Roblox, anyone have children addicted?

AmberGold

Hi, don’t normally post here but here goes. Does anyone have children that seem addicted to the game Roblox.

My son is 10 and seems to want to play this game 10 hours a day. He’s constantly looking for us to load him up with coins (robux) from the App Store and has been acting out when we decline. His behavior seems to change for the worse after he’s been playing it for a while.

Tonight we had enough and the game was removed, to say he nearly had a breakdown is an understatement.

Our other two children can take or leave it but it really seems to have hooked our son.

There’s even a video on YouTube of a Ukrainian mother dealing with her young son as he throws a fit over the game. Not far off what we’re experiencing.

Commonsensemedia website has it down as a no go for young children for a few reasons but I’m a little concerned about the social impact it may have on him as all his peers seem to play it.

NIMAN

AmberGold wrote: »

Hi, don’t normally post here but here goes. Does anyone have children that seem addicted to the game Roblox.

My son is 10 and seems to want to play this game 10 hours a day. He’s constantly looking for us to load him up with coins (robux) from the App Store and has been acting out when we decline. His behavior seems to change for the worse after he’s been playing it for a while.

Tonight we had enough and the game was removed, to say he nearly had a breakdown is an understatement.

Our other two children can take or leave it but it really seems to have hooked our son.

There’s even a video on YouTube of a Ukrainian mother dealing with her young son as he throws a fit over the game. Not far off what we’re experiencing.

Commonsensemedia website has it down as a no go for young children for a few reasons but I’m a little concerned about the social impact it may have on him as all his peers seem to play it.

There's the link.

Screen time for young kids really needs to be limited.

I heard my son of 8 mentioning it the other day, he got a PS4 for Xmas. Will likely not bother getting it for him for now.

Once he goes back to school in January, PS4 will only be out at weekends.

sword1

I have no idea about the game thankfully but the last line of your post would seem to be a very soft approach. Surely not playing a game that seems to be having a bad affect on your child is more important than the social consequences.
My kids are slightly younger so maybe it is all ahead of me, I will definitely try to keep it out of the house if I hear it mentioned

fritzelly

10 hours a day at his age? Or maybe I'm reading it wrong

Seriously need to stop his online time - a few hours max and buying the coins is just feeding his habit, make him use his pocket money to buy them and that's it. Will have to make the decision between sweets and the game for example

He has an addiction and needs to be stopped now before it comes a norm for him to be single minded about other things

As for peers - the lemmings analogy comes into mind

Dravokivich

I really don't care what games my kid plays. But he knows he ain't getting anything more out of'em from me. Put your foot down and ride it out. The game doesn't matter. It's how your child acts that does.

AmberGold

Sorry, phrased that wrong, he’d be on it 10 hrs a day if he was let. Thanks for the replies so far.

Roesy

I’d look at setting limits to his gaming time. Decide what you think an appropriate amount of time per day is and enforce it, say 2 30 minute slots. I’d also put some conditions in place e.g not before breakfast, not within an hour of bedtime, certain chores and homework have to be done before it too. My kids are younger than yours so we haven’t experienced a problem like this yet but my nephew did get very hooked an a particular game a couple of years ago. He would have been a similar age to your nephew and it also led to problems with his behaviour. His parents explained to him at the time that if something made him behave in that way then he couldn’t be allowed to play it at all and that if the behaviour continued that all screen time would be gone instead of just limited. There was a tough time during the initial transition and they still have to be quite strict with his access to things like the iPad.

circadian

Never heard of it, but a quick search online shows a lot of blogs and sites highlighting some serious issues with this game.

The chat is almost completely unmoderated, which means your son could be getting bullied online or even approached by a predator. If I get the time I'll sign up and check it out but if I were you I would be handling this game with caution.

shesty

My kids are way younger but we actually have his problem with some tv programmes and one of our kids (I have mentioned this before).We just can't let her watch certain things-I mean basic things like Blaze and the Monster machines and Rusty Rivets.Her behaviour afterwards is shocking, from when the TV gets turned off, for a good hour or more afterwards-tantrums, moaning, screaming, demanding it goes back on, whatever (she's 3).Our other child is totally unaffected.Some kids just regulate themselves better.Our older is not one of these, she is just very switched on all the time and can't seem to handle the speed or something of these programmmes.But at the end of the day we are the parents.I have told her we cannot turn on the tv if that is how she behaves afterwards (and we don't switch on those hings, we can get away with it for now).Your boy may be similar-he just doesn't regulate himself that well in relation to this game.If it's that big a problem then it's up to you to set the limits around it for him, and some of the suggestions here are very good. Hopefully the return of school etc will bring some normality back for him.

ifElseThen

Our 8 year old got into this latter part of 2017.

