The Pixel Parenting Podcast
How to Talk to Your Kids About Roblox and Their Online Life
with Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov, digital parenting expert
Your child wants to play something you didn’t grow up with? Roblox’s first head of parental advocacy on what the platform really is, why the conversation matters more than any setting on the device, and how to start it today.
Listen to this episode
About this episode
Your child asks to play Roblox, or some app that didn’t exist when you were their age, and the first instinct is to Google the parental controls. In this episode I sit down with Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov, founder of DigitalParentingCoach.com and Roblox’s first head of parental advocacy, to talk about why that instinct is only half the answer. Her reframe: parental controls are the training wheels, and it’s the conversation that teaches your family how to steer.
Dr. Milovidov explains what Roblox actually is (a platform with millions of user-created games, not one single game), what the new Roblox Kids and Roblox Select age tiers change for families, and how to keep a kid from shutting down when you bring any of it up. We get practical: the curiosity-first opener, the 5 W’s, letting kids set their own limits so the limits stick, the exact question to ask when you suspect they saw something they shouldn’t have, and why it’s never too late to start.
What you’ll learn
- What parental controls do well, and what only a conversation can do (the training wheels reframe)
- How to flip from interrogating to curious, so your kid ends up showing you their world
- Strategies before rules: preparing kids for hard moments online the same way we teach them to cross the street
- Why asking kids to set their own limits works better than imposing them
- What Roblox actually is, who makes the games, and what Roblox Kids (5-8) and Roblox Select (9-15) change
- The 5 W’s: who, what, where, when, and at what time
- The exact question to ask when you think your child has seen something inappropriate
- Why it’s never too late to start these conversations, even from zero
In this episode
Timestamps are from the final edited episode.
Moments worth remembering
“Parental controls are sort of the training wheels on online safety. This will help you be a better digital guardian, it will help you support your child. But it’s conversation that’s gonna teach you how you’re going to really steer this whole experience with your family.”
“There’s no app that can replace a conversation. None.”
The question for hard moments:“Have you ever seen anything that made you feel a little icky in your stomach? Want to talk to me about it?”
“You’re not teaching your child how to cross the street. You’re teaching them how to navigate all intersections and streets and highways.”
“Never too late. That’s probably the most important thing. Never, ever.”
About the guest
Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov
Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov has spent more than twenty years helping families navigate digital life. She founded DigitalParentingCoach.com and co-founded Digitalem.org with her son Maximilian, serves as an independent expert on digital parenting and children’s rights for the Council of Europe, has advised Microsoft and European Schoolnet, and served as senior counsel on digital gaming and metaverse at the LEGO Group. In 2025 she became Roblox’s first head of parental advocacy (Senior Director of Global Parental Advocacy). She also sits on the Common Sense Media UK advisory board.
Resources and links
- Digital Parenting Coach – Dr. Milovidov’s independent site, full of resources for families
- The Roblox Learning Hub – educational games with partners like BBC Bitesize
- The Roblox Family Center – how to set up parental controls and linked accounts
- Roblox Well-Being resources – guides for conversations about online safety
- Roblox Kids and Roblox Select announcement – the age-based accounts discussed in the episode, now live globally
- Common Sense Media – Dr. Milovidov’s go-to for looking at games and apps together with your kid
- Dr. Elizabeth Milovidov on LinkedIn
Keep the conversation going
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Want to bring this conversation to your school?
Pixel Parenting offers parent education workshops and student programs – practical, research-informed, and tailored for your community.
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