No Roblox and too upset

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not let us play any video games at all, only educational computer games. My cousins' parents let them play unlimited video games practically from birth. Is it a coincidence that both my cousins are still living at home bachelors in their 30s?
I let my kids play Mario, Minecraft, Pokemon for 1 hour a day. I did not purchase Roblox because it looks creepy to me. More importantly, I have banned the watching of Youtube videos of guys playing video games because there was too much weirdness. We actually had to remove Youtube from the TV to get them to stop watching.
This works for my particular kids; every family is different. Don't let a bunch of DCUM cool moms tell you you're being lame. If your kid needs a break, give him a break and get him doing something outside. My kids' social lives don't seem to be suffering.

My DH played video games his entire childhood. He’s now a millionaire and started designing software. The issue is when kids are deprived completely of anything they will end up finding a way to sneak it behind your back or go to extremes with it. For example, my kids have no interest in junk food because we keep it in the house and it’s not forbidden or a novelty to them so they are bored of it. Everything in moderation is always the key.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't recall spending any money for Minecraft when my son spent hours and hours creating and monitoring worlds. Has that changes in the last 10 years?

It’s one of the many unfortunate features of Roblox. I hate it and the bully behavior tolerated on there but the pros are that you play with others and the worlds/challenges/obstacles are created by other players and can be quite funny/silly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for this kid. My DD got Roblox during the pandemic when she was 9 and her younger brother soon after. Yes, they love it and play it all the time. We have a lot of conversations about how to do so safely, but I do not monitor them. It's a huge way for them to bond with friends from school and ECs. They are active, their grades are awesome, etc.

He said something horrible (newsflash: so do adults) and it sounds like he feels way more than sufficiently bad about it. He is not a bad kid.

Get him Roblox. It will bring him happiness.

My kids also had/have large amounts of screen time and handle it fine. But I think it's naive to think every child will do well with all videogames. OP allows other games and set boundaries around Roblox due to her knowledge of her child. She was pleasantly surprised when her kid got to play: instead, all of her concerns were confirmed.

OP, I don't think you need to punish or address what he said further. But it does seem that setting limits around the game makes sense.

These games aren’t that different. It’s sort of like restricting beer but allowing whisky and wine. Friends and cousins drink beer, they talk about it. They drink microbrews, ipas. They compare, contrast, talk about their likes and dislikes. All the while you listen and watch. Beer takes on a certain fascination. Eventually, finally child gets a chance at beer and drinks as much as they can.

Why give a addictive substance at all to kids? If it were up to me no one would. 30 years ago, my parents took the no video game/tv route, and I learned that’s a terrible solution for reasons I won’t go into. Arbitrarily restricting one game that’s really no better or worse than the others may backfire also. My kids play an hr a day on weekends including Roblox, and they’re fine.

I don't understand how you can say Roblox is no better no worse. Roblox has teams of engineers whose primary job is to make the game more addictive for kids to play. It has a massive social component, and also a monetary/reward component tied to real money. Roblox is far more addictive - it is designed to be.

You don’t think Lego and Microsoft/Minecraft have that too? Every video game company has staff hired to make the games more addictive. I think one benefit to Roblox is that it’s more of a platform and many of the game designers are individuals without big companies R&D funds behind them. Lego has a gigantic marketing team with a powerful brand strategy.

You're mixing up commercialization and monetization/gameplay.

Roblox and Minecraft are very different in their sales models. The Roblox economy is much more complex and also more prone to scams and fighting over items (see the thread about a kid who tricked another kid into giving him an item in game). Roblox has more freedom for innovation and novelty, but also more freedom for weird crap like the white supremacy game world. It is designed to move quickly and follow fads so that there is always something new to buy. Minecraft has that to an extent with purchasing new mods and worlds, but the money tends to only flow from the consumer to Mojang, not from consumer to consumer which is where a lot of the problems arise.

Lego is heavily commercialized, but it does not have gameplay designed with an eye toward addiction. That would be like if you bought a lego kit, discovered you were missing 10% of the pieces and had to pay $20 to get the rest. For the most part, what you see is what you get with Lego. You want a star wars kit? You pay $50 and you get it and you build it. Done and done. It's not like a subscription where at the end of the month, your pieces disappear unless you keep paying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I feel so bad for this kid. My DD got Roblox during the pandemic when she was 9 and her younger brother soon after. Yes, they love it and play it all the time. We have a lot of conversations about how to do so safely, but I do not monitor them. It's a huge way for them to bond with friends from school and ECs. They are active, their grades are awesome, etc.

He said something horrible (newsflash: so do adults) and it sounds like he feels way more than sufficiently bad about it. He is not a bad kid.

Get him Roblox. It will bring him happiness.

My kids also had/have large amounts of screen time and handle it fine. But I think it's naive to think every child will do well with all videogames. OP allows other games and set boundaries around Roblox due to her knowledge of her child. She was pleasantly surprised when her kid got to play: instead, all of her concerns were confirmed.

OP, I don't think you need to punish or address what he said further. But it does seem that setting limits around the game makes sense.

