Youtube Kids

[Scort]

Not sure if this is the correct area of the forum - so feel free to move if not.

I'm going mad with the above.... hoping another parent as been through and sorted this?

We let our 5 year old watch YT kids occasionally, and she will typically stick to the same things (Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol and the like), but also has found a few educational things too - Numberblocks being one that had really helped her maths. But in true YT fashion, it's not long before the swamp of brain rot starts creeping in, and she's bombarded with idiots like Blippy and endless videos of parents trying to cash in with their kids - and the latter content really has a negative impact to her behaviour.

From what I have experienced so far - YTK seems to be governed via 3 areas, the actual app on your phone (the TV app seems to just point you to a URL loop), the YTK website, and then the YT family management site.... so it's been a pain in the *** having to jump between them all to try to achieve a result!

What we are hoping, is to put her account into the locked mode, so she only sees content we approve - but that option doesn't appear within the app, a common issue, though oddly you can enable in on the YTK website, which then causes it to show up in the app (typical Google!). But that's not the issue - the problem I have is that when you put it into content approval mode, it doesn't allow you to search for content... you seem to get a bunch of pre-defined groups of channels, and then what looks like an endless list of random individual videos to approve.

I tried unrestricting it and subscribing her account to the various channels we want her to access, but as soon as you swap back to the restricted mode, you lose all these and are back to whatever you selected from YT's limited list of selectable channels.

Presently it's looking like we may need to put her into the unrestricted mode for her age group, and maybe block channels as/when - but having done that for a year so far, it hasn't been a reliable way to keep the brain rot content away sadly.

I have the ability to use custom versions of the YT app on my Shield - so that may be an option, if anyone has any recommendations

 

[ttaskmaster]

We ditched YTK entirely. **** them.

Mine started out same as you, but ended up on all these channels like Nastya and Diana & Roma, where the parents have raked in enough cash (about $180 million, for Nastya's channel) that they can splash out on massive sets and toys for their kids to be filmed playing mindless games in. This ended up with my girls thinking parents are stupidly rich and can buy ******* castles for their kids to play in.
Then there's all the mindless crap which is literally just adults (presumably parents, but no guarantee) play-acting with their childrens' Bluey action figures.... Why would a kid want to watch that, rather than playing with it themselves?

Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Numberblocks, Operation Ouch, Bluey, Miraculous, all the reasonable stuff can be found either on free apps like BBC iPlayer or other means. There is absolutely NO need for YouTube Kids.
Why not crack out some of the stuff you watched as a kid, like He-Man and She-Ra, Transformers or Thundercats - My girl *loves* Cheetara right now!

 

[ChrisD.]

We are noticing a lot of the brain rot videos cropping up. It was excellent at first, with educational stuff but now it's just endless crap, we're going to phase it out and keep to the mainstream stuff.

 

[d_brennen]

Peppa Pig, Paw Patrol, Numberblocks, Operation Ouch, Bluey, Miraculous, all the reasonable stuff can be found either on free apps like BBC iPlayer or other means. There is absolutely NO need for YouTube Kids.
Why not crack out some of the stuff you watched as a kid, like He-Man and She-Ra, Transformers or Thundercats - My girl *loves* Cheetara right now!

Old (and proper) Tom and Jerry, Postman Pat, Looney Tunes, Duck Tails, Danger Mouse, so many

I *obtained* loads of that and some modern stuff like pepper pig for my little one when she was young. Way better than the rubbish they churn out now. Brain rot wasn't such an issue back then though I have to say

 

[ChrisD.]

Old (and proper) Tom and Jerry, Postman Pat, Looney Tunes, Duck Tails, Danger Mouse, so many

Our boy loves the old stuff, especially the old Disney films like Jungle Book.

We definitely notice his behaviour changes when we won't allow YouTube, or he's been on it a while when we want some peace, we'd already been discussing about binning it off.

 

[d_brennen]

Yep, the constant dopamine pump effect has a very negative effect on the young. It was difficult to keep our daughter off the crack pipe but it was worth it

 

[tom_nieto]

YouTube is a dodgy place. Loads of unofficial videos of well known kids characters and shows knocking around. Most fall into the brain rot category, some are slightly darker and use kids characters in scary and unpleasant stories. Also, who in their right mind watches toy unboxing videos? I understand if you’re looking for a review of a specific product, but otherwise it’s just something that I can’t compute.

Avoid.

IPlayer has number blocks, bluey, hey duggee etc etc.

 

[Scort]

Thanks for the replies folks - at least I'm not losing my marbles, and it's an issue across the board.

She's pretty well furnished with shows on my Jellyfin server, and has a few classics - she wasn't sold on The Real Ghostbusters mind you, so I'll have those lol

 

[AyeAyeAhoy!]

+1 to dropping it all together.

I saw exactly the same as you - starts off nice and wholesome, quietly goes downhill, kids behaviour follows.

We took away all access and banned it entirely. Couldn't be more happy we did.

I actually make TV shows for cBeebies & CBBC (amongst others). We go to massive lengths to make sure the shows are educational, informative, modelling good behaviour, inclusive, appropriate for the whole family, etc. YT is obviously not holding itself to any kind of standard, and the result is pretty catastrophic on the audience.