Roblox Parental Controls — Complete Setup Guide for the 2026 Account System

Roblox launched mandatory age verification in November 2025 and a three-tier account system (Kids 5-8, Select 9-15, Standard 16+) in April 2026. This guide covers what shipped, how to link parent accounts, configure every dashboard control, and the OS + network layers you need on top.

Why this guide changed in 2026

If you set up Roblox parental controls more than six months ago, throw out what you remember. The platform you protected your kid on in 2025 is not the platform that exists in mid-2026.

In November 2025, Roblox became the first major gaming platform to require facial age verification to access chat. Over half of global daily users — 65% in the US — completed the check within months. In February 2026, Roblox formalized the policy of "moving beyond self-reported age." In April 2026, they announced a three-tier account system rolling out in early June 2026: Roblox Kids (5–8), Roblox Select (9–15), and Standard Roblox (16+).

This wasn't goodwill. The rollout came after multiple lawsuits — including one from the Florida Attorney General — alleging the platform enabled child predators, plus sustained pressure from US senators. Experts have warned that determined predators may simply migrate to less-regulated platforms (Discord, Snapchat, smaller chat apps), so Roblox controls are necessary but not sufficient.

This guide covers what actually shipped, how to set it up correctly, and the layers you need on top.

What's new versus what's existing

New in 2026 (some not yet rolled out):

Roblox Kids account type (ages 5–8) — June 2026 launch. All chat/DMs/voice disabled by default. Games limited to "Minimal" or "Mild" ratings only. Curated catalog with periodic updates.
Roblox Select account type (ages 9–15) — June 2026 launch. Games up to "Moderate" rating. Communication preserves prior settings.
Standard Roblox (16+) — full platform access for verified users.
Trusted Connections — age-checked 13+ users can connect cross-age-group with people they actually know. For under-13s, parental oversight is required, and any linked parent automatically becomes a Trusted Connection.
Facial age estimation — verify age via a video selfie analyzed by AI (no video stored). Alternative methods: government-issued ID or credit card.
Granular game approval — approve or block specific individual games (extended through age 15 — was age 12 previously).
Direct chat settings — controllable through age 15 (also extended).
Spending summaries — see exactly how much your child spent, in which experiences, over what time period.
IARC content rating framework — ESRB ratings for US, PEGI for Europe — formally integrated into the maturity controls in mid–late 2026.

Already shipped (still useful):

Monthly Robux spending caps with parent notifications
Daily screen time limits with auto-lockout when hit
Content maturity settings (Minimal / Mild / Moderate / Restricted)
Friends and Connections viewer + block + report
Activity insights — top 20 games played, screen time, on-platform connections
Parental PIN to prevent the child from changing restrictions

Setup Part 1 — Link a parent account to your child's account

Until linked, you have no parental control over your child's account. This is the first 5 minutes of work.

What you need

Your child's Roblox login (the one they actually use — username + password, or whatever device has them logged in).
Your own Roblox account. If you don't have one, create one — you'll only use it for the parent dashboard. Use an email address your kid doesn't know the password to.
Identity verification for yourself. You'll need one of:
- Government-issued ID (driver's license, passport, etc.) — you photograph it during setup
- Credit card (used for verification, no charge)
- The facial age estimation flow (a short video selfie analyzed by AI; the video is not stored)

Steps

Log into roblox.com using your child's account. This is the one place where you have to start on the kid's side. (You can do this on their device, on the web, or on your own browser if you have their password.)
Click the gear icon in the top right → Settings.
Click Parental Controls in the left sidebar.
Choose Connect Parent. Enter your email address (the parent account email, not the child's).
Roblox emails a verification link to your address. Open it, log into your parent account.
Roblox prompts you to complete identity verification. Pick one of: government ID, credit card, or facial age estimation. ID is the highest-confidence option; credit card is fastest if you don't want to upload a license photo; facial age estimation is also fast if you want to skip both.
Once verified, the linkage activates. Your parent account dashboard now shows your child's account under Linked Accounts.

Set a Parental PIN

This is the single most-important setting on the whole platform. Without a PIN, your child can simply turn off any restriction you set.

In the parent dashboard, go to Account Restrictions → Parental PIN.
Set a 4-digit PIN your child does not know.
Save.

The PIN is required to change any restriction or unlink the account. Without it, restrictions are advisory.

Verify the link is active

Back in the parent dashboard, you should see:

Your child's username under Linked Accounts.
A summary card showing their current account type (Standard, or — after June 2026 — Kids or Select).
A status indicator showing the verification method you used.

If the linkage isn't showing within a few minutes, check the spam folder of the parent email — Roblox's verification emails frequently land there.

Setup Part 2 — Configure the parent dashboard

Once linked, the parent dashboard surfaces a set of toggles and limits. Walk through them in order.

