Inside My Family’s Approach to Roblox Safety
- Stephen Dypiangco
- Oct 6
- 4 min read
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Safety on Roblox has been a recurring topic in the news for years. Some parents play Roblox with their kids, while others barely know what it is, only that their children spend a lot of time there.
For brands evaluating Roblox and wondering whether to show up on the platform, these stories often spark hesitation. One question I hear from both parents and business professionals is, “Is Roblox a safe place for kids?”
It’s a fair question. About 36% of Roblox users are under age 13, while the remaining 64% are 13 and older, according to Roblox’s public filings. That wide age range means the platform must balance creativity, community, and protection, and it means safety perceptions directly influence how parents, and by extension brands, view Roblox.
While I have yet to do a deep technical dive into Roblox’s safety systems, I recognize how important this issue is and how little most parents and professionals truly understand it. So I’m beginning a short series on Roblox safety. This first article starts where most people start: with personal experience as a parent.
My Kids’ Experience with Roblox
Roblox first appeared in our household in 2019, when my two oldest kids asked to download it on their iPads.
By 2020 during the pandemic lockdown, Roblox became a key part of their social lives, an online playground where they played and hung out with friends. They coordinated outside the platform through an app called Just Talk Kids to chat with their friends while they played.
My youngest joined Roblox in 2022, and since then all three of my kids, now ages 9 to 15, have made Roblox part of their lives.
Setting Roblox Ground Rules
From the beginning, my wife and I set clear family rules for Roblox. These were simple, verbal guidelines mirroring how we expect our kids to behave in real life. The core principle was straightforward: don’t talk to strangers online. We have spoken with our kids about the topic of sexual abuse since they were very young, and our conversation about Roblox was an extension of this.
Recently, I asked my kids to recall the rules we’d discussed years ago. Here’s what they said:
My 9-year-old:
Don’t friend people you don’t know.
Don’t talk or text at all.
Play “good” games. (he wasn't able to elaborate on this, but I appreciate his instincts here)
My 13-year-old:
Don’t friend strangers.
Don’t use group chat or type in chat.
If someone you don’t know interacts with you, leave the server.
Never share personal information.
My 15-year-old:
Don’t talk to anyone.
Don’t add friends without asking a parent first.
Hearing them repeat these rules was reassuring. We haven’t discussed online safety in a while, yet the lessons clearly stuck. These rules were designed to block the biggest risk, strangers with bad intentions, and reinforce that digital spaces require the same caution as real ones.
Roblox has since added its own restrictions on communication for under-13 users, which I’ll explore in a future article.
Why Family Rules Matter
When we first downloaded Roblox in 2019, my wife and I didn’t know much about it, only that our kids’ friends were there. Creating rules gave us structure and peace of mind.
I asked my 13-year-old why we have online safety rules. Her answer was short but revealing:
“People online are weird. It’s just common sense.”
She mentioned that her school teaches online safety each year in technology class and shared a story about her cousin getting scammed in Adopt Me, losing pets he’d collected for years. That experience helped her understand that danger online isn’t just “strangers,” it’s also scams, manipulation, and misplaced trust.
Hearing her call safety “common sense” told me those instincts have taken hold. They came from home lessons, experience, and school reinforcement, something I never had when I was growing up.
Safety Rules in Practice
My daughter also recalled a situation years ago while playing Build a Boat with friends. A stranger joined their server claiming to be a YouTuber and asking to join their team.
While some friends wanted to let the person join, she felt uneasy, so she and the group left the server. Was the person really a YouTuber? I'll never know. But she remembered our rules and acted accordingly, which is exactly the kind of decision-making I want my kids to develop online.
Reviewing Friend Connections
As part of writing this article, I sat down with my kids to review their Roblox friends lists. They showed me who their connections were and listed each person, mostly friends from school and cousins.
This simple exercise confirmed that they’ve taken the rule of not adding strangers to heart. It also gave me an easy way to talk through who they interact with and why.
Parental Controls
In November 2024, Roblox rolled out new parental control features. Here’s what I saw when setting them up for my own kids:
Parents can:
Limit who your child can chat with (including blocking all chat)
View daily playtime over the past seven days
Control spending through monthly limits
Adjust content maturity levels (e.g., “Mild”)
Block specific experiences
Restrict access to “Sensitive Issues” content (such as politics or sexuality)
Review third-party app connections
For my 9-year-old, I set content to Mild and left Sensitive Issues turned off. At his age, limiting exposure made sense.
The controls were more robust for him than for my 13-year-old, who has fewer parental filters available. Even so, setting up these features together provided a valuable reminder that online safety is something we manage with our kids, not for them.
Final Thoughts
So, is Roblox safe?
For my family, the answer is yes, with guidance. Roblox can be a positive, creative space when paired with family rules, active conversations, and intentional use of parental controls.
This process gave me a chance to revisit what we teach, confirm it’s working, and show my kids that safety online isn’t about fear, it’s about awareness and responsibility.
In an upcoming article, I’ll break down how Roblox’s new safety tools actually work, where they succeed, and where there’s still room to improve.
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