8 yrs old, going on 14. Tired of Nickelodeon.

August 23, 2010 7:27 AM

Is there a kid-friendly portal to pop music videos? She is not satisfied by Kid Disney and she wants to listen to the "latest" hits. She begs us to let her watch music videos on YouTube, but she's not ready to be let loose on that yet. So where can we let her browse and watch "current" videos with not too much bad stuff?

Yeah, we do sometimes sit with her and guide her choices, but we cannot always do that. We'd like to let her browse while we make dinner in the next room. She swears she'll stick with approved artists like Taylor Swift and Selena Gomez, but the links on the side of the page and the links to parody material are just one click away from territory we'd rather not have her see.

Is there such a site? "Cool" music videos appropriate for 8 year olds?

(Broadening my daughter's tastes in music is a separate project for us. For right now we want to teach her to "engage" the popular culture of her peers in a critical way. You may set different standards for your kids, but that's not my question!)

posted by cross_impact to computers & internet (9 answers total)

Tell her not to click on the other links. If she clicks on the other links, she loses her video-watching privileges. Then you get two parental lessons in one: be independent and learn to make your own choices and there are consequences to your actions.
posted by headspace at 7:38 AM on August 23, 2010

Try totlol .

Includes music videos like Taylor Swift and other parent-approved you tube videos.
posted by KogeLiz at 7:45 AM on August 23, 2010

maybe this Kids Yahoo site
posted by KogeLiz at 7:46 AM on August 23, 2010 [1 favorite]

It's not 100%, but you could use a greasemonkey script (or maybe just AdBlock) to get rid of the suggested video column. That would mostly limit her to videos she searches for.

That, along with headspace's suggestion might get you most of the way.
posted by Vectorcon Systems at 7:49 AM on August 23, 2010

Most well-known artists host music videos on youtube through an account such as SelenaGomezVEVO. Vevo is also a separate site that only hosts music videos from 3 or 4 record labels, sort of like Hulu. It's not available in my country, but it might be worth a look. Of course, it doesn't contain all the inane Taylor Swift video diaries and random stuff that your daughter might want to watch. You might try encouraging her to subscribe on youtube to acceptable users (the artists themselves, for one) and only view videos through the channel page, thus avoiding most of the other links.
posted by acidic at 7:51 AM on August 23, 2010

Great resources so far. Keep 'em coming.
posted by cross_impact at 9:28 AM on August 23, 2010

You might like to check out KidZui as well. I've used it for my younger kids with great success and it may work for your daughter, as well.
posted by mcarthey at 9:41 AM on August 23, 2010

Pancake Mountain is kid-oriented, but performed by all sorts of well known musicians (MIA, Jenny Lewis, Richard Hell, etc.)
posted by electroboy at 10:37 AM on August 23, 2010

There's also some stuff you can do via site options, such as hiding commens.

Parent Safety Info for YouTube
posted by wildcrdj at 7:10 PM on August 23, 2010