Access via: roblox.com → log in to parent account → click profile icon → Settings → Parental Controls → [child's username].

You can also access this from the Roblox mobile app, but the web dashboard is the cleanest place to do the first-time setup.

Content maturity

Roblox classifies experiences into four maturity levels:

Minimal — preschool-age content. Cartoonish violence at most, no scary themes, no romance, no strong language.
Mild — light cartoonish violence, mild fear themes, no realism. Most "safe-for-younger-kids" content sits here.
Moderate — some violence (still cartoonish/fantasy), heavier action, mild crude humor. Tween/early-teen content.
Restricted — realistic violence, strong themes, mature content. Older teen / 17+ in spirit.

For a child account:

Ages 5–8 (Kids accounts after June rollout): Locked to Minimal or Mild by default. Don't override this.
Ages 9–12: Mild is the right default. Bumping to Moderate opens up a lot of borderline content; only do it if your kid has specific games they're trying to play and you've vetted them.
Ages 13–15: Moderate is reasonable. Restricted is meaningfully different — it includes realistic violence and stronger themes.
Ages 16+: Your call. The maturity setting becomes mostly advisory at this age.

To set: Account Restrictions → Content Maturity → pick a level → save with PIN.

Communication and Connections

This is the section where most of Roblox's documented harm has happened. Adjust carefully.

The granular toggles:

Who can chat with me in-experience — set to No One for under-9, Friends for 9–12, Friends (still) for most 13–15. Everyone is the default that bites people.
Who can chat with me on Roblox (account-wide DMs) — set to No One for under-9, Friends for 9–13. Older teens can have Friends; Everyone is rarely defensible.
Who can invite me to private servers — set to Friends across all ages.
Who can join me in experiences — Friends across all ages.
Voice chat — Off for under-13 (Roblox's own policy enforces this anyway). Off for younger 13-year-olds. The voice-chat-on-Roblox population is loud and not always pleasant.

To set: Communication → step through each toggle.

Friends and Connections review

The Friends list is the most important thing to glance at on the dashboard. The friends list is where grooming starts.

Friends/Connections viewer: see every account on your child's friends list. Tap a name to see when the friendship started, basic public profile info, and a Block + Report button.
Trigger for review: if you see a username you don't recognize and the account was added recently, ask your kid who they are. For under-13 accounts, "I don't remember" is a red flag — block.
Trusted Connections (after June 2026): for under-13 accounts, you'll see a separate "Trusted Connections" list — these are the people Roblox has explicitly approved as cross-age-group contacts. Review these monthly.

To access: Friends and Connections → review list → block/report as needed.

Screen time

Set a daily limit. When the child hits the limit, Roblox shows them a "you've hit today's limit" screen and the platform locks them out until the next day at midnight (their local time, server-side).

Daily limit: 1 hour is the default we'd recommend for under-12 on weekdays. 2 hours for weekend / older. Set per your family's rules.
Notifications: enable parent notification when 80% of the limit is reached. This gives you a chance to wind the child down before the lockout, which is dramatically less disruptive than the hard cut.

To set: Screen Time → set daily limit → enable notifications → save with PIN.

Spending limits

This is the under-publicized hero of the 2026 update.

Monthly Robux purchase cap. Default is unlimited, which is exactly the wrong default. Set a hard cap. $0 is reasonable for younger kids. Older kids: pick a number that matches an allowance philosophy ($5–$15/month is common).
Per-experience subscription cap. Some experiences sell ongoing subscriptions ("VIP servers", "premium upgrades"). Set this low or zero.
Spending summary. Review monthly. Look for: a sudden spike (which often indicates a new game with predatory monetization), or a consistent monthly drip on a single experience (which is fine and predictable but worth knowing).

To set: Spending → Monthly cap → enter dollar amount → enable notifications → save with PIN.

Block specific games

The granular game-approval feature is new — it lets you block individual experiences your kid keeps trying to access.

The most common use case: your kid found a borderline game with sketchy content but it's technically rated within their maturity level. Block it specifically rather than tightening the entire maturity setting.
Procedure: copy the experience URL (the full roblox.com/games/XXXXX/... link), paste into the block list, save with PIN.
Through age 15, you can maintain this list. After age 15 the block list still works but is increasingly easy to circumvent (older teens are more comfortable creating alt accounts).

To set: Account Restrictions → Blocked Experiences → paste URL → save with PIN.

Setup Part 3 — Verify your child's age (or set it as the parent)

Roblox now applies different default settings based on age. Without an age-checked account, your child gets the most-restrictive defaults: Minimal or Mild content only, all communication off. This is fine for very young kids but limiting for teens.

There are two ways to lock in an age:

Option A: Parent sets the age (recommended)

If you've completed parent verification (Setup Part 1), you can set your child's age directly in the parent dashboard without putting them through the facial age check.

