Forum Discussion

mykgerard's avatar
mykgerard
Newbie
2 years ago

Roku channel parental controls

I have two grade-school aged boys who have ADHD.  I'm trying to get them less into YouTube and more into long form stories with actual content that will help increase their attention spans and content that has gone through quality control rather than the cesspool of YouTube content such as mindless video game play throughs and Skibidi toilets.  I've removed the YouTube app from our Roku and blocked YouTube from our pcs at home.  Now it seems, the Roku channel itself is full of YouTube content, that since it is unrated circumvents parental controls and doesn't require a passcode. 

Since Youtube content is unrated. the passcode advice using Parental Controls is currently completely  unhelpful at this time to this topic.  Correct me if I'm wrong.


Can you place the passcode onto this content please?   Otherwise is there some other workaround since I cannot uninstall the Roku channel itself on a Roku device.

11 Replies

  • I agree. There needs to be a way to block apps and overall better parental controls. 

    These companies don't care abt the kids and it shows. 

  • My problem, and I think hers, is that clearly there’s a content moderation problem with your kids and family app. I am currently watching my son watching someone playing some kind of Minecraft type game where they’re chopping and fighting and maybe even running around with a gun pointing at other characters? That’s wonderful that you think that’s appropriate for your children and that your moderators feel like exposing their kids to that, but you’re hearing from parents that this is unacceptable. Many of us also don’t want our children watching child exploitation shows like Nastia. It sounds like your advice is that we should uninstall both the Roku app as well as the kids and family app because you have no way of allowing us to moderate what they watch on the “Kids and Family” app?

  • 🤮  All that is **bleep**. I’m dealing with the same thing and to the points of removing all Roku devices and going with Amazon fire stick just to get rid of the dang Roku search bar that has millions of shows and videos of gamers and nonsense that my kids can just access even though everything else is blocked. 

  • Removing an app does not prevent a child from adding it back through the streaming store. You need to have parental controls on what is accessed on your device! 

      • yogi5906's avatar
        yogi5906
        Newbie

        that no longer works it does not block the apps and won’t let you remove the apps! i am selling all my roku tvs and switching to another brand , Roku has failed parents 

      • necunoscut's avatar
        necunoscut
        Newbie

        I think ROKU's idea of parental control is related to content, while my personal idea of parental control is related to both content but also screen time. 

        It seems there no concern on screen time as there is no way I can block all apps with a PIN.

        I wonder myself if it's worth investing the effort to disable wifi or internet access from router on ROKU IP address or just get a second hand chromecast with no apps available on TV screen and just plain casting options

  • You can do this through YouTube settings.   I just did this with my kids too.  You can set up YouTube kids profiles. That helps too.   Good luck.