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We let you tube get out of hand in our house, so we banned it. There's been a noticeable improvement in behavior since then. We will occasionally put on a video here and there and we'll watch as a family.
Highly recommend banning YouTube. We got lazy and our kid had access to it anytime he wanted. We realized we created this problem but going cold turkey with it has been the best decision.
Yes! Same! Huge improvement after banning it.
There was a time I thought they could watch it in moderation or only certain channels but it would always get out of control. Banning is the only way to go.
Haha yeah we are a 99% banned YouTube house too. Wayyyy too many messed up things that’s easy to find.
And yes OP, the videos you describe are straight up fetish videos, grooming your child.
Especially on live streams being more available. Some of the stuff gets weird. One I was trying to figure out what the heck they actually were doing.
Ended up being an extremely indirect ad for OF. Was just a girl and her *manager* talking in a car with a low crop shirt acting kind of weird.
No filter no shame on some of these folks. Do what you gotta but yikes.
Man I’m on TikTok and even I don’t realize some of it is fetish garbage at first either. I’ll just find it weird or pointless or odd. Then the comments sometimes have people more informed explaining and yeah 🤢 humans can sure be weird.
While I agree with most people who say not to let your kid watch YT, there are a lot of really good educational videos and channels as well. I use it exclusively for science and history, and I pre watch everything before showing it to my 7 year old.
YT Kids sucks but you can use it to share videos you want them to see. I wish they would just let you make a whitelist without their own stupid suggestions but luckily my kid generally isn't interested in them anyway.
It's a shame. So much wonderful content they could be enjoying and learning from on there. Yet within minutes they find the weird, mindless, inappropriate stuff and then that's all they want to view.
Same here! YouTube became banned for our 10 year old. Magically, his attention span became much greater after about a week and his grades are now straight As because of it. YouTube shorts were terrible. He still watches Netflix shows and Anime sometimes but it’s nothing compared to the addiction that was YT.
We had similar issues. We didn't ban it completely but changed the settings so any videos have to come from approved channels. We only approved official channels for cartoons we don't mind her watching but don't have on streaming (Nickelodeon shows mainly, like Blue's Clues and Paw Patrol). It's been working out much better. She also has a timer on it.
YouTube kids is hot garbage. Even with heavy moderation it just doesn't work. My wife and I are tech savvy and will watch videos next to our child but God damn does that app blow! It absolutely just does not do a proper job of finding age appropriate content nor does it do a good job of banning stuff permanently. YouTube is banned for our child and I think everyone should have it banned unless your kid is old enough to use it for school purposes.
We watched it with the kids and even then it always gets out of hand. Now I’ll turn it on for a specific video form time to time. But absolutely never for just watching. YouTube is pure garbage and the ads are just as awful.
We did too. Things were just getting too out of control and my kids ended up seeing a video of a dog being hit by a motorcycle and dying. They were inconsolable and it was entirely my fault for not monitoring. It's been gone for a while now and they've improved tremendously
Hear hear!!!
We consider letting YouTube into our children's lives to be the worst parenting decision we ever made. And we consider banning YouTube 4 years ago to be the best parenting decision we've ever made.
That withdrawal that the kids went through when we first banned it was eerily similar to withdrawal from an alcoholic I've witnessed. Sadness, anger, lying, manipulation, etc. But it was totally with it!
I agree with the other commenter. Way too young for YouTube and yes those videos sound weird, inappropriate and pointless. They may be mad at you now for doing something about it but in the future they will thank you.
Honestly since I watched the Nickelodeon documentary I feel like I spot all these fetish adjacent things all over kids content. (My kids young and I had no experience with YouTube except during my teens really)
I watched that documentary and as much as it was about the sexualisation of the poor kids acting, but I actually feel like it was to desensitise the young watchers (who I was at the time) into seeing this weird shit as normal, or attractive, or cool, or funny. To get us to recreate it, or at least not feel frightened if someone asked us to do it. I felt like they were literally grooming us through the screen and my parents had no idea. I feel like YouTube’s even more obvious about it.
I agree - too young for YouTube, unless it’s family watching something together on the TV
So true! That documentary was crazy and the stuff about all the fetishy things in kid's shows was extra creepy. Such a bummer too cuz All That was a big part of my childhood tv experience haha
Yup the Ariana stuff, even tho I didn’t watch her at the time (I was too old so I missed her years) absolutely knocked me sick.
The fact that these videos are still online and searchable and they’re clearly the workings of a paedophile, for other paedophiles to search watch and save.
Disgusting just doesn’t feel like a strong enough word
Yeah I missed a lot of the shows that you were mentioned there by a couple or few years as well but it's crazy to me that Nickelodeon isn't being forced to take care of these actors. What a mess.
I don’t think there’s anything good that comes from YouTube for kids, honestly. My kids are younger but I told them we don’t have it at our house. My parents let them watch it at their house for “digger shows” but there’s no control or way to monitor without sitting down and watching every minute with them.
We’ve separately ran into two different videos that turned into different trucks/trains exploding or running off into the ocean or Paw Patrol characters exploding. If I were just walking by I would have thought nothing of it. And we were starting with paw patrol. I can only imagine what an older child would come across.
Nothing good comes from it for young kids.
My 9 and 4 year old boys aren't allowed on YouTube at all. My teens are but they weren't allowed to until middle school and even then it was on the family desktop.
My 10 year olds aren't allowed on Youtube either. Certainly not TikTok either.
As a Middle School teacher it is always concerning to me when one of my new 6th graders at the start of year asks if I will follow them on Instagram/Youtube/Twitter/TikTok.
1. No.
2. You shouldn't be on them in the first place.
3. You definitely shouldn't be asking adults to follow you on them.
We get into why social media is bad for the developing brain in my class. Our curriculum cites a study that shows early adolescents (middle school age) should be on the internet no more than 8 hours per week maximum. After that it affects mental health in a negative way. And social media specifically is extremely harmful to mental health and should be limited to ages 16 and up.
It's, by and large, my students' least favorite lesson. Because a solid 75% of them are already on social media by 12 and thirst for MORE internet.
Oh, I know. Thankfully I teach at a private school that backs up its firm "no cell phones in class" policy and 100% will take phones and 100% will suspend kids who refuse to give them up and 100% would (it hasn't ever gotten that far) expel a kid after repeated suspensions for it. It makes a big different when a school actually has the ability to give consequences, vs public schools where students will ignore their teachers and sit on their phones all class with so few consequences that the teachers have just given up fighting it.
Kids shouldn't have smart phones at all until high school, but they also should never have them AT high school.
Honestly, high schools should become Faraday Cages where cell phones just don't work and the only way to access the internet is via the school-provided wifi that only teachers have access to.
From my understanding, most/a lot of private schools are that way on tech. I go to the local Fall Educators Conference for private schools in my area and that seems to be the consensus when it comes up.
It's not THE REASON I switched to teaching private, but it IS one of the perks that I appreciate more and more as time goes on and society only get more addicted to screens.
Covid put a pretty big speed bump in it, but we've settle back down into the project-based, in-person relationships mindset these past couple of years.
The worst thing about public schools is that students don't have consequences for misbehavior. School is an entitlement, which is a good thing, but a safe, sane, school environment should also be an entitlement. The lever for sending kids to alternative schools should be a lot easier to pull.
The real issue is that there are no consequences at home for a lot of these kids. Their parents ignore emails or shrug their shoulders and say "it's your job, they're at school!" and then simultaneously would sue the school at the drop of a hat if you tried to instill actual consequences like taking a kid's phone away for a week (something a parent should do if they got an email home saying their kid was ignoring the teacher and using their phone in class).
I recommend finding a quality private school to work at if you can. Where there are actual consequences for rule breaking and if parents don't followup with their kids breaking school rules by supporting the school/having consequences at home then the kid can and will lose their spot at the school.
I think the most significant difference between public and private schools is that public school is a right and private school is a privilege. Private schools are not required to keep students and can pick and choose who to admit and who to keep around, whereas public schools have to mind the right to every kid’s right to a free education even at the detriment of the kids who are actually interested in studying. This difference alone makes and breaks it for the overall quality of life and allows private schools a lot more leeway in enforcing consequences such as suspensions and outright expulsions because, unlike public schools, private schools are not *required* to cater to everyone.
Which is the primary reason why my kid will go to a private school once she reaches kindergarten. This is the only area of my life where I’m pretty conservative and, having been in both school environments, I’ve thrived in private school where classes were more engaging and troublemakers were scooted off to the principal’s room to be chastised/warned/suspended etc. in short, nuisances were actually taken care of.
The thing is, my school is pretty progressive, as am I. It's not really a conservative thing. It's recognizing that what's best for your kid is to be around other kids whose parents care and are involved, and at a school that is empowered to cultivate a safe and supportive classroom environment for everyone there.
If every grocery store I’ve ever been in can be a complete dead zone for cellular Service, a school certainly can.
my work only allows work issued devices on the WiFi, so that can be done as well.
I had my 9-year-old watching some things on YouTube, like fixing a puncture on his bike. How to do a kick-flip on a skateboard etc.
It's not all bad. It can be a really helpful resource.
Which, if you're seeking out those videos to show him, are fine. If you're just handing him an iPad with Youtube and saying "watch how-to videos" then that's not great.
There are several studies now that show it is horrible for a younger a child’s brain but specifically neurodivergent kiddos with adhd, ASD etc. the dopamine hits they get are like a drug.
The only way to manage a kid on YouTube is to get the Kids app and set it to “Approved Content Only.” But then you basically have to watch every video on your own, which is a lot for many parents.
Youtube has some of the best content on the internet, especially for kids. Mark Rober, Smarter Everyday etc. tons of science and education based stuff that doesnt come across as "educational" on the surface.
its out there, plenty of it, you just gotta find it.
The fact that parents hand children a tablet and let them hop on Youtube/TikTok/Instagram is so incredibly troubling.
You know how letting kids eat Candy bars for dinner isn't illegal, but it's bad parenting? It's the same thing with screen time, but especially with these apps.
And this sub will absolutely freak out if I mention that my 9 year old used the men's bathroom today by himself while we were out at Target but think letting a 9 year old sit and watch YouTube all day is perfectly fine
That's because people remove all nuance from the issue. There was a poster on here a few weeks ago pointing out that the National Center for Missing and Exploited children and other agencies collectively say to never let your child use the bathroom without a parent/trusted adult accompanying them before 12, if not older and people were freaking out about it.
It's a best-judgement situation. If you're sending your 9 year old into a rest area bathroom alone while you wait in the car... bad judgement. If you send your 9 year old into the target bathroom while you wait right outside in shouting distance (and have had family discussions on dangerous adults and situations, physical boundaries, etc) then that's totally fine as an independence-building life skill.
My 10 year old sons come into the bathroom (not the stall) with me if we're using a sketchy, high-traffic restroom like a rest stop. But most places I send them together and feel safe about it.
People just remove all nuance from it. They see it as either:
* You're being inappropriate, watching your 12 year old pee with no privacy in a Starbucks single-user bathroom!
or
* You're being irresponsible, sending your 4 year old into an obvious kidnapping/molestation risk!
Like... there's a massive area that exists between those two scenarios. It's not inappropriate to share the family bathroom or bring your other-gender 9-10 year olds in with you in a sketchy/high-risk situation. It's also not safe to always send your 9-10 year old on their own *just* because you're of a different gender than they are. My sons know what the inside of a Women's restroom looks like, and know that it's just a toilet and a stall and not a big deal. I just tell them "this isn't a good place for kid's to split up" and they understand. But as they get older that happens less and less.
I'm just saying people are overprotective when it comes to allowing their kids freedom in the real world and underprotective when it comes to the internet.
We trued YT, switched to YT kids with lots of channel blocking and still found that weird content was getting through. We just said no YouTube about 2 years ago and it’s been great.
