting on the couch for a while. It's too easy to whip out my phone and go on Reddit /all until it gets weird, and my daily rituals include spending an hour at least browsing HN. I don't think it's that problematic yet, but it is definitely a thing. I'll have vacation in a couple weeks, I'll try and disconnect and go through some books again.

[kennyadam]

Yeah, it's definitely not just video games. I became physically dependant on opiates in much the same way.

[synctext]

Heavy. There is a scientific book discussing these topics. Centered around our 'neanderthal within': "The 10,000 Year Explosion: How Civilization Accelerated Human Evolution", https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0465020429/

[anthonypasq]

literally everything in this life worth doing releases dopamine to make you feel good.

Its why we do everything. I dont know why the internet thinks video games are something special.

[fencepost]

I used to play some Minecraft on servers, and while most players are great you end up with a few toxic ones. A lot of how this is handled comes down to who's running the server and how they handle administration and policies. No clue how Roblox works and whether it has the same kind of independent server community.

Still I made it a point to make it clear that I was not a kid and there was no way I was getting into non-group chats with anyone. The only people I ever ended up on any kind of chat with (Skype, then Discord) were the relatively tight group that I was playing with, most of whom were college-age or a bit older. We pretty much dominated that server until most of us lost interest and drifted away due to the real world.

[ulkesh]

And it's even worse because Roblox support is pure crap. Not only does it take a minimum of 3 days to reach anyone, they also have nothing in place to verify an account holder in case the account was compromised. They require the original email address and cannot verify in any other way.

We had to completely ban Roblox as well, even using OpenDNS to block it, but that just led to the use of other networks.

We're now not letting any internet access without us being right there in the same room. We're done with Roblox and its ilk. By the time our child will be allowed access again, it will be a distant memory in the context of later teen life.

[skyfallkavu]

I wouldn't like to tell someone else how to parent, especially since as mentioned earlier all children are different. But, a small story.

I had a friend back in university who's parents did the same. Completely locked down with no internet access unless it was explicitly with her parents observation well into her late-teens. She found freedom when she went away to university, and with that freedom she didn't know how to regulate it. She'd be up all hours of the night scrolling everything shes missed in years past. Games, pop culture references, ancient memes, hours and hours of YouTube playlists, etc. It affected her schooling to the point where she almost withdrew because she'd be so wrapped up in the internet, she wouldn't know how to time-manage for completing assignments or even getting to class. Needless to say her inability to impulse control caused quite a few GPA scares and a lot of money spent on off-term sessions. I remember we agreed as an apartment to put a parental control pin on the communal Xbox because she'd sit for hours and skip class to play.

I can't quite say all this is related to her parents essentially banning her from technology, but it certainly changed my view on how I'd introduce my child to the internet. We're coming to view internet addition similar to drug or alcohol abuse; and I think any sort of responsible moderation that can be learned as a child continues as skills into adulthood.

[ulkesh]

It won't be that bad, it'll just be with us around so our child at least knows to behave and adhere to what we've taught.

When I said not allowed access, it's limited to Roblox. Will still have a Minecraft Realm, still have access to the Internet in various ways, but we have to govern it with a more common sense approach.

[smaryjerry]

I think you see why her parents locked down the access. She was probably failing high school and the lockdown at least got her into college.

[plughs]

I hope you don't mind a couple of questions, my daughter(8) has been asking to play Roblox as a lot of her friends are on it.

Being an engineer, I know full well that "filtering and pre-reviewing content" is pure marketing BS. That said, while I'm not delighted with the possiblities of adult content and in-game currency scams, I might not let that stop her from playing.

But predators - I'm planning on 'white listing' her chat options so she can only chat with known friends. Are there any vulnerabilities there?

I also am worried about how obsessed she could get. I'm willing to keep a close eye on it - unfortunately she's probably going to start obsessing about online games sooner or later, and perhaps the best time to start talking about it is now - while she still trusts my judgment - than later when she's ( possibly ) a surly teen.

[mcs_]

Education must deal with dependencies, of any kind. Prohibition is not a stable and durable solution. Transition to a better dependency is the key to mitigate the bad effects of a wrong activity.

[randiantech]

This is a very similar experience that I had my 8 yo kid, though its not something that exclusive of Roblox. Same thing happened with Nintendo Switch, Minecraft and Youtube.

[nvarsj]

This sounds almost identical to the argument my parents used in the 90s to ban DnD. Are you sure you’re not getting swept up in parental paranoia?

[ericlewis]

Similar experience with our 2yo & YouTube. It is banned in our house for now, because 2yo doesn't exactly understand moderation, but we are willing to open it back up as they get older and understand a bit more.

[pnutjam]

Check out the Amazon FreePlay system. I got a "kids edition" kindle for my 2 year old, it came with a year of freeplay and I've kept it going since it's such a good value. Basically, they get access to all the kids apps, books, and videos in the kindle store. You can limit the age appropriate level.

My biggest complaint is how tedious it is to remove apps, since the kids eventually fill up the kindle.

[sandos]

Good for you. Our 5 and 7 year olds get "banned" from youtube every now and then when we detect the slightest bit of "mania", which they do get.

In Sweden no screen time is recommended until the age of two, and I would easily say that until 3 or 4 years of age, screen time is really not necessary and possible harmful.

[ptah]

you could be cutting your kids off from their friends by doing this. it is unnecessarily cruel