I'm asking on behalf of my aunt. Her 15-year-old daughter uses a laptop for school and currently has administrator access because some educational applications occasionally need to be installed. She spends a great deal of time playing Roblox, and attempts to discuss or restrict it have led to severe anger and meltdowns.
My aunt tried blocking Roblox through the home router, but her daughter discovered that Cloudflare WARP could bypass the restriction. The adults need the home internet for work, so disabling the entire connection is not practical. The router is a Nokia G-2425G-A.
Is there a reliable way to restrict Roblox and VPN bypasses on this device, or should the family handle this through supervised computer use, parental controls, and professional help instead?
4 Answers
Use the laptop’s parental-control or family-management features to schedule access and supervise the computer in a shared part of the home. A device-specific schedule can restrict internet access during homework and bedtime while leaving the adults’ devices online. If the laptop is genuinely needed for school, it should be available only for schoolwork outside the agreed gaming hours rather than being treated as an unrestricted personal device.
There probably isn’t a dependable router-only solution. VPNs are specifically designed to get around network filtering, and blocking one provider can break unrelated services or simply lead to another workaround. The practical technical approach is to create a separate adult administrator account with a password only the parents know, make the child’s account a standard user, and have the parents install approved school software themselves. That still won’t stop every user-folder installation, so supervised use and account-level controls are more effective than relying on the router alone.
Some applications, including Roblox, can be installed without administrator rights, so removing admin access helps but is not a complete fix. Device management or application allowlisting is needed if they want stronger control.
The larger issue sounds behavioral rather than technical. If stopping one game causes extreme anger, the parents should find out how much she is playing, whether school or sleep is being affected, and whether gaming is being used to cope with stress, isolation, or another problem. Set clear limits ahead of time, apply consistent consequences, and consider speaking with a pediatrician or mental-health professional if the reactions are severe or daily life is being disrupted.
Try not to turn this into a long-running battle of blocking and bypassing. A complete ban may push the behavior onto phones, friends’ devices, or other games. A written schedule, device use in a common area, regular breaks, and time for sleep, school, exercise, and offline activities are more sustainable. If the limits repeatedly lead to aggression or cannot be enforced safely, professional family support is more appropriate than increasingly aggressive network filtering.
A separate network for the adults can help with scheduling, but it won’t solve the problem if she can use another connection or a friend’s device. It’s a useful layer, not a complete answer.