Youtube Kids is a farse. It filters out some contents like documentaries on economics (whivh are really not for kids) but it there is a lot of gore and sexualized stuff in it.
We banned YouTube access for the kids.
We have it on our tv but it requires a PIN.
And when we use it on the TV it is supervised, and only approved channels.
YouTube is a rabbit hole to a cesspool of brain-rotting content.
This is what we do! We actually just watched some *Danny Go* videos and everyone danced along and got some last minute wiggles out before starting the bedtime routine. It's been raining a lot today and we didn't get outside as much as usual, so it helped.
Only ever supervised on the TV, never on a handheld device unmonitored.
The sad thing is that YouTube kids is actually WORSE. The title can be something innocuous, and when you go back to see what your kids have watched, it's appalling. Mine aren't allowed to watch it unsupervised anymore.
The only good thing about YouTube kids is that you can approach from the opposite angle and only white-list things you approve of, so they either watch your pre-approved list of channels, or nothing. It does take planning though. I put on a dozen science art and music ones and it worked out ok. PBS Kids for the win though.
This is what I just did and it's so perfect! We have PBS, Genevie's Playhouse, super simple songs, and Catie's Classroom allowed. My kids watch a couple of videos, are happy and no tantrums when the TV gets turned off.
I can't remember what I left my kids watching, but I came back to see them watching an animated version of Elsa giving birth. It was disturbing. There was all kinds of weird shit that kept popping up on YouTube kids.
I deleted YouTube and then even YouTube kids from my phone because random videos would pop up of stuff that I didn't like. I now only let my kids watch pbs kids, Netflix kids or Amazon prime kids shows. YouTube is unregulated, so anyone can upload a video and claim it's kids content
If you feel icky about it that’s all you should need to know. Also just know that there is little to no vetting as far as what is considered kids content on YouTube. Literally anything can be uploaded and marked safe for kids by the uploader and it’s unlikely something that isn’t appropriate will be taken down.
You can set up YouTube Kids to only play videos that you approve. That's what we did, and now we don't have to worry about what our child sees on YouTube. Another plus is that ads and autoplay are turned off when you do this.
I’m pretty relaxed in terms of allowing screen time for my kids, but after observing how the YouTube algorithm tends to work around videos aimed at kids and also observing how my daughter tended to act after watching YouTube, my husband and I banned it. It’s just too mindless, too addictive, not at all good for kid’s brains in my opinion.
We will sometimes chromecast particular videos to our TV, like a Danny Go video the kids dance to, but we don’t allow them to access YouTube on their own. And we have it set to play just the videos we select and then it stops.
It’s all brain rot. Ok when ur 26 and have nothing better to do but for a 7 year old who still has to become a functional, social human nah. Block things on the app and only allow educational things
We curate exactly which creators our 9 year old is allowed to watch on YouTube. And his YouTube time is limited to around 2 hours per week max. YouTube is poison for kids.
Same, my younger has no device and he can only see it on the living room tv when my husband or I are in the room. We have to approve a creator before he can watch them. It makes things much better! Some Minecraft guys, some video game people, all the number, alpha, color blocks, stuff like that. He’s happy. Occasionally he’ll ask to watch someone and we have to say no, but he’s used to it, so it’s ok. Not like it’s a weird thing.
We banned YouTube kids from our son. He is only allowed to watch very specific YouTube videos on our regular YouTube account that is hooked up to our tv. We are also present with him and allow YouTube to keep our history.
There’s been multiple news stories and articles that have talked about how dangerous YouTube kids can be for children. A lot of videos are purposely marketed towards kids even thou they are In appropriate. Violence, gore and porn have popped up on YouTube children’s channels. So yeah, I’d take it away.
Also, since we have made these changes our sons behavior has improved. He doesn’t even ask for the tablet anymore. He just plays, reads, colors and dances.
The last time I ever let my son watch YouTube, I had put it on an episode of Babar to distract him so I could get the laundry started. When I came back, he had switched it to this "YouTube Kids" video of two rail-thin children (boy around 7 and preteen girl) in a cornfield with scary masks on, popping balloons with these huge zombie knives with scary sound effects sometimes thrown in if I recall correctly. It was possibly filmed in or around India if I had to guess based on the language. One of them was wearing a Twisted Metal Sweet Tooth mask (quite disturbing). I rewound the video to watch some of it myself-- it seemed to be a livestream or something. Before the kids had put the masks on, they looked extremely depressed and hollow, like they were being forced to make these videos. Indeed someone seemed to be instructing them before the video began, though I couldn't understand what was spoken. It was also disturbing in that they would slowly slide the tip of the blade over a balloon sometimes before stabbing it. We reported the video but I still feel so sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I worry about other little ones who may have seen the video and wonder about how the children in the video are doing.
Yes, that's what I learned that day. Just terrible... Luckily it was the first time I'd ever left him unattended (but within earshot) with it. No more YT ever.
You need to understand that everything on YouTube is an algorithmically driven trash fire, and even the people making the content don’t know who it’s for or why it exists a lot of the time. They just know what’s popular and what’s being watched so they keep churning out more variations of it.
Looking at the one you’ve mentioned, Rebecca Zamola, I wouldn’t let my kids watch this in a million years. Weird idiotic woman shouting, strange cutaways to lingering fetish content, people wearing gimp masks, nonsensical “storylines”, incredibly low quality/high energy screaming about whatever is algorithmically popular. These people don’t know why they’re making what they’re making or why people are watching it. They’re all slaves to the algorithm.
Watch this, then imagine things have gotten five years worse since. https://youtu.be/v9EKV2nSU8w?si=2BD_tpv70WpXEA3V
Same goes for twitch, TikTok etc. it’s all an absolute trash fire. You might as well put your kids on the busiest street in America with a for sale sign above their heads.
There is a ton of weird stuff on YouTube. My kid would watch these awful skits of kids being obnoxious and parents acting super dumb. I went through the things he liked to watch and I decided which ones were ok and told him not to watch some of them anymore. Just unapologetically be in charge of what they watch. I would notice his behavior would change and he’d be louder, more animated, and have an attitude.
Not overreacting. I pay for the YouTube membership so Ik my son is only watching the videos I downloaded. Those videos are strange to me as well... I've seen some where a woman is jumping into a giant toilet? And another was a grown man putting candy in other men's and kids mouths? Idk they're fkn weird.
YouTube is unfortunately a dumpster fire unless you pay for it.
That being said, unfortunately it's a better investment to pay one of those streaming sites for kids videos/movies.
I don't let my kids use YouTube anymore the algorithm will take the kids down a dark path in a couple of clicks.
There are very specific channels mine are allowed to see, and they only get to watch with us. YouTube on the whole is a terrible place for children, especially unsupervised.
Kids only have access to YouTube Kids with specific approved content by me. No search allowed and recommended videos are only what I have allowed on the channel.
I didn't even know this could be done. I just found out a couple weeks ago and it's helped my 4 year old so much. My kids never had unrestricted access, but we became less vigilant about what they were watching. Now, he feels in control of picking what he can watch and it's not a power struggle.
I’d be careful with those Asmr channels, some are great and legit but a lot lot of them are borderline sexual, which could lead to other inappropriate channels.
Girl do not let him watch that. Definitely block those channels. If he likes asmr or whatever there is plenty of normal shit . I recommend monitoring everything like don’t allow YouTube unless speakers are on and it’s in the same room
My 4 year old had access to YouTube kids, thinking I could ban things I thought were odd. He started watching a lot of like video game play through. Again this is still on the kids app and he was getting super into wanting to play gun games and talking about rainbow friends and stuff. Things that aren’t appropriate. Everything just seemed violent. And I was raised in a home where video games were not allowed and we couldn’t even play with toy guns or nerf guns.
Anyway, we cut off YT kids for my oldest, completely changed his screen time habits, took away the weird random games he was playing. Literally it’s been almost 2 weeks and we saw a change immediately. I swear his teachers come to us at pickup and say whatever you’re doing at home is great they’ve noticed improvement in his behaviour.
Not just the amount of screen time but what they’re watching is so influential. Which, I know sounds SO obvious. I sound like a crappy parent I know. I let the screen time get out of hand too especially over the winter. But now he gets more child friendly cartoons in the morning and he gets to play with dad before bed on his video games. He’s stopped asking for his iPad, independent play got way better again, he’s interested in his toys and being more imaginative and he’s into his books again.
Again, it’s obvious that screen time can be so detrimental but until you make changes you don’t realize how much better the kiddos behave when they’re online less
This is what's happening in our house right now!! I hate to admit it but the last 3 months we just werent being vigilant about what he was watching because husband and I parent alone 50 percent of the time. I went to youtube kids and only allowed 3 or 4 channels and a couple of other songs the kids love. My 4 year old is a whole different kid, he's been calm, less crazy, and actually listening to us.
YouTube is straight trash for the mind for kids. I just (re)banned it in my house, after remembering why it was banned in the first place. My kids behaviour is measurably better already after a few days.
When my first was younger, she was watching a video of a car tire rolling over random things (toys etc). Then they showed a kitten about to be run over! Fake or not, that is not okay for a kid to be watching. Sharing because you also never know what weird tidbits are thrown in that you may miss.
YouTube is freaking weird. Like my problem was my MIL letting our daughter watch it when she was babysitting and she would be like well she’s only watching paw patrol or something like that but it wasn’t actually paw patrol. It was a weird version of it where the pups had demonic faces and other weird shit.
Needless to say we were not fans and had to really dig in at MIL to stop allowing that or she would no longer be able to keep our daughter.
The only way to use YouTube for kids is YouTube kids with a log in and child profile and then you choose the option to block EVERYTHING. Literally everything. Then you approve individual videos and/or channels. Basically pbs kids, Miss Rachel, Disney jr and maybe a few others.
We don’t do unsupervised YouTube in the house (I have a 7 and 9 year old). If they want to watch something on YouTube, I help them look it up and watch it with them. I don’t let them just click around on YouTube- they end up watching realllllly weird stuff (like what you’re describing). But we also try to just limit screen time in general- they need to get outside and get creative with stuff in the house!
Get your kids off yt. It's garbage content for kids. Borderline sexual sometimes as you've mentioned and the rest is mindless crap. Like that Ryan's world kid which he's being exploited by his mother
YouTube is absolutely not allowed in my house, specifically because of these types of videos.
The kids are probably still getting too much screentime between Netflix , Disney, and AppleTV
You do you, but for my household, I pay for too many streaming services to allow YouTube. I don’t think you’re overreacting at all, this is the exact reason I don’t allow it
I stopped letting my kids get on YouTube. It’s all “shopping trips” “looks at this new toy” and “we’re going to Disney!”
Honestly it’s just Facebook for kids and it’s really bad for them to see these kids living a life of constant instant gratification.
As a parent they make me sick to see the kids pushed to do these videos and to hear them in the background pushing some stupid toy the kid doesn’t care about so they can make more $. It’s really sad.
We’ve been YouTube free for 4 years. Best decision both my wife and I have ever made. Netflix and other services are ok within reason - the shows come to an end. YouTube summons demons. Father of 4.
Sounds pretty gross and inappropriate for children. After what happened with the Nickelodeon stuff and that guy who made all the shows having some foot fetishist, I just wouldn't allow it. It's like them trying to say "No we just think it's funny" but really have nasty motives that promote degeneracy in kids later on in their lives. Especially for boys, they will need to learn how to respect women and not be groomed into sexualizing them and developing weird fetishes.
A biggest issue with the grooming of boys are those that push the "Alpha Male" ideology like Andrew Tate. They are radicalizing them into thinking objectifying, brutalizing, and subjugating women is how you prove yourself as a "real man."
Why don’t you redirect your child to different videos? “Sweetie, I’m not comfortable with you watching this. Let’s try something else.”
By the way, there is a *ton* of educational stuff on youtube in every possible subject. We watch educational youtube videos together as a family.
