Grow a Garden. 99 Nights in the Forest. Steal a Brainrot. If you're a parent, you've likely heard your kids talk about one of these games at some point.
They're playing Roblox. Their friends are playing Roblox. Half of all kids under the age of 16 in the U.S. are playing Roblox. But with so many kids on Roblox, predators are taking advantage of the online gaming platform.
As a result, Roblox has been hit with a slew of lawsuits over its alleged failure to keep children safe on the platform.
So, is Roblox safe for your kids? And if your kid is already on Roblox, what should you do?
As a father of three young kids, two of whom play Roblox regularly and one who will likely start playing as soon as she learns to hold a tablet, I've written this guide to help other parents navigate Roblox and ensure their kids' safety while playing the game.
What is Roblox, and should my kids play it?
Roblox is an online game where your character can explore a virtual universe and interact with other Roblox characters. The Roblox world is cartoony, with the characters resembling LEGO people.
Roblox is more like a gaming platform than a standalone game. Users create their own games in the virtual world, which other gamers can play. Roblox even has its own economy, with some developers making hundreds of thousands of dollars or more if their game gets popular. There's an in-game virtual currency called Robux, which can be used to access premium features and items.
You may already have seen Roblox received an official ESRB rating of T for Teen. However, that's just because some of the games warrant that level of rating.
If your child tells you they're playing Roblox, that really doesn't give you much information. It's the equivalent of them telling you they're playing video games. You need to know specifically what games they are playing on Roblox to get an idea of what is or isn't appropriate.
Whether your kids play it or not is up to you. I believe it's fine for my kids in the same way I let them watch their favorite shows on Netflix. There are many movies for adults available on that platform too — but with the right parental controls and monitoring, you can ensure age-appropriate content for your children.
Getting started on Roblox
So, you've decided your child can play on Roblox. Now, this is where you'll discover that Roblox actually has several parental controls in place to keep kids safe on the platform. However, parents need to actually take the time to set these things up.
First things first: Creating your Roblox accounts.
That's right, I said "accounts" as in more than one. Your child will have an account, and you will too. Create your accounts, and then from your child's account, navigate to Settings> Parental Controls> Add a parent. Input the email for your account, and then accept the link account request in your inbox. You'll need to verify your age and identification to show you are a parent.
Once your account is linked, parents will need to set up a Parental PIN number to access those parental controls and prevent their kids from changing them. After that, you'll then have full access to control your child's account settings and view any pending requests your child receives.
Age Verification: How it works
Starting in 2026, Roblox rolled out an extra layer of child safety measures targeted directly at the platform's most problematic feature: Chat.
All users who want to utilize the chat features must now first have their age estimated by Roblox in order for the platform to assign the account to an age category.
The mandatory age check can be performed by pressing the Unlock Chat button on the user's account page. Following that, Roblox will access the user's camera on their device in order to scan their facial features. Using that, Roblox then places a user to one of six age categories: Under 9, 9–12, 13–15, 16–17, 18–20, and 21+.
Users cannot interact in chats with other Roblox gamers who are outside of their age cohort.
The age verification is performed by a third-party company called Persona. Roblox says the images used for age verification are deleted after the process, but you may still have privacy concerns. Users have reported being able to trick Roblox's age verification system into thinking a user is older or younger than they actually are.
The addition of the age verification system has basically turned the chat feature off for users who don't partake in the process. In short, there is now yet another barrier of protection for kids on Roblox.
Parental Controls and Content
Once your accounts are created, you'll find that Roblox offers several options to ensure your child's safety on the platform. However, you have to proactively set these things up.
In your account's Parental Controls settings, under Content Maturity, parents can set content restrictions based on the maturity level of the content itself, with levels ranging from Minimal, which means occasional mild violence, all the way to Restricted, which allows unfettered access to the most violence, scary, and crude content on Roblox. You probably don't want that last one. There are two in-between labels for older kids, Mild and Moderate, and these settings can be changed by a parent at any time.
Blocked Experiences allows parents to block specific game titles within Roblox, even if they are technically within the Content Maturity options you set in the previously mentioned menu. As games are added to Roblox, parents may find a specific game that adheres to Roblox's content labels but still contains an attribute that makes the content inappropriate for their child. Parents can use the search bar to find these experiences and block them.
Similarly, there is a Sensitive Issues toggle to block games from your child that may be themed around social, political, or religious issues. Parents can choose to block games labeled as Sensitive Issues here, even if these titles fall within the previously set Content Maturity settings.
Child safety controls
Now come the privacy controls that directly address the child safety issues for which Roblox is under scrutiny.
In the Communications section of the parental controls, parents can set who their kids can communicate with in Roblox experiences. For young children, the option is simple: turn those chats off completely by selecting 'No One'.
However, as your kids get a bit older and want to interact with their real-life friends from school, there are additional options you'll want to set. Roblox allows users to "friend" one another through Connections. Additionally, they can create a Party or a group of friends that can join experiences together.
Parents can view and manage all of their child's connections to ensure they are only connected with individuals they know and trust in real life. Furthermore, parents can adjust their child's profile visibility so that only Connections can view when their child is on Roblox and which game they are currently playing.
Furthermore, parents can control the Party settings so that their child can only create a Party with users who are their Connections. Parents can also toggle Party options off entirely for small children who won't be interacting with anyone on Roblox.
Private Servers are another setting that will likely be vastly different for you based on your child's age. Private Servers essentially allow users to participate in Roblox experiences with a select group of people. For small children, you'll want to likely turn this off entirely. For older kids, setting Private Servers to Connections will allow them to play with their friends.
While Roblox can always do more to protect its youngest users, the platform does have pretty robust options for child safety. The problem is that parents need to be aware of them and learn how to use them. Hopefully, this guide helps.
UPDATE: Jan. 26, 2026, 4:37 p.m. EST Added a section on Roblox's new age verification process to access chats on the platform.