Dangerous online games and apps to avoid for your children

Remember when you were a kid and you would play games with your friends like hiding and seek, tag, or climb trees, catch insects and just cycle around the neighborhood?

What can you read in this article? 

• Unsafe online games for kids
• Best free online games for kids
• Parenting tips on game restrictions

Your toys would mostly consist of stuffed animals, action figures, skipping ropes, footballs, hula-hoops and you also had a mini library of storybooks.

Modern technology has introduced a whole new world of interactive games and smart toys that can walk and talk, so the generation of kids nowadays is quite familiar with touch screens and keyboards.

It’s difficult to completely avoid exposing your little ones to screen time, or to shield them from all these fancy new gadgets — and you must also admit that sometimes it is sort of a life-saver for you after a long day and you just need a few minutes to yourself!

But are all these online games, apps, and smart toys for children and youths really all that innocent?

Unsafe or dangerous online games for kids

Here’s an updated list of dangerous online games for children. Cross these off on your list and keep them far away from your kids!

1. Roblox

This online gaming platform is popular with kids, teens, and even adults, which allows users to interact with one another in this virtual world, play games, and also engage in role-playing.

The game’s chat feature allows online predators such as pedophiles to communicate with your child and send him sexually explicit messages.

When Iain Morrison decided to play this game which was popular with his two young sons, he was shocked to discover that there were adults who were complete strangers sending him messages online.

“They said ‘hi’ so I said ‘hi’ and they asked if I was a boy or girl and my age so I said I was an eight-year-old boy. They asked me to follow them to their [virtual] house, then into the bedroom and asked me to lay down on top of them and then they started with the sexual movements.”

“Then, they said ‘you look cute’ and ‘you look sexy’. It was sickening reading all the comments pop up. My kids were completely oblivious as to what the words and stuff meant.”

“It’s full of f**king pedophiles if you ask me it’s completely messed up it turned my guts, anyways it’s deleted off their computers forever and I’d highly recommend you check your kids to see if they have it and get rid of it,” he warns other parents.

Morrison’s experience is not an isolated case. Like him, there have been a lot of reports linking Roblox to unsafe, troublesome interactions with pedophiles and strangers online. 

So is Roblox safe for kids? It could be if you have seen the Roblox parental controls. Roblox has employed Roblox parental controls to protect young users of the application. 

• Chat filters

Roblox censors all chats automatically to help avoid the broadcast of improper content and personally sensitive information. Over 400 human moderators assist in the examination of content detected by the filter’s AI. 

• Age verification

For users over the age of 13, one of Roblox’s newest features is an age verification tool to assist in enforcing the age limit. To show that it’s really them in the photo, users will have to share a snapshot of their government-issued ID and a selfie.

• Parent pins

This distinguishes Roblox from other video games and social media services. You can use a PIN code to secure parental controls once they’ve been set up. Other applications may have the same parental control features but do not require a parent pin to seal the setup. 

• Restricted mode

No one can send your child messages or talk with them if you use the Account Restrictions function. These limitations also limit the games that children are allowed to play to a pre-approved, age-appropriate list.

• Roblox parental controls monitoring
• Parents may access their children’s accounts and see almost everything they’ve done on the app, including:
• Friends and followers
• Group chats and private messages
• Purchases and trade history
• Recently played games
• Creations

2. Among Us

InnerSloth’s Among Us is an online multiplayer game in which players must work together to repair their deteriorating starship while figuring out who the imposters are. 

Is Among Us safe for kids? While the aesthetics are cartoon-like, knives and visuals of cartoon players being stabbed and killed are still present. Because it’s all about working as a team to uncover the ‘imposter,’ communication with others is key to gameplay. 

Unfortunately, the internet gaming component within this app cannot be turned off, allowing youngsters to talk and play with anyone around the globe. This puts children at risk of coming into contact with potentially dangerous people and conversing with them. 

Players in the game may also engage in cyberbullying as a result of team members’ accusations about who the imposter is.

3. Snapchat

This program allows users to send and receive “self-destructing” photographs and videos. It’s been linked to sexting and harassment. 

Snapchat is a dangerous app for youngsters under the age of 18 as the snaps that they send can immediately vanish. This makes it practically impossible for parents to monitor their children’s activities within the app.

4. TikTok

TikTok is a video-sharing app that allows users to create and share short videos. It encourages individuals to use video to express themselves artistically. The videos can be as long as 3 to 60 seconds and can be enhanced with special effects.

The minimum age is thirteen, but because there is no mechanism to verify age, anyone can download the program. Parents are also concerned that the content videos contain a lot of bad language and inappropriate behavior making them unsuitable for small children. 