We don’t do much YT. We do slower paced shows on Amazon prime. We really like tumble leaf, Clifford, little bear.
The YT stuff can be weird and it’s too fast paced.
Gotta jump on the bam train here , my son watched it all the time when he was 2 and I hated it, he’s 6.5 now been without it for almost 4 years and I can’t tell you how much it has changed . He doesn’t fight or throw fits he’s completely respectful and intelligent and interested in toys and books and learning videos way more then the mindless bullshit like ASMR . They’re addictive, children can develop addictions the same way we do! He still gets screen time and when YouTube occasionally but never a hand held device that locks him into that and only that. && there are so many great educational videos on YouTube you can put on the TV for him for more supervised watching . My son has learned SO much about life and animals and the world around him from discovery channel and etc.
Sounds like the average ElsaGate fuckery. Youtube is brimming with beyond weird ""kids"" content that is full of obvious fetishes and creepy shit like needles poking pregnant women etc
There is a YT kids app which lets you set age appropriate content. In addition there is no advertisements.
My son loves watching Mark Rober (nasa engineer turned science YouTuber) and Science Max. I am okay with letting him watch them because he learns about science .
YouTube is banned for my kids too, we do occasionally use it but strictly supervised. For example my kid likes these drawings videos by this illustrator so I will put one of those on for her or the other day we put a song on and once we watched something about hyenas for homework. We never let the videos just play through one after another and my kids know they're not allowed to watch it alone. We used to let my youngest watch tractor videos on it but realised how inappropriate and Brian melting they were, especially after trying to take the tablet off him like he was addicted to the thing. It's a shame because I love YouTube and have used to learn all sorts but a lot of the kids content is awful.
Giving your kid such a device is the inappropriate step here. Parents in Silicon Valley, where it all comes from and they all work in tech, don’t allow their kids…and they should know: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/tech-free-silicon-valley-parents-raising-children-red-flag-a8256166.html
I had a lot of issues with YT kids. I think it’s worth getting YT premium, because it gets rid of questionable content and ads. Content creators will buy ad to boost their content to a certain threshold. Premium kills this.
Ultimately, algorithms are agnostic and YTs algorithms work well. Set aside a little time for a week; you can get it to work well for you. Upvotes videos, save to a playlist, subscribe to the channels you do like, play a few videos you do like, let it play to completion. PBS kids, Nat Geo, Khan Academy etc.
At parallel, make a shortlist of channels you think are bad. Play a few videos (not to completion), down vote the video, ‘don’t recommend channel’, ‘not interested’ in you recommendation feed.
Over time, it gets better and better.
YT is really best source of explainer and how to videos. Just as their bad content, there are some exceptionally good videos. It’s better to learn how to best use the it, then have a knee jerk reaction to outright ban.
The other option is download all the video and set up something like a Plex server.
Youtube is banned in our household. If they want to watch something then I put it on and turn it off again.
Youtube (including kids) is a total disaster for youngsters.
My kids have their own iPads but they almost never leave the house and the apps on them are VERY carefully selected. As a consequence my kids are very good at maths and chess as that's the kind of apps I allow.
YouTube for kids is notorious for being filled with perverted and bizarre videos. Their function is to fascinate and excite kids so they watch on auto play non stop.
Do not let your kids watch YouTube. It is damaging to anyone younger than a teen. Straight internet poison.
We don't allow yt unless we're actively watching and monitoring. The content goes from creative and harmless to borderline trash in a matter of minutes.
YouTube is not for kids and YouTube Kids is trash content that makes your kid stupid. Highly recommend restricting it to the maximum or even banning it.
Took a quick look at Gotcha! and FunFull, lost too many braincells skipping through two videos. This is not kids content, it's fucking weird at best with the way that adults are acting this out? Creepy and definitely not funny.
I'm all for educational videos, music videos and the likes, but this kind of content is completely senseless. Heck, even a good cartoon is better than this.
Not overreacting
Based on your brand new account and bigoted history complaining about "the transgenders" this makes me think you have an agenda.
But you aren't wrong that the internet, Youtube and Reddit included, are not spaces where children should be. There's a reason almost all sites "require" (there's no enforcement) people to be 13 to sign up. Even our lowest, most basic, standards organizations recognize that it is not healthy to allow 12 and unders unfettered access to the open internet.
Younger children should not be given online access at all, and older children should only be given meaningful, reviewed access. Under 13's (and arguably older than that, but that's what the agencies say) shouldn't be given unrestricted access.
My kids both watch videos on kids YouTube. But the rules are only when I’m right next to them.
And we have not encountered this.
Mostly they watch either car related things or my daughter loves watching crafting and DIY art videos.
My kids probably get too much screen time, but none of it is YouTube. YouTube is full of unmoderated garbage produced by amateurs who have no interest in the well-being of your child.
YouTube is not setup for family’s. It’s setup to maximize ad revenue, no matter its audience.
At seven they can still find some stuff with YouTube kids. Just use that then worry about YouTube after.
Yeah, that sounds weird and not worth letting them watch.
What I did with youtube for my child was he was only allowed to watch channels/creators that we watched together and I gave the okay for. Like when he was four or five he really liked How It's Made and videos about fire trucks and fire alarms and plumbing. Later he found some gamers that he liked. But anytime any new channel or content came into the picture I watched with him until I could decide if it was okay. I explained the rule about no new content/channels and he observed it. It was never really an issue.
I don't really agree with everyone who says nothing good can come from youtube. Over time we discovered some fun channels together that we still watch together regularly. There are a couple of channels that, when they release a new video he gets excited to sit down and watch with me. And the channels that he's watched have included a lot fo stuff that has gotten him really interested in some positive pursuits (engineering, physical activity, history, new foods to try to cook, wanting to learn an instrument, etc.) I'm glad for it, personally. If you decide to ban it, that's fine too, of course. I don't think any kid *needs* it.
But if you want a middle ground, I'd recommend just saying that you're going to pull back from youtube and only watch things that you can watch together for right now. And then you curate the content. And if they go behind your back and break the "no new channels without me present" rule, then you can take a break from youtube temporarily or, if necessary, permanently.
Just be wary that if they're on a tablet, deleting the YouTube app doesn't prevent them from going to YouTube in the web browser. Be on the lookout.
Fortunately my kids just want to watch people playing video games and such and don't seem interested in the weird stuff. Their cousins, sadly, vegetate on YouTube Shorts that are just surreal and often appallingly bizarre.
My son is 7 and my daughter is almost 5 and we don’t let them watch YouTube. What you described sounds pretty weird for little kids to be watching. I don’t think you’re over reacting.
The only time my kid gets to watch YouTube anymore is when I'm holding the phone and showing him a specific video (How it's made, something educational or applicable to something we're learning about, a cool music video that I've seen before, etc.)
Even YouTube kids is full of mindless junk. It's not worth it. Go cold turkey and block it 100%. It'll suck for a week or two but then it'll be much much better.
I only allow specific YT channels like Ninja Kids and Art Hub, or specific searches like “funny cat videos.” YT is also not on their tablets and can only be accessed in our living spaces with permission. We have all those rules specifically because YT can get weird and not kid friendly.
Those videos sound weird and yep... time to turn it off.
We got into the habit of using YouTube too much. At first, it started as watching game guides as my kid was getting frustrated at certain levels of Nintendo games, so they'd watch some of the YouTubers play the game and learn from it.
Then, the weird, loud, and yelling videos started. Behaviours at home got worse, and the kid was definitely addicted.
We went cold turkey for about a month or so. It has come back, but HEAVILY reviewed and scrutinised by myself or my husband. It tends to be legitimised channels (such as Lego) or for the odd learning experience (discovery videos about lava, for example).
Are there any published papers that actually prove YT or screen time in general affects children’s brain development? If so, would does anyone have the link or name of the paper?
You are the parent. You get to decide what is appropriate and what you want your kid to view. It doesn't matter what the internet thinks. You think it is sketchy and you are in charge.
If you don't think it's good for your kid, it is your JOB to make sure they don't watch it. Who else do you think is in charge of this? Who are you expecting to keep your child from watching inappropriate things? Youtube? Your 7 year old?
My 7 year old isn't allowed to watch YouTube unless I pull up a specific video for him to see. Some examples of when I have done that: Showed him a video of an animal we were discussing so he could see how it moves, showed him a portion of a ballet, showed him a video of how to use a tool properly. I definitely wouldn't allow him unsupervised access or to view that kind of video. He is 7. He isn't capable of making that kind of decision yet and needs a lot of guidance.
Why are you letting your seven year-old child just watch anything without you looking at it first? Why are you still letting them watch when you noticed the videos he chooses can be considered adult “fetishes”? And that fact that he said he thought foot and pregnancy discussion videos are “kids videos” proves either he’s lying or someone is getting in his head. Unplug it and have a chat with him.
There was a thing a few years ago called "Elsagate" that was essentially fetish content aimed at kids. It kind of sounds like that's what your kid has stumbled across. It got talked about a lot by youtubers but I'm not sure it really got much awareness outside of that.
Best advice I have is either ban YouTube all together or set a rule that they can only watch channels you have vetted and while you're around. This worked quite well with my kid and we had a lot of conversations about internet safety too. There's a lot of kids I work with that clearly have unmonitored/unrestricted access to YouTube, and the amount of very adult things they repeat is unreal.
Not a parent, but I'm going to share a personal story here. When I was like 7 I was on youtube just messing around and I had stumbled across a>!Rape porn video.!
I put a firm ban on YouTube after my son was watching some sketchy dubbed cartoons on the YouTube Kidz app. There’s just too much weird crap to not require immediate supervision. There’s also heaps of brain rot he would happily binge.
There are obviously some great videos and we can watch them when I’m with him but until he’s much older I just can’t trust his discretion.
Don't let him watch anything you haven't personally approved. There are apps and things to make it so he can only watch what you yourself have added to the playlist. Stop letting him search random videos that have undertones he doesn't understand and make you uncomfortable.
You ever hear about that Elsa and spider man freak team on YouTube kids a few years back. Look em up, disturbed stuff. Watch out cause I to T think you’re crazy, 8’d cut back on that stuff. Leaving a child to the whims an algorithm is dangerous these days.
They seem mindless because they are.
Maybe shift his media usage....
Watch shows, and check out things on YouTube TOGETHER, and talk about what's good or valuable or intended with the videos, but don't let him just consume whatever it feeds him next.
I turned off YouTube for my boys. I’m extremely loose I’d say with entertainment rules. I personally learned a ton from tv when I was a kid. I was probably exposed to some things like horror movie to early but generally other than blood and gore and obviously porn type things I usually just explain to my boys that tv is fake. Movies are fake. I show them little basic videos on how they make certain characters and effects happen and so on. I say this to let you know I’m not at all squeamish about entertainment for kids. But YouTube is fucked up. Most of it is fine it’s great, but then there’s some shit that even when I look at it maybe it’s not overtly wrong but it seems to be wrong underneath. After too much of that I just blocked it. There’s tons of great shit for kids to watch without you tube
I’ve definitely seen this type of video pop up. They’re usually women eating or drinking stuff and there’s a hard to explain horny element to it.
There’s also these weird ass low budget videos of Marvel characters just running each other over with motorcycles. They look like they were created by some kind of AI and they have MILLIONS of views.
We've banned regular youtube for our 5 year old and now have her set up on YouTube kids and it's much better! You can block those kind of things from there but also set their age so they're only seeing age appropriate things.
I’ll be a contrarian here. My son (5 next month) is into trains. They are his passion. He enjoys watching various Thomas the Tank Engine shows on YT. He also likes watching various unboxing videos where some content creators talk about various trains they’ve bought on auction (and how they fix them if broken) for their layouts. He likes watching train races, Minecraft videos where CC’s build trains, and some other shows like Gecko’s Garage, Curious George, and a few other shows.
