Ensuring our kids’ safety online should be our No. 1 priority. With so many tools and apps available online, what can we do as parents? How can we protect our kids from seeing disturbing videos spreading all over the internet?
YouTube Kids started out in 2015, and its main goal was to provide entertainment for children. However, the videos on this mobile app soon because less child-friendly. There are videos you definitely do not want your children to see. It’s no longer safe for kids to be left unattended, but you can also apply these parental controls to help you out.
You can turn off the search feature.
- Hackers have hijacked appropriate content and made it inappropiate (such as Spider Man urinating on Elsa; yes, it’s true). Kids might be able to access the unsavory videos because they can search for seemingly harmless videos. What you can do is disable the search feature.
- In order to turn off search, click or tap on the lock icon that’s on the lower right corner of the screen. Then, enter your password, click on settings, and tweak the search function to Off. For more info, visit the Youtube Kids Parental Guide provided by Google.
You can set a password.
- Remember that you can also set a custom password. To do this, you need to provide a unique passcode on the settings option. If your child can read, it’s better to choose the Set my own passcode in the Parents only section.
You can allow only the videos that you approve.
- Just last year, YouTube gave parents the power to choose which videos their kids can watch. To do this, go to YouTube’s settings and add videos on Approved content only. You can start browsing for clean videos. Don’t forget to tap the + button to add the video on the whitelist.
You can block offensive videos and report their creators.
- If you can add videos on the whilelist, there’s also a blacklist for offensive content. Block anything you see as disturbing or offensive. Don’t forget to also report the video creators so that YouTube will know about these horrible people.
- In order to block videos, click the triple-dot button, and choose Block. Same is true with reporting channels, choose the triple-dot button, and click on Report.
You can look for alternatives.
Luckily, there are other options out there. YouTube is not the sole source of entertainment. You can switch to apps like Nick Jr., PBS Kids, Fisher-Price, Hungry Caterpillar, Wonderbox, Magic Piano, and many others.
f you wish to still use YouTube Kids, you can use an app that specializes in parental control and video filtering. Safe Vision app is one of the many examples out there. This app is available for both iOS and Android. The best part? You can download it for FREE.