I checked and saw lots of adding of random people as friends etc. Luckily nothing nasty sent to him.

You can set security so there was no chat or private messaging etc so I set these to not allow any chatting.

There's also danger in the roblox content itself, as people can create and upload their own games. Kids could land on inappropriate content.

As with any online platform be very careful with your children on them.

Call me Al

You have to set limits on stuff like this.
My two would also play Xbox 10 hours a day if they could get away with it. But they don't because they can't. House rules ( which they helped write!!) say two hours a day at the weekend and that's it.
Give them a time limit. And then take the controllers and follow through on consequences if he is playing too much.

uck51js9zml2yt

My kids are the same. I just take the phone off them and leave them to their tantrums.

I heard about an app today "Our Pact Jr".
The idea is to draw up an agreement with junior re times they can play and how long. This is scheduled on the app and outside those times the app makes the games invisible.

byhookorbycrook

I don't think an app is needed to say "no!"

uck51js9zml2yt

byhookorbycrook wrote: »

I don't think an app is needed to say "no!"

As we all know, some parents are incapable of being "parents"

boardsuser1

My 7 year old is all but addicted to it.

The iPad even heats up from so much use.

In my house though I have a simple rule, the iPad is fully charged overnight, once it’s dead that’s it until the next day.

The child was so smart at one stage they had a charger hidden and were playing it at bedtime.

I immediately confiscated that and the other charger, now only me and my wife have access to them.

Children are fast becoming addicted to electronics which is madness in itself.

Granted I have an iPhone myself, but I don’t spend as much time as possible on it.

Kids should be no different with robloxw.

The latest “game” I need to look into is a thing calmly Denis Daly, this is a game and not a person apparently.

michellie

My daughter was obsessed with this too. It's been deleted now and she hasn't even asked for it since.

Firstly she was getting nightmares one night over the Slender man that she had seen on it once. Which is terrifying enough as it is.

Secondly and more seriously her friends mam who I'm friends with rang me about 2 weeks ago saying there was something strange going on with my daughter's account. Someone had hacked it and were sending messages to her friends to take off their clothes.they had a little chat room and it was happening in there.

I couldn't see these messages from our side and my daughter wasn't even using the app at that time. So it was shut down immediately.

Lisha

michellie wrote: »

My daughter was obsessed with this too. It's been deleted now and she hasn't even asked for it since.

Firstly she was getting nightmares one night over the Slender man that she had seen on it once. Which is terrifying enough as it is.

Secondly and more seriously her friends mam who I'm friends with rang me about 2 weeks ago saying there was something strange going on with my daughter's account. Someone had hacked it and were sending messages to her friends to take off their clothes.they had a little chat room and it was happening in there.

I couldn't see these messages from our side and my daughter wasn't even using the app at that time. So it was shut down immediately.

Jesus that’s terrifying to think your daughter account was cloned/hacked and her friends received inappropriate messages... imagine if the other kids believed it and started avoiding the child/ call child a weirdo. It could ruin a child.

beans

Cork Truck Driver wrote: »

The latest “game” I need to look into is a thing calmly Denis Daly, this is a game and not a person apparently.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCOaMOXfe8EWH1GJyhqhXrAA

Presumably this. Denis Daly is a politician from Galway.

2xj3hplqgsbkym

michellie wrote: »

My daughter was obsessed with this too. It's been deleted now and she hasn't even asked for it since.

Firstly she was getting nightmares one night over the Slender man that she had seen on it once. Which is terrifying enough as it is.

Secondly and more seriously her friends mam who I'm friends with rang me about 2 weeks ago saying there was something strange going on with my daughter's account. Someone had hacked it and were sending messages to her friends to take off their clothes.they had a little chat room and it was happening in there.

I couldn't see these messages from our side and my daughter wasn't even using the app at that time. So it was shut down immediately.

Is this roblox you are talking about?