Procedure: parent dashboard → child's account → Account Information → Set Age → enter the child's actual birth date → save with PIN.
This is the right path for any child under 13. Don't make a 7-year-old do facial age estimation.

Option B: Child completes facial age estimation

For older kids (13+), Roblox's facial age estimation is the path that gives them the most cross-platform freedom (e.g., chat with friends across age groups via Trusted Connections).

The flow: in their account settings, tap Verify Age → record a short video selfie → AI analyzes and assigns an age estimate.
The video itself is not stored; only the inferred age is retained.
If the AI is wrong (it sometimes mis-estimates teens as younger), they can fall back to government ID for a definitive answer.

The reason to do this: an unverified 14-year-old is treated as if they could be any age, which means they get the most-restrictive defaults and they can't use Trusted Connections to chat with friends they actually know in different age groups.

Trusted Connections — what it is and how to use it

Roblox's response to the "kids should be able to chat with their actual friends, but adults shouldn't be able to slide into kids' DMs" problem.

How it works

An age-checked user can mark another age-checked user as a Trusted Connection.
For users 13+: they can chat freely with their Trusted Connections, even across age groups. So a 14-year-old can chat with their 16-year-old cousin.
For users under 13: Trusted Connections require parental oversight. The parent has to approve each Trusted Connection. The linked parent is automatically a Trusted Connection of the child.

How to use it for under-13s

Your child requests to add someone as a Trusted Connection.
You see the request in the parent dashboard under Pending Connections.
Tap to review the requested user. You see public profile info, but not chat history (since none exists yet).
Approve or deny.

What we'd recommend

For under-9s: don't approve any Trusted Connections except yourself and other linked parents/guardians.
For 9–12: approve known classmates and family members only. If you don't know who the person is, ask your kid; if they can't explain, deny.
For 13–15: review the list monthly. Trusted Connections build up; the goal is to keep it lean. Anyone they don't talk to anymore should be removed.

Setup Part 4 — Lock down at the OS / device level

Your Roblox parental controls cover the Roblox account. They do not cover:

Your kid creating a second Roblox account on a different email
Your kid using a friend's account
Your kid downloading Roblox on a different device that isn't tied to your linked parental controls
Network-level Roblox usage on cellular when not on home Wi-Fi

The fix for most of these is OS-level controls.

iOS

Settings → Screen Time → Content & Privacy Restrictions (requires Screen Time PIN — different from the Roblox PIN).
iTunes & App Store Purchases → Installing Apps → Don't Allow (so your kid can't reinstall Roblox after you remove it, or install other AI/chat apps).
Allowed Apps — review what's installed. Remove or disable Roblox if you've decided it's coming off the device.
Web Content → Limit Adult Websites — this also helps catch in-browser Roblox access if your kid tries roblox.com instead of the app.

Android (Family Link)

Open Family Link → tap your child's account.
Manage settings → Apps → Roblox → set time limits independently of Roblox's own (belt + suspenders).
Manage settings → Google Play → require parent approval for new app installs.
Web & app activity → review what's been visited.

Game consoles

If your child plays Roblox on Xbox or PlayStation, those consoles have their own parental controls layer. Set time limits, communication restrictions, and content maturity at the console level too — Roblox's settings don't fully control console-side behavior.

(Cross-link: see our Xbox Family Safety guide and PlayStation Family Management guide.)

Network layer (the most-comprehensive option)

If you want to block Roblox at the network level for younger kids — say, during the school year, or as a hard "no Roblox in the bedroom" boundary — DNS-based filtering is the cleanest tool. Block the domains: roblox.com, rbxcdn.com, roblox.cn. For phones on cellular, you have to deploy DNS filtering at the device level (NextDNS does this).

(Cross-link: see our NextDNS for Families guide.)

Common bypass attempts — what works, what doesn't

Ranked by frequency:

1. "I'll just create a new Roblox account on a different email."

Works only if you didn't lock down email-account creation on the device.
Counter: Apple Screen Time / Family Link app-install blocking + email-creation restriction. Plus: in 2026, new accounts will require age verification before they can chat or purchase Robux. So even if they create an alt, it's restricted by default.

2. "I'll use my friend's account."

Can't be beaten technically.
Counter: this is a conversation. The goal isn't perfect prevention — it's that they have an internal compass for when they're using Roblox in a way that worries them, and they have you in their corner if something feels off.

3. "I'll lie about my age in facial estimation."

Doesn't work. The AI looks at facial features that don't lie about age — bone structure, skin texture, etc.
A 12-year-old trying to verify as 16 will fail. They might pass as 13 or 14 if they look mature for their age, but that's a 1-year shift, not a 4-year one.

4. "I'll factory-reset and re-set up without parental controls."

Apple Family Sharing organizer can require approval for factory resets. Same with Family Link. Set this up.

5. "I'll use a VPN."