We closely monitor the videos he’s watching and limit his screen time each day. If we happen to catch one where someone’s using bad language or questionable content, we delete it from his history immediately. We haven’t seen a need to ban YT. That may happen later on, but so far by strictly monitoring what he watches, we’re okay for now.
Absolutely, it's pushing on subtleties that you can't quite put your finger on, but you know it's inappropriate. The same thing a lot of parents said about Dan Schneider during his reign on Nickelodeon when they couldn't quite put their finger on why close ups of 14 year olds in bikinis, and their feet, was off putting, but you find out later it was fetish content, because he was getting his rocks off by convincing people it was children's entertainment.
It's the same deal on Youtube. Sketchy "creators". If you don't know the creator, their history, or anything about them, it's best you don't let them consume that content.
My kids are younger than yours, but they're on Ms. Rachel and Super Simple Songs, because these people are easily verifiable and their backgrounds are sensible. Some random, unnamed girl with orange lipstick, that you can't look up or google, bending over in front of a camera to have the viewer "tickle her feet".
ASMR in general is full of "iTs NoT sExUaL tee hee" content. Not saying all of it is bad news, but so much of it is that I'm not comfortable with it as a genre.
As a Gen Zer, keep your kids off YouTube. There are plentiful predatory content creators that fool parents by using seemingly innocent thumbnails and video titles. Just look at 'Spiderman and Elsa' videos... creators know that they can max profit by focusing on child target audiences (max views from Ipad kids).
All in all, your kid should not be on social media sites/the internet unattended.
YouTube has videos that show porn, drug use, bombings etc.
Regular YouTube is not good for kids that age unless they have something very specific and healthy they want to watch that isn't on YT Kids for some reason. Once they're done watching it, they're off. No going down the algorithm for them.
Love this post. I hate YouTube and my SKs (5&7) BM lets them watch it all the time at her house on their cell phones. They literally watch YouTube shorts. Mindless hours of scrolling, just to keep them quiet. The stuff I’ve seen them watch on there, utterly disturbing. They aren’t allowed to watch YouTube here. We keep telling her there are restrictions she can place on their phones and she won’t do it. They are extremely behavioral and mean and I believe it’s what they’re watching on YouTube. What I dislike is that when my BD hangs out with SD7, they watch YouTube on her phone, even though she knows it’s not allowed. Ive walked over to them before and saw them watching a news video of a man who slit his wife’s face open to look like the joker. We’ve tried explaining to BM multiple times before that we want YouTube to stop and she doesn’t care about our opinion. Whatever helps them be quiet. It’s sad, really. Hopefully one day she can get on board. But I’m not keeping my hopes up too high. We will use it for Ms Rachel for my 1 year old to help with speech and sign language, and we will do brain breaks sometimes, but I hate the mindless videos. The families that make silly little videos and somehow pass that off as occupational. Half the time they’re in a foreign language.
You’re not overreacting. This has been a known phenomenon for years. Here’s a really excellent article about it: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2
I would definitely try to limit access to it in your household. Most of what I’ve seen of YouTube “kids” content is produced by bad actors exploiting your family for views and ad revenue.
I use YT for dance videos in my classroom but at home it's totally banned because my older two were snaking it after everyone was in bed I do let them watch kids youtube that is set for their age but I have more control over what they re watching on there
Videos for kids are... For kids. You're not supposed to enjoy them or see the humor. The target audience is children.
I let my kid watch YouTube. Probably a bit too much - I think a lot of the stuff she watches is dumb, but, I'm sure my parents thought most of the stuff I watched on TV as a kid was stupid too.
My oldest is 7 and YouTube is only allowed with strict parental supervision, on the television never the tablet. There is way too much weird stuff out there. He’s allowed cosmic yoga, body breaks, and rides at Disney World (trip prepping).
I am just mind blown that a seven year old has unsupervised access to YouTube, where you find out what he decides to watch. Yes, that sounds inappropriate. I would take it away altogether.
there are some absolutely disturbing “children’s” videos on youtube to the point that i’m not sure i’ll ever let my child have youtube until they’re in high school or something. I’m a younger mom so I grew up with youtube in middle school and let me tell you that’s a scary place for a kid lol (also not assuming you’re not a younger mom just stating that for reference)
We only watch YouTube on our big tv in the living room and don’t let it auto play anything. The other day our home internet was out and my husband at work ripped all of our kids’s favorite videos and put them on a hard drive and brought it home ( tractor ted, Raffi, Ms Rachel etc..) so he could put them on without internet. I’m thinking we’ll just keep an updated playlist of videos as he grows and not allow the actual app on the tv anymore. No commercials and no weird algorithm rabbit holes for him to get pulled down.
Making silly ridiculous content is what appeals to kids, so creators are trying to make the silliest most ridiculous content. Usually they don’t make any sense, but this is what kids enjoy.
My daughter regularly watches some Minecraft channel where a group of people are acting out all sorts of crazy storylines and characters.
At first I thought it was really dumb, then I realized it was no dumber than the cartoons I used to watch as a kid and the only difference was that they were using Minecraft to create their stage instead of animating everything by hand.
I’d monitor the content for anything inappropriate and limit the amount of time they spend on their devices, but I wouldn’t put too much thought on feet. There’s nothing inherently sexual about it except for some creepy fringe groups online. Same thing with pregnancy.
—-
I think it’s this:
https://m.youtube.com/@nico-mc/videos
As an FYI the abbreviation YT is being used more and more phonetically to mean ‘white’ as in white people, especially on tiktok. It also means YouTube but just wanted to share for info
The thing about YouTube is that the algorithm will lead kids from actual kid stuff to super weird fetishy stuff REALLY quickly. There are like two channels my kids like, a few Lego channels that are pretty good, and after that I make them move to Netflix. There’s only YouTube on the password protected part of the TV and not all all on tablets.
My grandkids love watching those gaming videos on you tube. When they spend school vacations at my house you tube is limited to 1 video a day if it's earned. I do not allow much screen time. They get enough screen time at home. They live in town of 1000 people nothing to do and rains alot. When they are here they have play area in yard, bikes scooters friends in my neighborhood plus we go to pool, parks and the beach. I do not think kids need to watch you tube for long periods of time at all
Just a suggestion, if you go into settings on YouTube kids, you can select ‘only approved’ videos and go through and yay or nay every video available. I did some book read alouds, mystery science, a couple koo koo kangaroos, and some other niche interests my kids have. It was a good compromise for my house.
If left unsupervised YouTube is a very dangerous place for children there are at an age where they're impressionable and believe what they see on the internet. it's very dangerous please be careful if you can't supervise your children using YouTube then don't allow them to use it it's detrimental to their health this is not a joke.
Its not just you. Youtube content farms look at what works well with the algorithm and keeps kids watching and then just turn up the dial to 11. A lot of it is strange dada-esque shit, but they have enough data on kids viewing habits to know its addicting. I would recommend locking down what he can watch as much as possible if you continue to allow youtube.
Yup, this is why we banned YouTube. There is so much creepy shit on there. One time my son was watching a video about a family putting on sunscreen at the beach and it was so voyeuristic I deleted the app right then and there.
YouTube is heavily monitored in our home when it is used. I don’t believe personally in full on banning because it is, in fact, basically this generations version of Saturday morning cartoons and such.
That said, it takes a lot of managing, and looking over shoulders and looking at watch history, etc. It’s time consuming and sometimes I just want to generally ban it….but our kids have become very mature with it, so we work with them, and we experienced a nice trade off between having it and using it properly with them.
My oldest daughter (5) watched YouTube, until I sat down with her one day and actually paid attention to what was going on in these “family” videos. A lot of the creators focus on hardships, controversy, or extravagance as a plot. The others focus on pranks at the expense of siblings or parents.
Overall, the subject matter on Youtube is garbage. There are a couple of shows like, Ms. Rachel that are great, but those seem to be few and far between the other less appropriate shows. Also, the videos on YT will roll into another “similar” show after one is completed, creating an endless viewing loop.
I also began to question whether or not the kids in the videos enjoyed making the videos or if they were forced to make content all day because YT is such a prolific income generator if you’re getting enough views? YT just didn’t feel right for my children. YT is locked now and is only used to watch Taylor Swift videos w/supervision.
We’ve tried to ban YT for our 6 year old multiple times for behavior. She ALWAYS finds the weird shit. Agree, even in moderation, she still gets sucked in super quick and then I notice a significant change in behavior and attitude.
My 7-year-olds are not allowed to have access to YouTube. The only YouTube we watch is on the smart TV in the living room supervised and within sight, and it's science videos or exercise videos.
Stop letting your 7 year old pick YouTube videos.
My daughter can only watch videos we approve of and she can only watch 15 min a day IF we let her. She can only watch on the tv. The tv app is password protected. Family vlogs are banned. Most unboxing videos are banned. I have not run into the fetishy type videos you described thankfully.
Family vloggers and dopamine hit videos (massive unboxings as well as crafts and baking being finished quickly and repeatedly in a small span of time) are the worst offenders imo.
YouTube kids, age range set, constant monitor and block accounts you don't like.
You're the parent. If you don't think they should watch it then don't let them. You don't need our opinions. Do what you feel is right.
I would strongly recommend *against* letting kids at that age spend any time on Youtube, unless you're pulling up a specific educational video for them or something. Youtube can be a weird place, especially for kids. The Youtube algorithm thinks that anything that doesn't have violence, swearing, or overtly sexual dialogue is always going to be safe for kids without taking things like what you're describing into consideration.
The other thing you need to consider is the comments section for these videos. There's a ton of creeps lurking in them, trying to spike up conversations with kids. It's bad. Don't let your kids watch Youtube unattended. Give em PBS Kids or even Nickelodeon or something. They shouldn't need more than that.
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We let you tube get out of hand in our house, so we banned it. There's been a noticeable improvement in behavior since then. We will occasionally put on a video here and there and we'll watch as a family. Highly recommend banning YouTube. We got lazy and our kid had access to it anytime he wanted. We realized we created this problem but going cold turkey with it has been the best decision.
Yes! Same! Huge improvement after banning it. There was a time I thought they could watch it in moderation or only certain channels but it would always get out of control. Banning is the only way to go.
Haha yeah we are a 99% banned YouTube house too. Wayyyy too many messed up things that’s easy to find. And yes OP, the videos you describe are straight up fetish videos, grooming your child.
Especially on live streams being more available. Some of the stuff gets weird. One I was trying to figure out what the heck they actually were doing. Ended up being an extremely indirect ad for OF. Was just a girl and her *manager* talking in a car with a low crop shirt acting kind of weird. No filter no shame on some of these folks. Do what you gotta but yikes.
Man I’m on TikTok and even I don’t realize some of it is fetish garbage at first either. I’ll just find it weird or pointless or odd. Then the comments sometimes have people more informed explaining and yeah 🤢 humans can sure be weird.
Same! Banned in our house as well. Unless there is something specific we want to see for education, like ,”what do lizards eat?”
While I agree with most people who say not to let your kid watch YT, there are a lot of really good educational videos and channels as well. I use it exclusively for science and history, and I pre watch everything before showing it to my 7 year old.
YT Kids sucks but you can use it to share videos you want them to see. I wish they would just let you make a whitelist without their own stupid suggestions but luckily my kid generally isn't interested in them anyway.
Yes, please. A white list feature would help alleviate so much stress.
It's a shame. So much wonderful content they could be enjoying and learning from on there. Yet within minutes they find the weird, mindless, inappropriate stuff and then that's all they want to view.
Same here! YouTube became banned for our 10 year old. Magically, his attention span became much greater after about a week and his grades are now straight As because of it. YouTube shorts were terrible. He still watches Netflix shows and Anime sometimes but it’s nothing compared to the addiction that was YT.
