The topic of whether to let our kids watch YouTube comes up a lot in my circle of mom friends, pretty much all of whom also have toddlers. I’m a stone cold no on this subject. Like no way, absolutely not, never happening again. I’m fine with my kids watching TV, I’m fine with them using my phone/iPad, and we watch tons of movies in our house. That’s not it. But there is something about YouTube in particular that is not okay. And thank goodness that in our home we’ve found the TP-Link Deco which not only improves and expands the Wi-Fi access, but allows me to easily block YouTube from anyone on the W-Fi in my home. So Maddie Grace can play games and apps on her iPad and I don’t have to worry about her accidentally accessing YouTube. Plus their parental controls do so much more than that like not let kids get online after a certain time. And as a bonus I finally have Wi-Fi in my office and our Wi-Fi overall is a better connection! But anyways here is why YouTube is banned for my kids:
*Addiction. Do you see my child’s face here? This is her face every time we let her watch YouTube and take it away. She throws the biggest fits. It’s like she gets addicted to watching these short videos and then when you try to get her to do anything else she freaks out. And Maddie Grace is normally a sweet and easy going kid. And if any egg videos pop up and she starts watching them it’s over. I swear any time she watches YouTube for the next week or so she is a nightmare and it all goes back to the videos she watched. And the withdrawal symptoms seriously last for weeks. I can’t handle this. We switched from iPads to Amazon Fire Kid Edition’s and I love that I can easily restrict YouTube on them.
*Too much screen time. Well because of above. Something about YouTube is addicting for toddlers and they won’t put it down if you let them get started on it. At least that’s what happened with mine. And her fits when we took it away were so severe that at first we just handed it back to her and she was perfectly fine spending all day on the iPad. Well, not any more. Like I said I’m pretty lenient with allowing my kids screen time but they need to do something else during the day as well. Also if screen time is of concern for you the TP-Link Deco makes it easy to set time limits for your kids, even when you aren’t home!
*She doesn’t fall asleep. For some reason YouTube videos over stimulate my toddler’s mind to the point where if she starts watching them in the evening we won’t get her to sleep before 1 AM. I personally like to be asleep before 1 Am so this is a major consideration of why YouTube is banned.
*Toddlers easily find weird and scary videos. Yes you can have it set to only show kids cartoons, but there are weirdos out there who make their own versions of cartoons but with weird and violent things. Like Minnie Mouse with guns, creepy spiders in Peppa Pig, and etc. And all your kid has to do is hit the suggested videos to stumble across these. Not only do they terrify my child, but they’re just weird and not something I want them having access to.
And I’m not here to persuade you (although consider this a warning) – you can let your child watch YouTube all you want that’s your choice. But this is my personal experience with it and explanation for why I had to put an end to it for my kids.
Has anyone else had these problems with letting their toddler watch YouTube? Tell me all about it below!
Yes!!! I used to let Graham zone out to YouTubeKids all the time. But I started reading those articles on the sketchy videos and it scared me so much! I deleted the app. He still will pitch a tantrum every now and then about wanting me to download it again, but I’m not doing it. There are other safer apps out there.
I had the same problems with my daughter who is 8 years old…ive caught her up on youtube all hours of the night in the past. Ive even had to band her from youtube kids because she just cant put it down.
My kids love YouTube but I seriously limit their time on it. Basically only when they’re eating breakfast and I need them to leave me alone to get dressed. LOL
I let Parker watch it but mostly for Minnie Mouse and peppa episodes because we don’t have cable. She does love egg videos and the families that document their lives. Kinda silly! We haven’t had any problems yet but I do block some videos – especially the bad baby episodes. What the heck are those parents thinking?!
How did you block the bad baby episodes?
We went through a phase awhile back when all my oldest wanted to do was watch YouTube videos on his tablet… we legitimately had to cut him off cold turkey. It wasn’t pretty, but it made a huge difference in his behavior!
I rarely let my kids watch YT Kids. I try and use it only for emergencies!
I ended up deleting the app from all of our devices like a year ago. I had seen the sketchy videos and hated it but never decided to actually forbid it… but then my then 4 YO had a mayor panic attack, freaked out about monsters in the backyard because of something he saw on a youtube video, allowed by the kids app. He ended up sleeping with us for a week and not wanting to go out at night for like a month.
Currently the kids app is in none of our devices. The normal app is only on the apple tv and the smart tv… I only let him watch videos that are inside a channel of my choosing. He is not allowed to change the channel and he has no control anyway because he can’t just use his finger to change them. He likes the videos of people unboxing toys… so I choose a channel that does just that and he can watch videos from that channel only in the order they are. No skipping or choosing from the suggestions.
Hope this option helps someone!!
One of my children had some serious potty-mouth after an extended Mario Bros video marathon. Took me a month to clear his vocabulary.
My 6 year old loves watching youtube. To the point she will just veg out for hours and i had to start limiting her to it. The last 2 weeks she has slept absolutely horrible like ridiculously bad, like the baby sleeps better then she does. I chalked it up to too much screen time so cut way back on her ipad time, she can only watch it after dinner and before bed. It helped a little bit but she is still waking up and getting out of bed. I am so glad i stumbled upon this today, i am basically at the end of my rope and out of ideas on what to do. We are deleting youtube today!
I homeschool, so kids are home all day many days. New rule in my house for the last month–no YouTube/tv/movies/netflix until after 6pm unless they are physically active for 2 hours. I have an 11yo and 6yo. It has worked out great without any fighting. They still have access to electronics if it is something they are interactive with.
Hey, I’m a toddler teacher finishing up my early childhood education AA and I wanted to share just two resources backing why you really shouldn’t be letting toddlers watch youtube. I’d also recommend getting as close to the 0 hours of screen time as possible for their cognitive, social, physical, and language development.
A lovely tedtalk about media and the affects on attention span. If you only look at one of these, look at this!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BoT7qH_uVNo
A article talking about our assumptions about screen time and how they line up with actual research. It also covers if you are going to expose them to media, how to do it so it’s less damaging.
https://families.naeyc.org/learning-and-development/music-math-more/how-true-are-our-assumptions-about-screen-time
My piper is not yet 2, my husband and I made a decision that she will not be on the phone or on tablets or the such. My nephew who is now 10 zones out (escapes really) and won’t engage in family time. And I don’t want piper going down that same road. I get technology is getting cooler every year but kids need to be outside playing or interacting with other kids. Now she does watch Andy Griffith with us every night. It’s our routine. And who doesn’t love some Andy and the wholesome values he teaches.
I am so glad to hear other Mommas having these issues with their kids! I thought mine was the only one. I took YouTube off the iPad and there’s only a few games I will let my kiddo play because she becomes addicted! More than 15 minutes on YouTube and my kiddo gets downright mean and hateful. YouTube has been banned from our house unless it’s a REALLY critical circumstance. I had to take her with me to my Doctors appt the other day because my sitter cancelled, that was the first time in months she’d been allowed to watch it and the tantrum that ensued when I told her to put it away was unreal. 20 minutes of whining in the car on the way home and I was ready to lose it and she’s 7!!!! YouTube and kids is a terrible combo at any age! Good luck Mommas!!