My son is a Youtubber!

My son has always been an avid Youtube viewer. I know some people frown on kids using any handheld devices. I addressed this in a previous blog. But of course, you cannot allow uncontrolled access on media like YouTube - there are simply too many adults who swear freely on their videos. When users criticise them on their use of profanities, they point out that Youtube is only available for 13+ users - as if it is okay for a 13 year old to use the 'f' word. As a parent, we need to try to fight back against these people and only allow safe videos for our children. Let's see what sort of things parents can do to help make YouTube safe for our children.

Create a family account

Create a Google family account so that you can control the account and us it to login YouTube. Once you have done that, you can create playlists, monitor the videos they watch and control who communicates with them. Only allow them to create their own accounts when they are older, preferably when they turn 13. 

Enable Safe mode

On a computer, go to YouTube and enable the "Safety" mode. It is found at the bottom of the homepage. Once it is enabled, it should block videos that contain inappropriate content. Be aware that this is only content that has been flagged by other users. Since YouTube uses community policing, it does not always mean all content is flagged properly as different users have different sets of values. It also enables Google SafeSearch which helps on search results. This apparently works across all devices and is the basic thing all parents should enable. While it does not work 100 per cent all the time, it serves as the first barrier against the wrong content.

Create Playlists

You can personally view the videos yourself and add them to a playlist for your child. Create enough content to last a couple of hours (but decide how long they can watch YouTube and control the timing yourself). For example, you might decide that an hour a day is more than enough. Order your children to only view videos on the playlists and they are banned from watching videos outside the playlist. Of course this becomes harder to enforce as your children grow older. But for young children, this seems to be the best strategy.

Talk about the videos

Whenever you can, monitor the videos they watch through the history page. If they are sticking to your playlist, then there are no issues. But if they have moved to other videos, then you need to talk to them.

Also, you might set some parameters. For example, tell them to stop a video if they hear profanities. Discuss with them why using such language is not good. 

There are other technical solutions. For example, using different apps, or downloading a extension for the browser. I am constantly exploring them, but I will not discuss these as they are ever changing and my blog will never be able to keep up with the changes. Google is your friend in this matter.

What about my son?

Regardless, my son has learnt quite a bit about popular culture and general knowledge from YouTube. He knows about Star Wars, Lord of the Rings and other popular computer games like Silent Hill and Halo. His favorite YouTubers are Dantdm and Stampy. Since these two produce a lot of Minecraft videos, you can guess what sort of videos he likes the most. He even makes comments, though I check through everything he posts.

He made a comment 'A dropper would kill you', under my account

Keeping him out of trouble on YouTube is really troublesome. But there is some great content out there. I hope he learns to use the internet wisely, because it is really a wild wild west out there.