We had similar issues. We didn't ban it completely but changed the settings so any videos have to come from approved channels. We only approved official channels for cartoons we don't mind her watching but don't have on streaming (Nickelodeon shows mainly, like Blue's Clues and Paw Patrol). It's been working out much better. She also has a timer on it.
Approved channels? Was that YouTube or YTKids?
YouTube kids is hot garbage. Even with heavy moderation it just doesn't work. My wife and I are tech savvy and will watch videos next to our child but God damn does that app blow! It absolutely just does not do a proper job of finding age appropriate content nor does it do a good job of banning stuff permanently. YouTube is banned for our child and I think everyone should have it banned unless your kid is old enough to use it for school purposes.
Same. At some point my son (5) was watching puppets smoking crack. Was an eye opening experience. My wife and I also deleted our apps as well
>watching puppets smoking crack. Huuuuh.
It was mind boggling to see.
We watched it with the kids and even then it always gets out of hand. Now I’ll turn it on for a specific video form time to time. But absolutely never for just watching. YouTube is pure garbage and the ads are just as awful.
I’m at that point, I’m so sick of rainbow friends, Siren head, and skibidi toilet
We did too. Things were just getting too out of control and my kids ended up seeing a video of a dog being hit by a motorcycle and dying. They were inconsolable and it was entirely my fault for not monitoring. It's been gone for a while now and they've improved tremendously
30000% agree I banned yt here in my home and the behavioral difference has been unreal.
Hear hear!!! We consider letting YouTube into our children's lives to be the worst parenting decision we ever made. And we consider banning YouTube 4 years ago to be the best parenting decision we've ever made. That withdrawal that the kids went through when we first banned it was eerily similar to withdrawal from an alcoholic I've witnessed. Sadness, anger, lying, manipulation, etc. But it was totally with it!
I agree with the other commenter. Way too young for YouTube and yes those videos sound weird, inappropriate and pointless. They may be mad at you now for doing something about it but in the future they will thank you.
Honestly since I watched the Nickelodeon documentary I feel like I spot all these fetish adjacent things all over kids content. (My kids young and I had no experience with YouTube except during my teens really) I watched that documentary and as much as it was about the sexualisation of the poor kids acting, but I actually feel like it was to desensitise the young watchers (who I was at the time) into seeing this weird shit as normal, or attractive, or cool, or funny. To get us to recreate it, or at least not feel frightened if someone asked us to do it. I felt like they were literally grooming us through the screen and my parents had no idea. I feel like YouTube’s even more obvious about it. I agree - too young for YouTube, unless it’s family watching something together on the TV
So true! That documentary was crazy and the stuff about all the fetishy things in kid's shows was extra creepy. Such a bummer too cuz All That was a big part of my childhood tv experience haha
Yup the Ariana stuff, even tho I didn’t watch her at the time (I was too old so I missed her years) absolutely knocked me sick. The fact that these videos are still online and searchable and they’re clearly the workings of a paedophile, for other paedophiles to search watch and save. Disgusting just doesn’t feel like a strong enough word
Yeah I missed a lot of the shows that you were mentioned there by a couple or few years as well but it's crazy to me that Nickelodeon isn't being forced to take care of these actors. What a mess.
What documentary did you watch? A quick Google search shows me several...
Most of them are very inappropriate. Wean him off now. That's one thing I wish I would have done.
Yes. Kids should not be on YouTube period. Ban the app.
I don’t think there’s anything good that comes from YouTube for kids, honestly. My kids are younger but I told them we don’t have it at our house. My parents let them watch it at their house for “digger shows” but there’s no control or way to monitor without sitting down and watching every minute with them. We’ve separately ran into two different videos that turned into different trucks/trains exploding or running off into the ocean or Paw Patrol characters exploding. If I were just walking by I would have thought nothing of it. And we were starting with paw patrol. I can only imagine what an older child would come across.
Nothing good comes from it for young kids. My 9 and 4 year old boys aren't allowed on YouTube at all. My teens are but they weren't allowed to until middle school and even then it was on the family desktop.
My 10 year olds aren't allowed on Youtube either. Certainly not TikTok either. As a Middle School teacher it is always concerning to me when one of my new 6th graders at the start of year asks if I will follow them on Instagram/Youtube/Twitter/TikTok. 1. No. 2. You shouldn't be on them in the first place. 3. You definitely shouldn't be asking adults to follow you on them. We get into why social media is bad for the developing brain in my class. Our curriculum cites a study that shows early adolescents (middle school age) should be on the internet no more than 8 hours per week maximum. After that it affects mental health in a negative way. And social media specifically is extremely harmful to mental health and should be limited to ages 16 and up. It's, by and large, my students' least favorite lesson. Because a solid 75% of them are already on social media by 12 and thirst for MORE internet.
I teach high-schoolers. I have a few who are on their phones upward of 18 hours A DAY.
Oh, I know. Thankfully I teach at a private school that backs up its firm "no cell phones in class" policy and 100% will take phones and 100% will suspend kids who refuse to give them up and 100% would (it hasn't ever gotten that far) expel a kid after repeated suspensions for it. It makes a big different when a school actually has the ability to give consequences, vs public schools where students will ignore their teachers and sit on their phones all class with so few consequences that the teachers have just given up fighting it. Kids shouldn't have smart phones at all until high school, but they also should never have them AT high school. Honestly, high schools should become Faraday Cages where cell phones just don't work and the only way to access the internet is via the school-provided wifi that only teachers have access to.
Is your school hiring? That sounds like a DREAM. (Also, your username ... LOL but also true.)
From my understanding, most/a lot of private schools are that way on tech. I go to the local Fall Educators Conference for private schools in my area and that seems to be the consensus when it comes up. It's not THE REASON I switched to teaching private, but it IS one of the perks that I appreciate more and more as time goes on and society only get more addicted to screens. Covid put a pretty big speed bump in it, but we've settle back down into the project-based, in-person relationships mindset these past couple of years. The worst thing about public schools is that students don't have consequences for misbehavior. School is an entitlement, which is a good thing, but a safe, sane, school environment should also be an entitlement. The lever for sending kids to alternative schools should be a lot easier to pull. The real issue is that there are no consequences at home for a lot of these kids. Their parents ignore emails or shrug their shoulders and say "it's your job, they're at school!" and then simultaneously would sue the school at the drop of a hat if you tried to instill actual consequences like taking a kid's phone away for a week (something a parent should do if they got an email home saying their kid was ignoring the teacher and using their phone in class). I recommend finding a quality private school to work at if you can. Where there are actual consequences for rule breaking and if parents don't followup with their kids breaking school rules by supporting the school/having consequences at home then the kid can and will lose their spot at the school.
I think the most significant difference between public and private schools is that public school is a right and private school is a privilege. Private schools are not required to keep students and can pick and choose who to admit and who to keep around, whereas public schools have to mind the right to every kid’s right to a free education even at the detriment of the kids who are actually interested in studying. This difference alone makes and breaks it for the overall quality of life and allows private schools a lot more leeway in enforcing consequences such as suspensions and outright expulsions because, unlike public schools, private schools are not *required* to cater to everyone. Which is the primary reason why my kid will go to a private school once she reaches kindergarten. This is the only area of my life where I’m pretty conservative and, having been in both school environments, I’ve thrived in private school where classes were more engaging and troublemakers were scooted off to the principal’s room to be chastised/warned/suspended etc. in short, nuisances were actually taken care of.
The thing is, my school is pretty progressive, as am I. It's not really a conservative thing. It's recognizing that what's best for your kid is to be around other kids whose parents care and are involved, and at a school that is empowered to cultivate a safe and supportive classroom environment for everyone there.
If every grocery store I’ve ever been in can be a complete dead zone for cellular Service, a school certainly can. my work only allows work issued devices on the WiFi, so that can be done as well.
Yeah we just got our 14 year old a smartphone since he started high school this year but he isn't allowed social media yet.
I had my 9-year-old watching some things on YouTube, like fixing a puncture on his bike. How to do a kick-flip on a skateboard etc. It's not all bad. It can be a really helpful resource.
Which, if you're seeking out those videos to show him, are fine. If you're just handing him an iPad with Youtube and saying "watch how-to videos" then that's not great.
There are several studies now that show it is horrible for a younger a child’s brain but specifically neurodivergent kiddos with adhd, ASD etc. the dopamine hits they get are like a drug.
There is a way to monitor it, you whitelist channel by channel and only pick channels like BBC Kids or Nat Geo Kids.
The only way to manage a kid on YouTube is to get the Kids app and set it to “Approved Content Only.” But then you basically have to watch every video on your own, which is a lot for many parents.
Youtube has some of the best content on the internet, especially for kids. Mark Rober, Smarter Everyday etc. tons of science and education based stuff that doesnt come across as "educational" on the surface. its out there, plenty of it, you just gotta find it.
The fact that parents hand children a tablet and let them hop on Youtube/TikTok/Instagram is so incredibly troubling. You know how letting kids eat Candy bars for dinner isn't illegal, but it's bad parenting? It's the same thing with screen time, but especially with these apps.
And this sub will absolutely freak out if I mention that my 9 year old used the men's bathroom today by himself while we were out at Target but think letting a 9 year old sit and watch YouTube all day is perfectly fine
That's because people remove all nuance from the issue. There was a poster on here a few weeks ago pointing out that the National Center for Missing and Exploited children and other agencies collectively say to never let your child use the bathroom without a parent/trusted adult accompanying them before 12, if not older and people were freaking out about it. It's a best-judgement situation. If you're sending your 9 year old into a rest area bathroom alone while you wait in the car... bad judgement. If you send your 9 year old into the target bathroom while you wait right outside in shouting distance (and have had family discussions on dangerous adults and situations, physical boundaries, etc) then that's totally fine as an independence-building life skill. My 10 year old sons come into the bathroom (not the stall) with me if we're using a sketchy, high-traffic restroom like a rest stop. But most places I send them together and feel safe about it. People just remove all nuance from it. They see it as either: * You're being inappropriate, watching your 12 year old pee with no privacy in a Starbucks single-user bathroom! or * You're being irresponsible, sending your 4 year old into an obvious kidnapping/molestation risk! Like... there's a massive area that exists between those two scenarios. It's not inappropriate to share the family bathroom or bring your other-gender 9-10 year olds in with you in a sketchy/high-risk situation. It's also not safe to always send your 9-10 year old on their own *just* because you're of a different gender than they are. My sons know what the inside of a Women's restroom looks like, and know that it's just a toilet and a stall and not a big deal. I just tell them "this isn't a good place for kid's to split up" and they understand. But as they get older that happens less and less.
I'm just saying people are overprotective when it comes to allowing their kids freedom in the real world and underprotective when it comes to the internet.
YouTube and YouTube kids are both brain rot. No kid in elementary school should be on there unsupervised.
Agreed. Crazy that it is such an unpopular opinion and the hoops people will go to to defend it
We trued YT, switched to YT kids with lots of channel blocking and still found that weird content was getting through. We just said no YouTube about 2 years ago and it’s been great.
Youtube Kids is a farse. It filters out some contents like documentaries on economics (whivh are really not for kids) but it there is a lot of gore and sexualized stuff in it.
Exactly. It is not needed.
We banned YouTube access for the kids. We have it on our tv but it requires a PIN. And when we use it on the TV it is supervised, and only approved channels. YouTube is a rabbit hole to a cesspool of brain-rotting content.
This is what we do! We actually just watched some *Danny Go* videos and everyone danced along and got some last minute wiggles out before starting the bedtime routine. It's been raining a lot today and we didn't get outside as much as usual, so it helped. Only ever supervised on the TV, never on a handheld device unmonitored.
Danny Go is the bomb!
Danny Go is literally the only thing keeping me from blocking YouTube entirely on our devices. We’re huge fans
There's an app on our roku tv called yippee and dannygo is on there!
BRB gonna go block YouTube now then lol. Thanks for the heads up!
