YouTube Kids is the version youtube, which filters out inappropriate content and provides a viewing experience tailored to children from preschool to teens. It is available as an app for Android and iOS as well as through the official YouTube Kids website .
How does YouTube Kids work?
YouTube Kids is a separate Appendix and a website that provides an interface for children to view a curated selection of age-appropriate YouTube videos. The idea is that violent and explicit content is weeded out and educational and creative content is emphasized, so YouTube Kids is a safer experience than the regular YouTube site and app.
YouTube Kids works the way you need to set up an account for your child and their account is then linked to yours Google account . This allows you to control the type of content they have access to, limit how long they use the app daily, and more.
While YouTube Kids isn’t perfect, it provides parents with plenty of ways to protect their kids from accessing inappropriate content.
YouTube Kids is ad-supported. This means that your child will see ads in the app. You can remove ads by subscribing to YouTube Premium but your child may still see commercial content, such as unpacking videos and videos from toy manufacturers, unless you specifically block those videos.
How to set up YouTube Kids
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Download and launch the YouTube Kids app on your iOS or Android device.
Download for iOS
Download for Android
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click, i am a parent .
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Press right arrow .
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Enter your year of birth and click CONFIRM .
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Watch the intro video and click right arrow .
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Select the account you want to sign in with and click » INPUT» .
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Read the parental consent form and privacy policy, then enter your password and click CONFIRM .
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Enter your child’s information, then click right arrow .
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Select the type of content you approve, then click right arrow .
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If you agree with the selected content, click CHOOSE .
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Click +, to add another profile, or click right arrow, to continue.
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View the feature’s parent overview, then click » Ready», when you’re done.
What kind of content is allowed on YouTube Kids?
YouTube Kids is designed to show content for kids of all ages. To create the YouTube Kids library, YouTube takes its massive video library and filters it to find age-appropriate content for preschoolers, toddlers, and preschoolers. This is mostly achieved through automatic filters, but YouTubers can also manually add or remove videos.
If you’re wondering what YouTube considers family-friendly content, you can check out the guide to creating content suitable for family, which they provide to their content creators. This guide doesn’t apply directly to you as a parent, but it will help you understand the type of content your kids will find on YouTube Kids.
These are the three main categories of content found in the app:
- Preschool education : This mode is for very young children who are not yet in school. The videos found in this mode are mainly for learning, playing and creating.
- Jr : This mode is for children aged 5 to 7 years old. It adds content like music, cartoons, and arts and crafts to stimulate your child’s creative side.
- Older : This mode is for children aged 8 to 12 years old. You will find content like let’s watch gaming videos and other content that is suitable for this age range.
Is YouTube Kids really safe?
YouTube Kids uses complex algorithms to determine what is appropriate for the application. While some content is manually added and curated, there is always a chance that something will slip through the cracks. This was a big problem in the early days of YouTube Kids when some unscrupulous creators figured out the algorithm and filled the app with weird and inappropriate videos, but it has gotten a lot better.
YouTube Kids is not a babysitter and is not intended for completely unsupervised use, so YouTube takes some responsibility to parents to supervise their children’s use of these services. You have some fairly robust options for choosing the type of content available, and you can also flag anything inappropriate for immediate manual review.
How to take control of YouTube kids
The default YouTube Kids settings are sufficient for some parents, but you can have more control over your child’s viewing options. If you want this type of control, the YouTube Kids app provides it.
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Launch the YouTube Kids app and tap icon profile your child in the top left corner.
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Click Add child in parent settings .
You won’t actually add a child, it just opens parental controls.
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Answer the math question and click » Send» or create your own password for future use.
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Click » Timer», to set an in-app timer to limit your child’s screen time, or tap » Settings», to get more control.
What can parents control in YouTube Kids?
In YouTube Kids’ Parental Controls, you can set the type of content your child is allowed to access, approve specific channels and videos, and turn off the video search feature.
If you want to have full control over what your child watches on YouTube Kids, you must manually approve each video or approve specific channels that you trust.
Be careful when approving an entire channel, as channels can add new videos at any time. You may want to limit such permissions to content you trust, such as Disney Junior and PBS Kids.
Manually approving videos and channels also disables the video search feature. If you prefer to follow YouTube’s age-appropriate guidelines but don’t want your kids to use the search feature, you can also turn it off manually. This helps prevent your kids from accidentally getting into inappropriate content due to an innocent typo.
