Roblox's new safety features come with an asterisk

Hey Friends!

We spent 24 hours at the cottage this week past weekend, and we got everyone around the fire and started teaching the kids the oldie. Those must-know campfire songs, the ones that get passed down whether you like it or not. Watching them fumble through the words, laughing, asking us to play it again, it hit us both at the same time: this summer feels like the last of something.

We don't really know what. The kids are coming back, that part's not in question. But some of them have summer jobs now. One is packing up for university in the fall. There's a version of all of us at the cottage that's shifting, and we can feel it even if we can't name it yet.

But if we know anything as parents, it's that the last of something is almost always just the start of something else. A new phase, with its own challenges, sure, but its own beauty too. So this summer we're leaning all the way into the quality time. Making the memories they'll carry with them as they start flying the coop, one campfire song at a time. Speaking of things worth paying close attention to before they change on us, here's what's on our radar this week.

It's not just kids on their phones too much, it's us

We talk a lot about the impact of our children being on their devices too much. This story flips that around. A new study surveyed 600 adolescents ages 12 to 17 across the U.S. and looked at whether teens who saw their parents as frequently distracted by their phones were more likely to report what's called insecure attachment, basically, feeling less sure that the relationship with their parent is steady and reliable.

We want to call out that this study found an association, not proof of cause and effect. It's possible phone distraction is contributing to that less-secure feeling, but it's also possible that families already going through a rough patch perceive more device interference, or that stressed-out parents reach for their phones more and also have less bandwidth for connection in general. Still, the pattern held up regardless of whether teens were talking about mom or dad, and across ages, genders, and backgrounds, which makes it worth paying attention to even if its just an association.

What you can do here isn't about guilt, because every single one of us has reached for their phone to complete some task while their kids talks without meaning to. Experts point out that secure attachment isn't about never being distracted, it's about your kid trusting that you'll be there when it actually matters. So instead of an all-or-nothing phone ban, try picking one or two moments a day, the car ride, dinner, the last ten minutes before bed, and make those phone-free on purpose. Small, consistent, and a lot more doable than swearing off your phone entirely and failing by Tuesday.

If you want a hand putting that into practice this summer, we made something for exactly this. Less Phone, More Life. is our free summer guide for cutting through the screen time noise and actually finding that balance as a family, no guilt trip included. Grab it free here.

The details on Roblox’s new age-based accounts

Roblox’s new account types have rolled out globally this month: Roblox Kids for ages 5 to 8, and Roblox Select for ages 9 to 15. The accounts will have distinct background colors so parents can easily see which one their child is using, and kids get sorted into the right one through facial age estimation or parental controls. On paper, that sounds like real progress, and in some ways it is.

Its important to keep in mind that Roblox is making these updates while facing mounting scrutiny over allegations it failed to protect young users from predators and inappropriate content. And this isn't a new problem the new accounts are catching up to. Games rated for younger players have slipped through with sexually explicit content before, including one case where a parent investigating her five-year-old's gameplay found other players using the game to simulate assault. Ratings on Roblox come largely from developers filling out a questionnaire about their own game, not an outside review, which is part of why things get through.

We're not saying the new safety features are bad. We're saying a company announcing shiny new tools in the middle of multiple state lawsuits is not the same thing as a company that's been safe all along, and the age-sorting tech itself isn't foolproof either. If your child gets placed into Roblox Select or Roblox Kids, don't just trust the label and walk away. Facial age estimation gets things wrong sometimes, and so does a quick questionnaire filled out by a stranger on the internet. Spot-check which tier your kid actually landed in, and keep an eye on what they're playing regardless of the rating slapped on it.

What you can do doesn't actually change much based on this announcement, and that's kind of the point. The Roblox parent dashboard already lets you set spending limits, restrict chat, and turn on Account Restrictions, and most parents we talk to have never opened it. If your kid plays Roblox, that dashboard is worth ten minutes of your time this weekend, new account tiers or not. We walk through exactly where to find it and what to change inside our Roblox Guide, but even just poking around the settings yourself tonight is a great place to start.

If you're heading into a summer with some "lasts" of your own this year, whatever that looks like for your family, we just want to say: you're allowed to feel weird about it. You're allowed to feel excited and sad in the same five minutes. That's not you being dramatic, that's just what this stage of parenting actually feels like.

One thing we're trying to hold onto through all the change, even with looser summer schedules, is protecting our kids' sleep. It's easy to let bedtime slide when there's no school the next morning, but a tired kid is a cranky kid no matter how old they get, and the wind-down routine matters just as much in July as it does in October.

Speaking of which, apparently 11/12 year olds have the Hatch alarm clock on their birthday wish lists this year, because ours does.

We love it because it's phone-free once it's set up, no glowing screen, no notifications buzzing at 11pm. It's pricey, not going to pretend otherwise, but it comes with a ton of lovely wind-down routines, the kind that actually promote healthy, deep sleep instead of just another device to negotiate over. Check it out here.

—Cat & Nat