A few years ago, I found out to my dismay that Joseph liked weird YouTube videos. He always asked for lame ones where people voiced characters of from Cars and moved toy cars around to tell a lame story. He also liked videos which were essentially commercials showing all the different pieces in a set of toys. Worst of all, those lame videos would show up any time I opened any other YouTube video since they had made it onto my recommended list.
For any parents out there who might have gotten themselves into a similar situation but still like to use YouTube sometimes while you take a nap or clean the bathroom, this post is for you! Here's my advice:
1. Get those terrible videos out of your recommended list. This is easier to do on a computer rather than a phone. First, go to YouTube.com and look at what's recommended on your home page. Next to the name of any YouTube video you can find three dots in a vertical line when you move your mouse over it. Click on those dots and choose "Not interested." And then explain why: You've seen it. You don't want that channel. You do not ever ever ever want to see that channel again. Do that for all the videos that are recommended that aren't "virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy."
2. Don't use YouTube as a babysitter carelessly. There are just enough horrible people in the world to sneak disturbing content in under the guise of known characters such as Elsa and Peppa Pig. (See this and its follow up here.) And even if it's not disturbing, you don't really want kids watching weird stuff either. What value really is there in poorly animated, bizarre videos that have probably been produced by bots? (This article details some of the weird stuff if you aren't convinced yet. Thankfully a lot of it has been taken down.) Is 10 minutes of time to yourself worth the weird yet mesmerizing content getting absorbed by little kids?
3. If you choose to turn on YouTube rather than Amazon Prime or Netflix, have good content available for your kid to turn on. I steer away from things that teach animal sounds or colors or nursery rhymes or whatnot because kids will learn those on their own, and they usually just have some element of weirdness/lameness to them. (Also, Little Baby Bum is so weird, and it's not just because of the name.)
Here are a few channels my kids like:
Art for Kids Hub -- Joseph has really liked drawing animals and cartoon characters from this channel. I've even been able to make some nice pictures using some of their tutorials.
Music with Lindsey -- My friend's sister-in-law makes these videos, and I think they're pretty cute. I imagine there are lots of educational music videos like this out there.
Children's Bible Videos -- these show kids talking about New Testament stories. Perfect for Sundays.
Bob Ross -- if you're into videos that are so completely engrossing that your kid lets you cook dinner, let me tell you, there's something about watching painting that is so gripping. (These might be more gripping for parents than kids, actually, so you might not end up making dinner after all!) There are other playlists for PBS shows here and there, and it's best to stick with official ones. Otherwise you might end up watching someone play a Daniel Tiger computer game. Ugh.
King of Random -- These are cool videos showing science experiments and do-it-yourself projects. If you have kids who like to do things without asking permission, you might not want them to watch this, haha. (Bonus -- my cousin is performing experiments on this channel now, which is way cool!)
Playlists -- If there are songs or videos you and your kid both like, it is pretty easy to make a playlist of them beforehand that you can turn on for your kids. (Examples: Disney songs, Sesame Street songs, Mr. Rogers factory videos, figure skating, cooking, car mechanics, etc.) You'll probably get ads here and there, but they're usually iPhone ads which are innocuous.
Anyway, those are my thoughts in a nutshell. Good luck to all you parents out there!
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