Squid Games

What is Squid Games?

Squid Games is a series that has recently been added to Netflix viewing options. Chances are you have heard of it via friends, social media or even through your child.

It is a thriller drama and rated MA. It contains warnings for sex, violence, suicide and foul language. It is definitely not suitable for children under 17.

The basic storyline is that Korean’s who are in debt are invited to play games and if they are the overall winner, the receive an enormous payout. The players are all collected and taken to a secret venue where they play a series of childhood games with one very big twist. Instead of sitting to the side when they ‘get out’ they are immediately shot. It is very, very graphic.

The series follows one man in particular and his journey through the games.

You don’t need me to tell you that what I have just described is not suitable for children. That much is plainly clear.

Word of this series is getting around though, and even children who haven’t watched it, have discovered what it is all about and are talking about it to their friends and, perhaps, encouraging friends to play similar games and pretend to shoot them when they are out. They are playing Squid Games in the playground.

Squid Games in also showing up in other online games where children play.

How we can minimise our child’s exposure to Squid Games?

It’s time to check the settings on our children’s devices.

Netflix Parental Controls

Squid Games episodes are available to watch on Netflix. If you have a Netflix account and your child has the Netflix app on their device, then it is important to ensure that you have set the Parental Controls available within Netflix.

The last thing you want is for your child to pop into their Netflix account and type in Squid Games because their friend at school told them too.

Use this link to read instructions on how to setup Netfix Parental Controls.

Roblox & Squid Games

Some kids are playing Squid Games on Roblox. There are around 300 games with this theme and many are graphic and frightening.

If your child is under 13 and plays Roblox, then please turn off chat and use the parental controls. Even if you use parental controls to block games with “Squid” in the title, you should keep in mind that similar games will be given different titles so that they don’t get caught in the “Squid” filter.

Minecraft & Squid Games

If your child is able to connect to servers in their Minecraft account then they can potentially connect to a server with Squid Games. It isn’t graphic but the violent concept when someone is eliminated is still there.

For younger players, make sure they are playing solo. If your child’s account is in mult-player mode then make sure that they are only connecting to Child-Safe servers (yes, such servers exist!).

YouTube Restrictions & Parent Supervised Accounts

The official trailer for Squid Game is just a search away in the YouTube search bar and there is not 1 second of that trailer that I would want my kids to see.

I initially had my YouTube Restrictions turned off so I went ahead and turn them on again – the Trailer still showed up in the search.

You can even find actual snippets of the episodes in YouTube.

If kids like Roblox and Minecraft then they are going to look for videos in YouTube and they will come across Squid Games.

Fortunately, the Minecraft and Roblox videos that I viewed weren’t graphic.

I did a search for Roblox Squid Games and the first video I came across what quite an accurate depiction (in cartoon) of what happens in the Squid Games Series. The guards have guns, a game is played and players are eliminated by being shot.

I highly recommend using YouTube Restrictions and YouTube’s Parent Supervised Accounts to manage the content that your child is able to acess on YouTube.

You can see a demonstration on how to set these up on my YouTube Channel.

TikTok

If your child has a TikTok account then it is almost certain that they will view or have already viewed material in relation to Squid Games.

There are TikToks of re-enactments of the games in the episodes, pictures of the characters/actors and demonstrations of the cookies that feature in one episode in particular. There have already been numerous reports in Australia of children presenting at hospitals with serious burns whilst they attempted to cook these cookies as seen on TikTok.

If your child has a TikTok account, please make sure that they are over 13, that you have set the privacy restrictions and setup Digital Wellbeing and that you supervise their viewing.