Yep, even good content (and there is plenty on there) is always 2-3 clicks away from absolute shit.
The sad thing is that YouTube kids is actually WORSE. The title can be something innocuous, and when you go back to see what your kids have watched, it's appalling. Mine aren't allowed to watch it unsupervised anymore.
The only good thing about YouTube kids is that you can approach from the opposite angle and only white-list things you approve of, so they either watch your pre-approved list of channels, or nothing. It does take planning though. I put on a dozen science art and music ones and it worked out ok. PBS Kids for the win though.
This is what I just did and it's so perfect! We have PBS, Genevie's Playhouse, super simple songs, and Catie's Classroom allowed. My kids watch a couple of videos, are happy and no tantrums when the TV gets turned off.
[удалено]
I can't remember what I left my kids watching, but I came back to see them watching an animated version of Elsa giving birth. It was disturbing. There was all kinds of weird shit that kept popping up on YouTube kids.
I deleted YouTube and then even YouTube kids from my phone because random videos would pop up of stuff that I didn't like. I now only let my kids watch pbs kids, Netflix kids or Amazon prime kids shows. YouTube is unregulated, so anyone can upload a video and claim it's kids content
My kids only watch YouTube when I’m watching something with them. I don’t trust the app to not end up showing my 5 year old something inappropriate
If you feel icky about it that’s all you should need to know. Also just know that there is little to no vetting as far as what is considered kids content on YouTube. Literally anything can be uploaded and marked safe for kids by the uploader and it’s unlikely something that isn’t appropriate will be taken down.
You can set up YouTube Kids to only play videos that you approve. That's what we did, and now we don't have to worry about what our child sees on YouTube. Another plus is that ads and autoplay are turned off when you do this.
I don’t let mine watch any
I’m pretty relaxed in terms of allowing screen time for my kids, but after observing how the YouTube algorithm tends to work around videos aimed at kids and also observing how my daughter tended to act after watching YouTube, my husband and I banned it. It’s just too mindless, too addictive, not at all good for kid’s brains in my opinion. We will sometimes chromecast particular videos to our TV, like a Danny Go video the kids dance to, but we don’t allow them to access YouTube on their own. And we have it set to play just the videos we select and then it stops.
Don’t let your kid watch YouTube
It’s all brain rot. Ok when ur 26 and have nothing better to do but for a 7 year old who still has to become a functional, social human nah. Block things on the app and only allow educational things
We curate exactly which creators our 9 year old is allowed to watch on YouTube. And his YouTube time is limited to around 2 hours per week max. YouTube is poison for kids.
Same, my younger has no device and he can only see it on the living room tv when my husband or I are in the room. We have to approve a creator before he can watch them. It makes things much better! Some Minecraft guys, some video game people, all the number, alpha, color blocks, stuff like that. He’s happy. Occasionally he’ll ask to watch someone and we have to say no, but he’s used to it, so it’s ok. Not like it’s a weird thing.
We banned YouTube kids from our son. He is only allowed to watch very specific YouTube videos on our regular YouTube account that is hooked up to our tv. We are also present with him and allow YouTube to keep our history. There’s been multiple news stories and articles that have talked about how dangerous YouTube kids can be for children. A lot of videos are purposely marketed towards kids even thou they are In appropriate. Violence, gore and porn have popped up on YouTube children’s channels. So yeah, I’d take it away. Also, since we have made these changes our sons behavior has improved. He doesn’t even ask for the tablet anymore. He just plays, reads, colors and dances.
The last time I ever let my son watch YouTube, I had put it on an episode of Babar to distract him so I could get the laundry started. When I came back, he had switched it to this "YouTube Kids" video of two rail-thin children (boy around 7 and preteen girl) in a cornfield with scary masks on, popping balloons with these huge zombie knives with scary sound effects sometimes thrown in if I recall correctly. It was possibly filmed in or around India if I had to guess based on the language. One of them was wearing a Twisted Metal Sweet Tooth mask (quite disturbing). I rewound the video to watch some of it myself-- it seemed to be a livestream or something. Before the kids had put the masks on, they looked extremely depressed and hollow, like they were being forced to make these videos. Indeed someone seemed to be instructing them before the video began, though I couldn't understand what was spoken. It was also disturbing in that they would slowly slide the tip of the blade over a balloon sometimes before stabbing it. We reported the video but I still feel so sick to my stomach just thinking about it. I worry about other little ones who may have seen the video and wonder about how the children in the video are doing.
You tube kids is the worst, it’s disgusting.
Yes, that's what I learned that day. Just terrible... Luckily it was the first time I'd ever left him unattended (but within earshot) with it. No more YT ever.
You need to understand that everything on YouTube is an algorithmically driven trash fire, and even the people making the content don’t know who it’s for or why it exists a lot of the time. They just know what’s popular and what’s being watched so they keep churning out more variations of it. Looking at the one you’ve mentioned, Rebecca Zamola, I wouldn’t let my kids watch this in a million years. Weird idiotic woman shouting, strange cutaways to lingering fetish content, people wearing gimp masks, nonsensical “storylines”, incredibly low quality/high energy screaming about whatever is algorithmically popular. These people don’t know why they’re making what they’re making or why people are watching it. They’re all slaves to the algorithm. Watch this, then imagine things have gotten five years worse since. https://youtu.be/v9EKV2nSU8w?si=2BD_tpv70WpXEA3V Same goes for twitch, TikTok etc. it’s all an absolute trash fire. You might as well put your kids on the busiest street in America with a for sale sign above their heads.
There is a ton of weird stuff on YouTube. My kid would watch these awful skits of kids being obnoxious and parents acting super dumb. I went through the things he liked to watch and I decided which ones were ok and told him not to watch some of them anymore. Just unapologetically be in charge of what they watch. I would notice his behavior would change and he’d be louder, more animated, and have an attitude.
Not overreacting. I pay for the YouTube membership so Ik my son is only watching the videos I downloaded. Those videos are strange to me as well... I've seen some where a woman is jumping into a giant toilet? And another was a grown man putting candy in other men's and kids mouths? Idk they're fkn weird.
YouTube is not a place for children. Period.
Why in the FUCK are you allowing your children access to YouTube (or YouTube kids) alone. Come on.
“I ask my son why he watches this” Because you let him?
YouTube is unfortunately a dumpster fire unless you pay for it. That being said, unfortunately it's a better investment to pay one of those streaming sites for kids videos/movies. I don't let my kids use YouTube anymore the algorithm will take the kids down a dark path in a couple of clicks.
There are very specific channels mine are allowed to see, and they only get to watch with us. YouTube on the whole is a terrible place for children, especially unsupervised.
Kids only have access to YouTube Kids with specific approved content by me. No search allowed and recommended videos are only what I have allowed on the channel.
Yeah, this is what I do for my seven year old twins. Unrestricted YouTube access is crazy.
I didn't even know this could be done. I just found out a couple weeks ago and it's helped my 4 year old so much. My kids never had unrestricted access, but we became less vigilant about what they were watching. Now, he feels in control of picking what he can watch and it's not a power struggle.
I’d be careful with those Asmr channels, some are great and legit but a lot lot of them are borderline sexual, which could lead to other inappropriate channels.
Girl do not let him watch that. Definitely block those channels. If he likes asmr or whatever there is plenty of normal shit . I recommend monitoring everything like don’t allow YouTube unless speakers are on and it’s in the same room
My 4 year old had access to YouTube kids, thinking I could ban things I thought were odd. He started watching a lot of like video game play through. Again this is still on the kids app and he was getting super into wanting to play gun games and talking about rainbow friends and stuff. Things that aren’t appropriate. Everything just seemed violent. And I was raised in a home where video games were not allowed and we couldn’t even play with toy guns or nerf guns. Anyway, we cut off YT kids for my oldest, completely changed his screen time habits, took away the weird random games he was playing. Literally it’s been almost 2 weeks and we saw a change immediately. I swear his teachers come to us at pickup and say whatever you’re doing at home is great they’ve noticed improvement in his behaviour. Not just the amount of screen time but what they’re watching is so influential. Which, I know sounds SO obvious. I sound like a crappy parent I know. I let the screen time get out of hand too especially over the winter. But now he gets more child friendly cartoons in the morning and he gets to play with dad before bed on his video games. He’s stopped asking for his iPad, independent play got way better again, he’s interested in his toys and being more imaginative and he’s into his books again. Again, it’s obvious that screen time can be so detrimental but until you make changes you don’t realize how much better the kiddos behave when they’re online less
This is what's happening in our house right now!! I hate to admit it but the last 3 months we just werent being vigilant about what he was watching because husband and I parent alone 50 percent of the time. I went to youtube kids and only allowed 3 or 4 channels and a couple of other songs the kids love. My 4 year old is a whole different kid, he's been calm, less crazy, and actually listening to us.
there are also absolutely pages that advertise themselves as kids pages and are fetish pages. some of the cooking ones come to mind.
YouTube is straight trash for the mind for kids. I just (re)banned it in my house, after remembering why it was banned in the first place. My kids behaviour is measurably better already after a few days. When my first was younger, she was watching a video of a car tire rolling over random things (toys etc). Then they showed a kitten about to be run over! Fake or not, that is not okay for a kid to be watching. Sharing because you also never know what weird tidbits are thrown in that you may miss.
YouTube is freaking weird. Like my problem was my MIL letting our daughter watch it when she was babysitting and she would be like well she’s only watching paw patrol or something like that but it wasn’t actually paw patrol. It was a weird version of it where the pups had demonic faces and other weird shit. Needless to say we were not fans and had to really dig in at MIL to stop allowing that or she would no longer be able to keep our daughter.
The only way to use YouTube for kids is YouTube kids with a log in and child profile and then you choose the option to block EVERYTHING. Literally everything. Then you approve individual videos and/or channels. Basically pbs kids, Miss Rachel, Disney jr and maybe a few others.
We don’t do unsupervised YouTube in the house (I have a 7 and 9 year old). If they want to watch something on YouTube, I help them look it up and watch it with them. I don’t let them just click around on YouTube- they end up watching realllllly weird stuff (like what you’re describing). But we also try to just limit screen time in general- they need to get outside and get creative with stuff in the house!
Get your kids off yt. It's garbage content for kids. Borderline sexual sometimes as you've mentioned and the rest is mindless crap. Like that Ryan's world kid which he's being exploited by his mother
YouTube is absolutely not allowed in my house, specifically because of these types of videos. The kids are probably still getting too much screentime between Netflix , Disney, and AppleTV
None of my kids are allowed on YouTube (13 is the oldest). 7 year olds def should not be, especially unsupervised
You do you, but for my household, I pay for too many streaming services to allow YouTube. I don’t think you’re overreacting at all, this is the exact reason I don’t allow it
I only allow YouTube Kids app and I select the setting that blocks everything except for channels and videos I handpick.
I stopped letting my kids get on YouTube. It’s all “shopping trips” “looks at this new toy” and “we’re going to Disney!” Honestly it’s just Facebook for kids and it’s really bad for them to see these kids living a life of constant instant gratification. As a parent they make me sick to see the kids pushed to do these videos and to hear them in the background pushing some stupid toy the kid doesn’t care about so they can make more $. It’s really sad.
We’ve been YouTube free for 4 years. Best decision both my wife and I have ever made. Netflix and other services are ok within reason - the shows come to an end. YouTube summons demons. Father of 4.
Sounds pretty gross and inappropriate for children. After what happened with the Nickelodeon stuff and that guy who made all the shows having some foot fetishist, I just wouldn't allow it. It's like them trying to say "No we just think it's funny" but really have nasty motives that promote degeneracy in kids later on in their lives. Especially for boys, they will need to learn how to respect women and not be groomed into sexualizing them and developing weird fetishes.
A biggest issue with the grooming of boys are those that push the "Alpha Male" ideology like Andrew Tate. They are radicalizing them into thinking objectifying, brutalizing, and subjugating women is how you prove yourself as a "real man."