READ MORE:

Momo Suicide challenge led to deaths of two children

7-year-old girl “gang-raped” on Roblox highlights need for increased parental scrutiny

The hideous online “fire fairy” game that encourages kids to burn themselves

Online Game Challenges

5. Fire Fairy

The Fire Fairy is an online prank that targets children under the age of 13. It instructs children to switch on the gas stove at midnight when no one else is awake, then go back to sleep. According to the game, doing this will transform them into a fire fairy once they’ve woken up. 

6. Blue Whale

The Blue Whale suicide game originated from an online social media group in which administrators push kids and teens to complete a series of challenges that finally lead to them killing themselves. 

The suicide game requires players to execute odd tasks over the course of 50 days while the game’s curators impose peer pressure on the game’s participants, who are usually young children and teenagers. 

Philipp Budeikin, a 21-year-old Russian, was detained in June of last year for reportedly being the game’s mastermind. He has been charged with inciting at least 16 schoolgirls to commit suicide.

7. Cinnamon challenge

The cinnamon challenge is a dangerous prank shown in popular YouTube videos that have resulted in hospitalizations and an increase in calls to poison control centers in the United States.

The challenge dares someone to swallow a tablespoon of crushed cinnamon without water in 60 seconds. However, the spice is caustic, and attempting to swallow it can result in choking, throat discomfort, breathing problems, and even collapsed lungs.

8. Gallon

The procedure of ingesting a big amount of milk in a short period of time is the focus of this challenge. A person is usually challenged to drink one US gallon of whole milk (3.8 liters) without vomiting. Drinking a gallon of any kind of fluid in such a short period of time is quite harmful. People usually throw up, but if they don’t, their cells may suffer from excessive hydration.

Live chat room websites

Aside from online games, there are also live chat room websites that can pose risk to your child. 

9. Holla

Holla is a live random video chat where your teen can meet people from all over the world. To accept or deny live talks with other individuals, they must swipe left or right on persons’ profiles (similar to Tinder).

By attempting to connect with minors in person, online predators can take advantage of the “Nearby” option, which filters users by location.

However, parents may monitor text chats on Android smartphones using parental control apps like Bark, which can look for signals of cyberbullying, sexual content, online predators, and threats of violence. 

10. Omegle

As it does not strictly monitor and verify the age of users, it can often be accessed by individuals even when they’re not of legal age yet. Explicit sexual content, obscene language, and references to drugs, alcohol, and violence abound in conversations in Omegle. Worse, many people even request personal information such as ASL (age, sex, location), nude images, and meet up.

Aside from these websites, there are a lot more live chat room websites that your children may have access to, exposing them to various risks when talking to strangers.

11. Secret Folder Hiding Apps

There are various applications that let you hide applications and disguise them as normal applications such as a calculator. They can also come in forms similar to an application vault or a locked application. 

With applications like these, parents will not be able to track all of the applications that their children may have downloaded or are using. 

Best free online games for kids

Enough with the unsafe games and applications and divert your children’s attention with these monitored and moderated online games safe for kids.

1. Nintendo Switch

Nintendo as a toy corporation commits its online areas as safe and closely supervised. While no platform is perfect, Nintendo’s focus on families makes it more parent-friendly than its console gaming competitors.

2. Ticket to Ride

This family-friendly version of a famous board game is available online. It’s considerably easier to handle with the online version because there are no cards to lose or small parts to misplace. It also teaches children how to strategize and plan ahead, and families how to collaborate and play fairly. 

3. Hearthstone

Hearthstone, a free-to-play game based on the iconic World of Warcraft series, is accessible on major mobile and desktop platforms and is suitable for tweens and teens. The game is colorful and lighthearted, yet it contains complex strategic and tactical features that your teen may enjoy. 

4. PBS Kids

For younger kids, you can let your child play on PBS Kids. This site, aimed at preschoolers and up, features games based on popular PBS children’s shows. The games are meant to be played alone or with a parent, and they are educational. 

Parenting tips in online games safe for kids

1. Start by creating iOS and Android profiles for your children on all of the internet devices they will use to help screen their Internet usage. You’ll be able to choose which apps and games kids may download and play, as well as which websites they can view. 
2. Set a limit on how much time they spend on the Internet.
3. Talk with your children. Discuss with them safe social media practices, the risks of initiating a discussion with someone they don’t know, and the risks of giving too much personal information.
4. Check their mobile devices and computers on a regular basis. Let them ask you first before downloading new apps. Talk to them to learn about any new applications they wish to install and how to use them properly.

Do your kids play these dangerous online games, have these apps downloaded or own these smart toys? Is there anything else we should add to this list? Let us know by leaving your comments below!

Republished with permission from theAsianParent Singapore