These games aren’t that different. It’s sort of like restricting beer but allowing whisky and wine. Friends and cousins drink beer, they talk about it. They drink microbrews, ipas. They compare, contrast, talk about their likes and dislikes. All the while you listen and watch. Beer takes on a certain fascination. Eventually, finally child gets a chance at beer and drinks as much as they can.

Why give a addictive substance at all to kids? If it were up to me no one would. 30 years ago, my parents took the no video game/tv route, and I learned that’s a terrible solution for reasons I won’t go into. Arbitrarily restricting one game that’s really no better or worse than the others may backfire also. My kids play an hr a day on weekends including Roblox, and they’re fine.

I don't understand how you can say Roblox is no better no worse. Roblox has teams of engineers whose primary job is to make the game more addictive for kids to play. It has a massive social component, and also a monetary/reward component tied to real money. Roblox is far more addictive - it is designed to be.

You don’t think Lego and Microsoft/Minecraft have that too? Every video game company has staff hired to make the games more addictive. I think one benefit to Roblox is that it’s more of a platform and many of the game designers are individuals without big companies R&D funds behind them. Lego has a gigantic marketing team with a powerful brand strategy.

You're mixing up commercialization and monetization/gameplay.

Roblox and Minecraft are very different in their sales models. The Roblox economy is much more complex and also more prone to scams and fighting over items (see the thread about a kid who tricked another kid into giving him an item in game). Roblox has more freedom for innovation and novelty, but also more freedom for weird crap like the white supremacy game world. It is designed to move quickly and follow fads so that there is always something new to buy. Minecraft has that to an extent with purchasing new mods and worlds, but the money tends to only flow from the consumer to Mojang, not from consumer to consumer which is where a lot of the problems arise.

Lego is heavily commercialized, but it does not have gameplay designed with an eye toward addiction. That would be like if you bought a lego kit, discovered you were missing 10% of the pieces and had to pay $20 to get the rest. For the most part, what you see is what you get with Lego. You want a star wars kit? You pay $50 and you get it and you build it. Done and done. It's not like a subscription where at the end of the month, your pieces disappear unless you keep paying.

Believe me. They’re all designed to be addictive. Somewhere someone is measuring usage, engagement, dropoff, rentry, etc. Lego Nintendo games are designed to be addictive. The ones online are designed to bring kids back to the website. So those are measuring impressions, clicks, etc. It’s all heavily quantified and analyzed. Regardless of how they differ in terms of monetization, they’re all designed to get kids to return to the game and/or brand

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree on convincing your siblings to ban screens during family get-togethers. Make the cousins actually interact with each other. That is the best age for outdoor games and board/card games.

That may work under limited circumstances. Then there will be birthday parties, sleepovers, play dates. I wouldn’t want to restrict my child to doing all these things only with the moms who agree to restrict Roblox while my child is there. And if he plays, I wouldn’t want him to hide it from me.

We do this with our cousins, and it's really great to see them all playing together - ages 2 to 17. Does the 17 yr old step away a few times to text a boyfriend or something? Yes. But she's very quiet about it, it's not often, and because of that we all pretend not to notice.

Thank you. People don’t give kids enough credit. They can amuse themselves for an hour with a ball. Or even with just themselves (hide-and-go-seek). They don’t need devices.

[Anonymous]

Why can't you just explain to your kid the differences between Roblox and Minecraft and why Minecraft is safer? I'm pretty sure you can find some Tiktoks made by teens showing inappropriate stuff in Roblox, like messages from creeps and Robux drama. If he hears it from other kids what a p.i.t.a Roblox is he might be more amenable to sticking with Minecraft.

Also, my kid says Roblox is dorky and everyone at her school prefers Minecraft. But it's probably because all the other parents say no to Roblox.

[Anonymous]

Do you also not permit Nintendo, Xbox, etc? I know kids who play that Fortnite which is addictive and a killer type of game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you just explain to your kid the differences between Roblox and Minecraft and why Minecraft is safer? I'm pretty sure you can find some Tiktoks made by teens showing inappropriate stuff in Roblox, like messages from creeps and Robux drama. If he hears it from other kids what a p.i.t.a Roblox is he might be more amenable to sticking with Minecraft.

Also, my kid says Roblox is dorky and everyone at her school prefers Minecraft. But it's probably because all the other parents say no to Roblox.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Minecraft has all the inappropriateness and addictive properties. Just run the equivalent inappropriate Minecraft search for inappropriate Roblox, everything from spelling out curse words with the buildings they create to inappropriate chats to predatory mods. And then there are 3rd party add-ons

On Roblox, just go to settings, disable chat, select the few innocent games your kids want to play, disable robux. You can also have your kid in a private server. No one ever got hurt playing 15 mins of restaurant tycoon

[Anonymous]

Minecraft has servers people can visit that can have inappropriate stuff. The modded worlds can be amazing and, I am sure they can be disturbing as well. DS is not allowed to visit the various servers, only his friends.

We restrict chat on all devices for the time being. He talks to his friends using face time or something similar.