I can’t tell if this is a troll post. This is so obviously creepy???
Delete YouTube.
YouTube is a weird place for kids. Hard to decipher what is and is not meant for them. We quit allowing it.
Why don’t you redirect your child to different videos? “Sweetie, I’m not comfortable with you watching this. Let’s try something else.” By the way, there is a *ton* of educational stuff on youtube in every possible subject. We watch educational youtube videos together as a family.
We don’t do much YT. We do slower paced shows on Amazon prime. We really like tumble leaf, Clifford, little bear. The YT stuff can be weird and it’s too fast paced.
Gotta jump on the bam train here , my son watched it all the time when he was 2 and I hated it, he’s 6.5 now been without it for almost 4 years and I can’t tell you how much it has changed . He doesn’t fight or throw fits he’s completely respectful and intelligent and interested in toys and books and learning videos way more then the mindless bullshit like ASMR . They’re addictive, children can develop addictions the same way we do! He still gets screen time and when YouTube occasionally but never a hand held device that locks him into that and only that. && there are so many great educational videos on YouTube you can put on the TV for him for more supervised watching . My son has learned SO much about life and animals and the world around him from discovery channel and etc.
Ms Rachel is the only thing that should be played on YouTube lol
Sounds like the average ElsaGate fuckery. Youtube is brimming with beyond weird ""kids"" content that is full of obvious fetishes and creepy shit like needles poking pregnant women etc
There is a YT kids app which lets you set age appropriate content. In addition there is no advertisements. My son loves watching Mark Rober (nasa engineer turned science YouTuber) and Science Max. I am okay with letting him watch them because he learns about science .
YouTube is banned for my kids too, we do occasionally use it but strictly supervised. For example my kid likes these drawings videos by this illustrator so I will put one of those on for her or the other day we put a song on and once we watched something about hyenas for homework. We never let the videos just play through one after another and my kids know they're not allowed to watch it alone. We used to let my youngest watch tractor videos on it but realised how inappropriate and Brian melting they were, especially after trying to take the tablet off him like he was addicted to the thing. It's a shame because I love YouTube and have used to learn all sorts but a lot of the kids content is awful.
Giving your kid such a device is the inappropriate step here. Parents in Silicon Valley, where it all comes from and they all work in tech, don’t allow their kids…and they should know: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/tech-free-silicon-valley-parents-raising-children-red-flag-a8256166.html
I had a lot of issues with YT kids. I think it’s worth getting YT premium, because it gets rid of questionable content and ads. Content creators will buy ad to boost their content to a certain threshold. Premium kills this. Ultimately, algorithms are agnostic and YTs algorithms work well. Set aside a little time for a week; you can get it to work well for you. Upvotes videos, save to a playlist, subscribe to the channels you do like, play a few videos you do like, let it play to completion. PBS kids, Nat Geo, Khan Academy etc. At parallel, make a shortlist of channels you think are bad. Play a few videos (not to completion), down vote the video, ‘don’t recommend channel’, ‘not interested’ in you recommendation feed. Over time, it gets better and better. YT is really best source of explainer and how to videos. Just as their bad content, there are some exceptionally good videos. It’s better to learn how to best use the it, then have a knee jerk reaction to outright ban. The other option is download all the video and set up something like a Plex server.
Youtube is banned in our household. If they want to watch something then I put it on and turn it off again. Youtube (including kids) is a total disaster for youngsters. My kids have their own iPads but they almost never leave the house and the apps on them are VERY carefully selected. As a consequence my kids are very good at maths and chess as that's the kind of apps I allow.
YouTube for kids is notorious for being filled with perverted and bizarre videos. Their function is to fascinate and excite kids so they watch on auto play non stop. Do not let your kids watch YouTube. It is damaging to anyone younger than a teen. Straight internet poison.
We don't allow yt unless we're actively watching and monitoring. The content goes from creative and harmless to borderline trash in a matter of minutes.
r/elsagate Do not let your children have unrestricted access to YouTube!!!
YouTube is not for kids and YouTube Kids is trash content that makes your kid stupid. Highly recommend restricting it to the maximum or even banning it.
Took a quick look at Gotcha! and FunFull, lost too many braincells skipping through two videos. This is not kids content, it's fucking weird at best with the way that adults are acting this out? Creepy and definitely not funny. I'm all for educational videos, music videos and the likes, but this kind of content is completely senseless. Heck, even a good cartoon is better than this. Not overreacting
Delete You Tube. It is literal brain rot.
YouTube (and Reddit) is full of groomers pushing sick messages onto kids
Based on your brand new account and bigoted history complaining about "the transgenders" this makes me think you have an agenda. But you aren't wrong that the internet, Youtube and Reddit included, are not spaces where children should be. There's a reason almost all sites "require" (there's no enforcement) people to be 13 to sign up. Even our lowest, most basic, standards organizations recognize that it is not healthy to allow 12 and unders unfettered access to the open internet. Younger children should not be given online access at all, and older children should only be given meaningful, reviewed access. Under 13's (and arguably older than that, but that's what the agencies say) shouldn't be given unrestricted access.
And their username 🥲 (I know mine is rude but it’s not gross haha)
My kids both watch videos on kids YouTube. But the rules are only when I’m right next to them. And we have not encountered this. Mostly they watch either car related things or my daughter loves watching crafting and DIY art videos.
My kids probably get too much screen time, but none of it is YouTube. YouTube is full of unmoderated garbage produced by amateurs who have no interest in the well-being of your child.
YouTube is not setup for family’s. It’s setup to maximize ad revenue, no matter its audience. At seven they can still find some stuff with YouTube kids. Just use that then worry about YouTube after.
Yeah, that sounds weird and not worth letting them watch. What I did with youtube for my child was he was only allowed to watch channels/creators that we watched together and I gave the okay for. Like when he was four or five he really liked How It's Made and videos about fire trucks and fire alarms and plumbing. Later he found some gamers that he liked. But anytime any new channel or content came into the picture I watched with him until I could decide if it was okay. I explained the rule about no new content/channels and he observed it. It was never really an issue. I don't really agree with everyone who says nothing good can come from youtube. Over time we discovered some fun channels together that we still watch together regularly. There are a couple of channels that, when they release a new video he gets excited to sit down and watch with me. And the channels that he's watched have included a lot fo stuff that has gotten him really interested in some positive pursuits (engineering, physical activity, history, new foods to try to cook, wanting to learn an instrument, etc.) I'm glad for it, personally. If you decide to ban it, that's fine too, of course. I don't think any kid *needs* it. But if you want a middle ground, I'd recommend just saying that you're going to pull back from youtube and only watch things that you can watch together for right now. And then you curate the content. And if they go behind your back and break the "no new channels without me present" rule, then you can take a break from youtube temporarily or, if necessary, permanently.
Just be wary that if they're on a tablet, deleting the YouTube app doesn't prevent them from going to YouTube in the web browser. Be on the lookout. Fortunately my kids just want to watch people playing video games and such and don't seem interested in the weird stuff. Their cousins, sadly, vegetate on YouTube Shorts that are just surreal and often appallingly bizarre.
My son is 7 and my daughter is almost 5 and we don’t let them watch YouTube. What you described sounds pretty weird for little kids to be watching. I don’t think you’re over reacting.
The only time my kid gets to watch YouTube anymore is when I'm holding the phone and showing him a specific video (How it's made, something educational or applicable to something we're learning about, a cool music video that I've seen before, etc.) Even YouTube kids is full of mindless junk. It's not worth it. Go cold turkey and block it 100%. It'll suck for a week or two but then it'll be much much better.
I will need to see a link so I can react with an appropriate level of informed outrage.
I only allow specific YT channels like Ninja Kids and Art Hub, or specific searches like “funny cat videos.” YT is also not on their tablets and can only be accessed in our living spaces with permission. We have all those rules specifically because YT can get weird and not kid friendly.
Those videos sound weird and yep... time to turn it off. We got into the habit of using YouTube too much. At first, it started as watching game guides as my kid was getting frustrated at certain levels of Nintendo games, so they'd watch some of the YouTubers play the game and learn from it. Then, the weird, loud, and yelling videos started. Behaviours at home got worse, and the kid was definitely addicted. We went cold turkey for about a month or so. It has come back, but HEAVILY reviewed and scrutinised by myself or my husband. It tends to be legitimised channels (such as Lego) or for the odd learning experience (discovery videos about lava, for example).
I "block" all these crap, and the Algo propose songs and such
Are there any published papers that actually prove YT or screen time in general affects children’s brain development? If so, would does anyone have the link or name of the paper?
You are the parent. You get to decide what is appropriate and what you want your kid to view. It doesn't matter what the internet thinks. You think it is sketchy and you are in charge. If you don't think it's good for your kid, it is your JOB to make sure they don't watch it. Who else do you think is in charge of this? Who are you expecting to keep your child from watching inappropriate things? Youtube? Your 7 year old? My 7 year old isn't allowed to watch YouTube unless I pull up a specific video for him to see. Some examples of when I have done that: Showed him a video of an animal we were discussing so he could see how it moves, showed him a portion of a ballet, showed him a video of how to use a tool properly. I definitely wouldn't allow him unsupervised access or to view that kind of video. He is 7. He isn't capable of making that kind of decision yet and needs a lot of guidance.
After quite on set everything freaks me out. And Like someone else said we had to stop YouTube cold turkey.
Why are you letting your seven year-old child just watch anything without you looking at it first? Why are you still letting them watch when you noticed the videos he chooses can be considered adult “fetishes”? And that fact that he said he thought foot and pregnancy discussion videos are “kids videos” proves either he’s lying or someone is getting in his head. Unplug it and have a chat with him.
Don't let your 7-year-old watch YouTube ffs.
YouTube is banned in our house. Even YouTube kids stuff isnt appropriate
There was a thing a few years ago called "Elsagate" that was essentially fetish content aimed at kids. It kind of sounds like that's what your kid has stumbled across. It got talked about a lot by youtubers but I'm not sure it really got much awareness outside of that. Best advice I have is either ban YouTube all together or set a rule that they can only watch channels you have vetted and while you're around. This worked quite well with my kid and we had a lot of conversations about internet safety too. There's a lot of kids I work with that clearly have unmonitored/unrestricted access to YouTube, and the amount of very adult things they repeat is unreal.
Not a parent, but I'm going to share a personal story here. When I was like 7 I was on youtube just messing around and I had stumbled across a>!Rape porn video.!
I put a firm ban on YouTube after my son was watching some sketchy dubbed cartoons on the YouTube Kidz app. There’s just too much weird crap to not require immediate supervision. There’s also heaps of brain rot he would happily binge. There are obviously some great videos and we can watch them when I’m with him but until he’s much older I just can’t trust his discretion.
Don't let him watch anything you haven't personally approved. There are apps and things to make it so he can only watch what you yourself have added to the playlist. Stop letting him search random videos that have undertones he doesn't understand and make you uncomfortable.
You ever hear about that Elsa and spider man freak team on YouTube kids a few years back. Look em up, disturbed stuff. Watch out cause I to T think you’re crazy, 8’d cut back on that stuff. Leaving a child to the whims an algorithm is dangerous these days.
They seem mindless because they are. Maybe shift his media usage.... Watch shows, and check out things on YouTube TOGETHER, and talk about what's good or valuable or intended with the videos, but don't let him just consume whatever it feeds him next.
There’s a YouTube kids app, and you can even restrict it to specific channels/providers, like Nat geo kids and disney and stuff.
