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?

Mine has a two hour limit per day split up by 40 min ea roblox/Minecraft/YouTube kids. I told him we are never buying the fake money and if he whines about that he could lose his privilege to play. I also talked about how that is just like throwing money out the window since you get nothing for that money and there are lots of games out there that don’t require extra money. I occasionally give extra time as a reward for chores or stuck somewhere, but he usually used that for YouTube kids. And I support social game groups where he does a class with in person gaming with others. Good luck.

Anonymous wrote:You definitely need to address the death threat.

Wtf?

It's a game and he threatened to kill you?

No, way. That's definitely a conversation and a reason for him to not play any games with any type of violence. Period. Not even minecraft.

A few months ago a pre-teen literally killed his mom because she took a game from him. Your son probably wouldn't have said what he said to his dad, uncontrolled, males can feel rage and superiority over women, even at a young age. No, I don't think he was literally going to kill you in that moment, but he was expressing the extreme level of disrespect, hate, and superiority that was present in his heart at the moment.

My DS is 8 and he would never say such a thing. Don't care what I took away. He'd cry of course but not threaten murder.

Where is OP's DS getting this from?

Usually when my DS is tired or overstimulated he gets very quiet, not murderous.

Anonymous wrote:Man sometimes I look around at the world and am shocked by how people act. Then I come in here and understand. Some of y’all have the craziest ideas about parenting. Ignore your child threatening to murder you? Ok.

No, not ignore. They should have the device taken away from a time. But afterwards, enter your world your child is in and teach them using your adult perspective. Shutting off their curiosity or remaining ignorant about the content they’re using is not that

You definitely need to address the death threat.

Wtf?

It's a game and he threatened to kill you?

No, way. That's definitely a conversation and a reason for him to not play any games with any type of violence. Period. Not even minecraft.

Man sometimes I look around at the world and am shocked by how people act. Then I come in here and understand. Some of y’all have the craziest ideas about parenting. Ignore your child threatening to murder you? Ok.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The reality is you can’t say no to video games forever. Unless you live in the Amish community or something he will be exposed to them and this argument will keep coming up. So the question is more about when you want to deal with it. and how tou teach him to handle it.

He’s the kind of kid you have to do no video games until they’re like 18.

Anonymous wrote:I would just say too to Roblox forever at this point. Deliver the information at a neutral time, probably not on a school night. If he has an addictive personality now, he’ll have the same personality at 11. Have a talk with cousins’ parents and see if family time can be game-free.

This is really extreme and unhelpful.

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.

**wasn't pleasantly surprised