Roblox's age verification doesn't really care about geographic IP — it cares about facial scan or ID. So a VPN doesn't bypass age estimation.
Where a VPN does help: unblocking access if Roblox is blocked at your home DNS layer. The fix is DNS-at-the-device-level via NextDNS, which works on cellular and through VPNs.

6. "I'll guess the Parental PIN."

Don't use 0000, 1234, your kid's birth year, or the year you set it up. Pick something random.

What the parental controls don't cover

Be honest about the fence:

Chat content. Parents do not see what their child says or what's said to them. This is by design — Roblox specifically scoped controls to "supervision without surveillance." If you need to see chat content, you need a third-party monitoring tool (Bark, Aura, etc.), and those have their own tradeoffs.
Deleted messages. Even Roblox's own moderation team can't see deleted messages in real time. The pattern is: predator says something inappropriate, immediately deletes, kid screenshots or just remembers. Parents rarely see this surface.
Friend's account usage. As above — at sleepovers, school, or on shared devices, your kid will encounter unrestricted Roblox. The only fix is conversation.
Off-platform. Most grooming on Roblox migrates to other platforms (Discord, Snapchat, SMS) within a few days. Roblox controls don't see what happens off-Roblox.
Roblox-internal currency leakage. A motivated 14-year-old can sell Robux for real money via off-platform marketplaces. The spending cap blocks parental purchases; it doesn't block the Robux economy itself.

Operational rhythm

Once set up, what to do over time:

First week: check the parent dashboard once a day. You're calibrating: is the screen time limit set correctly? Are the friends-list adds happening fast (high-volume play) or slowly? Any spending notifications?
First month: weekly review of the Friends/Connections list plus the Spending summary. The friends-list scan is the highest-value 60 seconds you'll spend on Roblox safety.
Ongoing: monthly review. The interesting metrics are changes relative to baseline — sudden spike in late-night play, sudden shift to new games, new connections being added at a rate higher than usual.
After flagged behavior: Roblox doesn't proactively send you "your kid did something concerning" alerts (unlike OpenAI's parental controls). You have to spot it via the dashboard.
After June 2026: if your kid is under 16, they may auto-transition into the Kids or Select account type. Verify your settings still apply. The transition shouldn't reset PINs or restrictions, but check after the rollout.

What to talk to your child about

The dashboard is a backstop. The conversation is the actual work.

A few prompts worth using:

"Who do you usually play with on Roblox?" Open question, not a gotcha. The answer tells you where the social action is — friends from school, online-only friends, mixed.
"Has anyone you don't know in real life ever asked you to chat off Roblox — Discord, Snapchat, somewhere else?" This is the actual grooming pattern. The answer matters more than the question.
"What would you do if someone said something on Roblox that made you uncomfortable?" The right answer is "tell you" — but the second-right answer is "block them," and the third-right answer is "just stop playing that game." Validate all three.
"Has anyone ever asked you to send Robux, or to share an account, or to help them with something off Roblox in exchange for Robux?" This is the actual scam pattern. Common, and worth specifically naming.

What NOT to lead with:

"Has anyone ever tried to groom you on Roblox?" kills the conversation by inserting language they don't use.
"I'm going to start reading your chats." burns trust, doesn't actually solve the problem, and isn't even technically possible without third-party monitoring software.
"Roblox is too dangerous, you can't play it anymore." they'll play at friends' houses, on alt accounts, on shared devices. Removal isn't the move; supervised use plus conversation is.

Bottom line

Roblox in 2026 is meaningfully safer than Roblox in 2024. The mandatory age-verification, three-tier account system, granular game approval, spending caps, and Trusted Connections framework are real improvements driven by real lawsuit and regulatory pressure.

But: parental controls cover the platform, not the people. The chat-content gap is intentional, the off-platform migration risk is real, and a determined adult who wants to talk to your child can still find ways. The realistic stack:

Roblox parental controls for the platform itself (this guide)
OS-level controls (Apple Screen Time / Google Family Link) to prevent app-reinstall and alt-account creation
DNS-level filtering (NextDNS or router-level) for hard "no Roblox" boundaries and for catching the scenario where Roblox isn't enough
The conversation — about what grooming actually looks like, what to do when something feels off, and why you're paying attention

Each layer covers a different gap. None covers all of them.

If you do nothing else after reading this guide, do these three things tonight:

Link your parent account to your child's Roblox account and set a Parental PIN
Set a monthly Robux spending cap (start at $0 or $5)
Have a 5-minute conversation about what they'd do if a stranger asked to chat off Roblox

The rest can wait until next weekend.

For Roblox the platform — what it is, who's on it, and where the real risks live — see our Roblox app profile. For network-level filtering, see NextDNS for Families. For console-level controls, see Xbox Family Safety and PlayStation Family Management.

No affiliate relationship with Roblox. We pay for our own Robux when our kids spend it.