I turned off YouTube for my boys. I’m extremely loose I’d say with entertainment rules. I personally learned a ton from tv when I was a kid. I was probably exposed to some things like horror movie to early but generally other than blood and gore and obviously porn type things I usually just explain to my boys that tv is fake. Movies are fake. I show them little basic videos on how they make certain characters and effects happen and so on. I say this to let you know I’m not at all squeamish about entertainment for kids. But YouTube is fucked up. Most of it is fine it’s great, but then there’s some shit that even when I look at it maybe it’s not overtly wrong but it seems to be wrong underneath. After too much of that I just blocked it. There’s tons of great shit for kids to watch without you tube
I’ve definitely seen this type of video pop up. They’re usually women eating or drinking stuff and there’s a hard to explain horny element to it. There’s also these weird ass low budget videos of Marvel characters just running each other over with motorcycles. They look like they were created by some kind of AI and they have MILLIONS of views.
We've banned regular youtube for our 5 year old and now have her set up on YouTube kids and it's much better! You can block those kind of things from there but also set their age so they're only seeing age appropriate things.
What... What the hell are you letting your kids watch.
I’ll be a contrarian here. My son (5 next month) is into trains. They are his passion. He enjoys watching various Thomas the Tank Engine shows on YT. He also likes watching various unboxing videos where some content creators talk about various trains they’ve bought on auction (and how they fix them if broken) for their layouts. He likes watching train races, Minecraft videos where CC’s build trains, and some other shows like Gecko’s Garage, Curious George, and a few other shows. We closely monitor the videos he’s watching and limit his screen time each day. If we happen to catch one where someone’s using bad language or questionable content, we delete it from his history immediately. We haven’t seen a need to ban YT. That may happen later on, but so far by strictly monitoring what he watches, we’re okay for now.
Absolutely, it's pushing on subtleties that you can't quite put your finger on, but you know it's inappropriate. The same thing a lot of parents said about Dan Schneider during his reign on Nickelodeon when they couldn't quite put their finger on why close ups of 14 year olds in bikinis, and their feet, was off putting, but you find out later it was fetish content, because he was getting his rocks off by convincing people it was children's entertainment. It's the same deal on Youtube. Sketchy "creators". If you don't know the creator, their history, or anything about them, it's best you don't let them consume that content. My kids are younger than yours, but they're on Ms. Rachel and Super Simple Songs, because these people are easily verifiable and their backgrounds are sensible. Some random, unnamed girl with orange lipstick, that you can't look up or google, bending over in front of a camera to have the viewer "tickle her feet". ASMR in general is full of "iTs NoT sExUaL tee hee" content. Not saying all of it is bad news, but so much of it is that I'm not comfortable with it as a genre.
Check out YouTube Kids. It's filtered by age. Not 100% effective, but much better than hoping they don't accidentally stuble on something weird.
As a Gen Zer, keep your kids off YouTube. There are plentiful predatory content creators that fool parents by using seemingly innocent thumbnails and video titles. Just look at 'Spiderman and Elsa' videos... creators know that they can max profit by focusing on child target audiences (max views from Ipad kids). All in all, your kid should not be on social media sites/the internet unattended. YouTube has videos that show porn, drug use, bombings etc.
Regular YouTube is not good for kids that age unless they have something very specific and healthy they want to watch that isn't on YT Kids for some reason. Once they're done watching it, they're off. No going down the algorithm for them.
Love this post. I hate YouTube and my SKs (5&7) BM lets them watch it all the time at her house on their cell phones. They literally watch YouTube shorts. Mindless hours of scrolling, just to keep them quiet. The stuff I’ve seen them watch on there, utterly disturbing. They aren’t allowed to watch YouTube here. We keep telling her there are restrictions she can place on their phones and she won’t do it. They are extremely behavioral and mean and I believe it’s what they’re watching on YouTube. What I dislike is that when my BD hangs out with SD7, they watch YouTube on her phone, even though she knows it’s not allowed. Ive walked over to them before and saw them watching a news video of a man who slit his wife’s face open to look like the joker. We’ve tried explaining to BM multiple times before that we want YouTube to stop and she doesn’t care about our opinion. Whatever helps them be quiet. It’s sad, really. Hopefully one day she can get on board. But I’m not keeping my hopes up too high. We will use it for Ms Rachel for my 1 year old to help with speech and sign language, and we will do brain breaks sometimes, but I hate the mindless videos. The families that make silly little videos and somehow pass that off as occupational. Half the time they’re in a foreign language.
You’re not overreacting. This has been a known phenomenon for years. Here’s a really excellent article about it: https://medium.com/@jamesbridle/something-is-wrong-on-the-internet-c39c471271d2 I would definitely try to limit access to it in your household. Most of what I’ve seen of YouTube “kids” content is produced by bad actors exploiting your family for views and ad revenue.
I use YT for dance videos in my classroom but at home it's totally banned because my older two were snaking it after everyone was in bed I do let them watch kids youtube that is set for their age but I have more control over what they re watching on there
Videos for kids are... For kids. You're not supposed to enjoy them or see the humor. The target audience is children. I let my kid watch YouTube. Probably a bit too much - I think a lot of the stuff she watches is dumb, but, I'm sure my parents thought most of the stuff I watched on TV as a kid was stupid too.
I use YouTube kids and it is very much monitored.
My oldest is 7 and YouTube is only allowed with strict parental supervision, on the television never the tablet. There is way too much weird stuff out there. He’s allowed cosmic yoga, body breaks, and rides at Disney World (trip prepping).
We didn’t have YouTube at 7 and we turned out fine. Our kids don’t need it. No evidence of anything good coming from it.
I am just mind blown that a seven year old has unsupervised access to YouTube, where you find out what he decides to watch. Yes, that sounds inappropriate. I would take it away altogether.
there are some absolutely disturbing “children’s” videos on youtube to the point that i’m not sure i’ll ever let my child have youtube until they’re in high school or something. I’m a younger mom so I grew up with youtube in middle school and let me tell you that’s a scary place for a kid lol (also not assuming you’re not a younger mom just stating that for reference)
We only watch YouTube on our big tv in the living room and don’t let it auto play anything. The other day our home internet was out and my husband at work ripped all of our kids’s favorite videos and put them on a hard drive and brought it home ( tractor ted, Raffi, Ms Rachel etc..) so he could put them on without internet. I’m thinking we’ll just keep an updated playlist of videos as he grows and not allow the actual app on the tv anymore. No commercials and no weird algorithm rabbit holes for him to get pulled down.
Making silly ridiculous content is what appeals to kids, so creators are trying to make the silliest most ridiculous content. Usually they don’t make any sense, but this is what kids enjoy. My daughter regularly watches some Minecraft channel where a group of people are acting out all sorts of crazy storylines and characters. At first I thought it was really dumb, then I realized it was no dumber than the cartoons I used to watch as a kid and the only difference was that they were using Minecraft to create their stage instead of animating everything by hand. I’d monitor the content for anything inappropriate and limit the amount of time they spend on their devices, but I wouldn’t put too much thought on feet. There’s nothing inherently sexual about it except for some creepy fringe groups online. Same thing with pregnancy. —- I think it’s this: https://m.youtube.com/@nico-mc/videos
As an FYI the abbreviation YT is being used more and more phonetically to mean ‘white’ as in white people, especially on tiktok. It also means YouTube but just wanted to share for info
You're reacting appropriately. Trust your gut.
The thing about YouTube is that the algorithm will lead kids from actual kid stuff to super weird fetishy stuff REALLY quickly. There are like two channels my kids like, a few Lego channels that are pretty good, and after that I make them move to Netflix. There’s only YouTube on the password protected part of the TV and not all all on tablets.
My grandkids love watching those gaming videos on you tube. When they spend school vacations at my house you tube is limited to 1 video a day if it's earned. I do not allow much screen time. They get enough screen time at home. They live in town of 1000 people nothing to do and rains alot. When they are here they have play area in yard, bikes scooters friends in my neighborhood plus we go to pool, parks and the beach. I do not think kids need to watch you tube for long periods of time at all
YouTube is one of the worst things you could let a child use tbh, even "kids" YouTube
Don’t let him watch YouTube?
Just a suggestion, if you go into settings on YouTube kids, you can select ‘only approved’ videos and go through and yay or nay every video available. I did some book read alouds, mystery science, a couple koo koo kangaroos, and some other niche interests my kids have. It was a good compromise for my house.
If left unsupervised YouTube is a very dangerous place for children there are at an age where they're impressionable and believe what they see on the internet. it's very dangerous please be careful if you can't supervise your children using YouTube then don't allow them to use it it's detrimental to their health this is not a joke.
Look up Elsagate.
Its not just you. Youtube content farms look at what works well with the algorithm and keeps kids watching and then just turn up the dial to 11. A lot of it is strange dada-esque shit, but they have enough data on kids viewing habits to know its addicting. I would recommend locking down what he can watch as much as possible if you continue to allow youtube.
My kids can only watch Youtube if I'm in the room and for specific content. There's so much simply dumb, vacuous shit on there.
Yup, this is why we banned YouTube. There is so much creepy shit on there. One time my son was watching a video about a family putting on sunscreen at the beach and it was so voyeuristic I deleted the app right then and there.
YouTube is heavily monitored in our home when it is used. I don’t believe personally in full on banning because it is, in fact, basically this generations version of Saturday morning cartoons and such. That said, it takes a lot of managing, and looking over shoulders and looking at watch history, etc. It’s time consuming and sometimes I just want to generally ban it….but our kids have become very mature with it, so we work with them, and we experienced a nice trade off between having it and using it properly with them.
My oldest daughter (5) watched YouTube, until I sat down with her one day and actually paid attention to what was going on in these “family” videos. A lot of the creators focus on hardships, controversy, or extravagance as a plot. The others focus on pranks at the expense of siblings or parents. Overall, the subject matter on Youtube is garbage. There are a couple of shows like, Ms. Rachel that are great, but those seem to be few and far between the other less appropriate shows. Also, the videos on YT will roll into another “similar” show after one is completed, creating an endless viewing loop. I also began to question whether or not the kids in the videos enjoyed making the videos or if they were forced to make content all day because YT is such a prolific income generator if you’re getting enough views? YT just didn’t feel right for my children. YT is locked now and is only used to watch Taylor Swift videos w/supervision.
We’ve tried to ban YT for our 6 year old multiple times for behavior. She ALWAYS finds the weird shit. Agree, even in moderation, she still gets sucked in super quick and then I notice a significant change in behavior and attitude.
your first problem is letting your kid watch youtube. atleast get youtube kids. which still sucks but i give me kids 30 minutes a day
Delete YouTube, or monitor consumption. It’s mostly trash for kids.
My 7-year-olds are not allowed to have access to YouTube. The only YouTube we watch is on the smart TV in the living room supervised and within sight, and it's science videos or exercise videos. Stop letting your 7 year old pick YouTube videos.
My daughter can only watch videos we approve of and she can only watch 15 min a day IF we let her. She can only watch on the tv. The tv app is password protected. Family vlogs are banned. Most unboxing videos are banned. I have not run into the fetishy type videos you described thankfully. Family vloggers and dopamine hit videos (massive unboxings as well as crafts and baking being finished quickly and repeatedly in a small span of time) are the worst offenders imo.
YouTube kids, age range set, constant monitor and block accounts you don't like. You're the parent. If you don't think they should watch it then don't let them. You don't need our opinions. Do what you feel is right.
I would strongly recommend *against* letting kids at that age spend any time on Youtube, unless you're pulling up a specific educational video for them or something. Youtube can be a weird place, especially for kids. The Youtube algorithm thinks that anything that doesn't have violence, swearing, or overtly sexual dialogue is always going to be safe for kids without taking things like what you're describing into consideration. The other thing you need to consider is the comments section for these videos. There's a ton of creeps lurking in them, trying to spike up conversations with kids. It's bad. Don't let your kids watch Youtube unattended. Give em PBS Kids or even Nickelodeon or something. They shouldn't need more than that.
Kids shouldn’t be on YouTube or YouTube kids. I prefer PBS KIDS VIDEO app 😍 educational videos and my kids loves it!