Parents: Making YouTube Safe for Your Child

A child’s curiosity is one of the key traits which create a suitable atmosphere to learn; it is therefore not surprising that some children understand and speak up to 3 foreign languages before the age of 5. With the advent of a plethora of learning platforms on the internet- YouTube being more prominent, a child can practically educate his mind without external help. YouTube is as wild as the internet itself, it is expedient that you adhere to these recommendations for kids learn in an atmosphere which is safe and halcyon.

Even though YouTube is mostly innocuous, a dark side which is not known to many exists, and your ward’s curiosity, if not properly nurtured can prove to be deleterious in the long run, thankfully, there are tips to ensure that your child remains safe while surfing YouTube.

Set Up and Monitor a Family Account.

This helps you monitor the videos your kid is watching and producing. To create this account, follow the same steps as creating any Gmail account, then link this account to an existing Gmail account which is not linked to an existing google identity. After doing this, set up the YouTube channel, shared family calendar, etc. Any videos watched will be seen by viewing the history,

Turn On YouTube Safety Mode in Your Web Browser.

This is another fundamental hack as YouTube offers a parental control system. This works by filtering through YouTube search results, excluding potentially explicit materials and inappropriate content which has been flagged by a majority of the community. To trigger this mechanism, sign in to the account, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on safety. Go on to click on, and to make sure your kids don’t tamper with this setting, click “lock safety mode on this browser” and enter your login data when prompted,

Take Time to Create a Playlist.

A little wrong turn in the course of a journey leads to a totally different destination. The same applies to YouTube playlists, a seemingly child-friendly playlist might have a couple of toxic contents, and soon, the kid spirals out of control. It is therefore important that you painstakingly create a playlist of 20 or more videos which should last an hour or two. To add videos to a playlist, click the “Add to” link at the bottom of the video and select the list you want to save it to or create a new one.

Scrutinize or Totally Turn off Comments on your Uploads.

With the rate of internet child molesters and pedophiles on the increase, it is best to totally avoid any form of interaction. To do this, you have to connect to your YouTube account and click on “settings” and then access your video manager which gives a list of published videos. From there, you go to “advanced settings” and uncheck the “allow comments” option. You can also totally disable comments on your channel by going to the left pane of the dashboard and clicking on “community”. Click on “comment settings” and disable comments on channel/new videos. Make sure you remember to save your changes, so they can be applied.

YouTube is as wild as the internet itself, it is expedient that you adhere to these recommendations to ensure your kids learn in an atmosphere which is safe and halcyon.