So yes, the business models are different but there are adult dangers in a lot of the games. A limit on game play time works at our house. DS is busy enough during the week that he might have 30 minutes a day to play video games, he plays more on the weekends and when he is at friends houses or has friends over. That works for us.

There is no one answer to this issue. I am sure that there are anecdotal stories all over the map but none of that really tells us much. The OP has to decide what the balance is at her house. I would guess that allowing the kid to play a bit every day would remove the mystery/special game feeling at that Roblox will fall into the category of the kids other games but I don’t know the OPs kid.

[Anonymous]

When our DS was younger and would have a meltdown when it was time to put a tablet down, we said "it looks like you're not old enough to handle this yet. Maybe we should put it away for a few months until it doesn't upset you so much. This is meant to be fun, not make you cry." He got the idea quickly.

Rather than leaving it to an arbitrary number of circles around the sun, leave it to something he can control himself. If he shows that he can handle other video games maturely - stopping without complaint when it's time for dinner, not whining for them constantly, playing well with others and not being a jerk - then he can play roblox. If he says horrible things to his mother, then tack on another few months of waiting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't you just explain to your kid the differences between Roblox and Minecraft and why Minecraft is safer? I'm pretty sure you can find some Tiktoks made by teens showing inappropriate stuff in Roblox, like messages from creeps and Robux drama. If he hears it from other kids what a p.i.t.a Roblox is he might be more amenable to sticking with Minecraft.

Also, my kid says Roblox is dorky and everyone at her school prefers Minecraft. But it's probably because all the other parents say no to Roblox.

Sorry to burst your bubble, but Minecraft has all the inappropriateness and addictive properties. Just run the equivalent inappropriate Minecraft search for inappropriate Roblox, everything from spelling out curse words with the buildings they create to inappropriate chats to predatory mods. And then there are 3rd party add-ons

On Roblox, just go to settings, disable chat, select the few innocent games your kids want to play, disable robux. You can also have your kid in a private server. No one ever got hurt playing 15 mins of restaurant tycoon

You can disable all those things and play in your own private world on Minecraft too. And a motivated kid can re-enable those settings behind your back on any platform. But the existence of Robux attracts more bad actors to the Roblox platform, so it is the worse of the two. The in-game economy of Minecraft is virtually non-existent because, as other have pointed out, any money you spend goes to the company, not other players. Selling mods is not possible on the platform, and selling them off-platform is prohibited by the EULA. You're really not encountering that many strangers in Minecraft unless you go out of your way to find them. All that = safer.

[Anonymous]

I wouldn’t address the death threat directly but I’d say that clearly this game is not turning him into the nice kid you know he is and so as a result he won’t be having it again.

I would go so far as to avoid family functions if they can’t survive a day without their iPads and games. It sounds like there isn’t any real family time going on anyway so nothing to miss.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not let us play any video games at all, only educational computer games. My cousins' parents let them play unlimited video games practically from birth. Is it a coincidence that both my cousins are still living at home bachelors in their 30s?
I let my kids play Mario, Minecraft, Pokemon for 1 hour a day. I did not purchase Roblox because it looks creepy to me. More importantly, I have banned the watching of Youtube videos of guys playing video games because there was too much weirdness. We actually had to remove Youtube from the TV to get them to stop watching.
This works for my particular kids; every family is different. Don't let a bunch of DCUM cool moms tell you you're being lame. If your kid needs a break, give him a break and get him doing something outside. My kids' social lives don't seem to be suffering.

My DH played video games his entire childhood. He’s now a millionaire and started designing software. The issue is when kids are deprived completely of anything they will end up finding a way to sneak it behind your back or go to extremes with it. For example, my kids have no interest in junk food because we keep it in the house and it’s not forbidden or a novelty to them so they are bored of it. Everything in moderation is always the key.

+1. They are shut out socially when they don’t play the most popular games for their age group because that is what the kids do together at playdates.

[Anonymous]

Lots of mamas trying to justify their choice in giving their kids unlimited screen time, LOL!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents did not let us play any video games at all, only educational computer games. My cousins' parents let them play unlimited video games practically from birth. Is it a coincidence that both my cousins are still living at home bachelors in their 30s?
I let my kids play Mario, Minecraft, Pokemon for 1 hour a day. I did not purchase Roblox because it looks creepy to me. More importantly, I have banned the watching of Youtube videos of guys playing video games because there was too much weirdness. We actually had to remove Youtube from the TV to get them to stop watching.
This works for my particular kids; every family is different. Don't let a bunch of DCUM cool moms tell you you're being lame. If your kid needs a break, give him a break and get him doing something outside. My kids' social lives don't seem to be suffering.

My DH played video games his entire childhood. He’s now a millionaire and started designing software. The issue is when kids are deprived completely of anything they will end up finding a way to sneak it behind your back or go to extremes with it. For example, my kids have no interest in junk food because we keep it in the house and it’s not forbidden or a novelty to them so they are bored of it. Everything in moderation is always the key.

+1. They are shut out socially when they don’t play the most popular games for their age group because that is what the kids do together at playdates.

I have not found this to be the case.