With so many shows and films mixing with not so family friendly titles, it’s essential for parents to know how to set up parental controls for Roku, which is a bit different from other streaming devices.
While Roku doesn’t have a global parental control setting that restricts access to certain content across all streaming channels, it does let users set limits based on rating. The Motion Picture Association of America and TV Parental Guidelines Monitoring Board developed a rating system to give parents guidelines for choosing suitable content for their children.
By enabling the PIN-based playback control feature found under settings, anyone trying to watch content with a more mature rating or add a new channel must put in a four digit PIN. If you forget it, you’ll need to do a factory reset to regain access.
Setting parental controls is important to prevent young children from accessing content not suitable for them. More than nine in ten parents of kids 5 to 15 who use safety measures consider it helpful in preventing their kids from watching mature content, according to Internet Matters. By preventing children from watching explicit content, they are directed to age-appropriate and often educational programming.
PIN-based parental controls only work on videos within The Roku Channel. You’ll need to set up restrictions individually on other streaming platforms, like Prime Video or Hulu. You can also configure your Roku TV to restrict over-the-air broadcast television programs, however, content created in other countries may not be blocked if it’s not rated according to U.S. or Canadian standards.
To set the PIN, press Home on your Roku TV remote, scroll to Settings, and select Parental Controls. You’ll be prompted to create a PIN, which is different than the PIN for your Roku account. To set restrictions on live TV, select the TV Tuner menu and set which ratings to block.
Visit Internet Matters to learn how to set parental controls on various devices, streaming services, and online.