No! Don't click on that!
December 16, 2015 2:55 PM   Subscribe

Almost 10 year old daughter has no sense of appropriate viewing, and I'd like to get a software solution to help her stay clear of the skeevier parts of Youtube.

My brilliant 9-y-o autistic daughter has no filter on what is appropriate for viewing. We have talked and talked, modeled, and she will still wander into watching rather violent videos on Youtube. (Apparently, safe searching on there is a bit of a joke.)

I don't want to be the ultimate killjoy, but when I found her watching Saw 2 (OMG) because she wanted to watch a scary movie. She'd mentioned watching a scary movie to me a few days earlier, and I said "Sure, as long as it is a kid-appropriate film." Just...gah!

(We are working on behavioral aspects. OT will start in January, ST is through school, and she has a therapist.) Computers are in a common area, but she can twist her body to hide the screen.

I'm looking for a software solution to fix this problem. We've tried doing it at the router level, but we have several devices that the kids have access to that really need to have Youtube removed and logged. Husband feels like turning it off on the I-device in settings is just security through obscurity, and they could google how to fix it.

Ideas? Recommendations? Just letting go, maaaan?
posted by heathrowga to Computers & Internet (7 answers total) 6 users marked this as a favorite
 
Best answer: How much would you be able to implement solutions? You know YouTube has an app specifically for kids on YouTube? Block it using a hosts file on the desktop machines and let her surf all she (or you) wants using the app on a device?
posted by jessamyn at 2:58 PM on December 16, 2015 [4 favorites]


Are you familar with YouTube's iOS and Android app for kids?

oops should have previewed
posted by JoeZydeco at 2:58 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Youtube has parental controls you can set, have you tried that?
posted by ananci at 2:58 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


If Youtube doesn't know something isn't kid safe, I'm not sure who would absent a limited, curated list of things.

My own solution would be non-technological: Youtube access only from a home computer in a shared area like the livingroom, perhaps only on the livingroom TV if you have one, so you have a chance to intervene if they've gotten into something awful.

And curious nine year olds will. They don't necessarily have great internal filters on what's good or bad for them, and may not even have the experience to recognize one kind of scary from another, even if they are precocious and can intellectually understand content at an advanced level.
posted by zippy at 4:59 PM on December 16, 2015 [3 favorites]


Nthing the YouTube kids viewer. It's great!!
posted by pearlybob at 6:30 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


My 8 year old can only watch you tube while I am in the room with no head phones, unless it is a youtuber I know. I am afraid I now know famous youtubers. :(
posted by ReluctantViking at 6:43 PM on December 16, 2015 [1 favorite]


Response by poster: You know, my husband had dismissed the parental controls on Youtube as not good enough. I asked him if he had tried. "Um...no."

So we'll go from there. Thank you all!
posted by heathrowga at 7:10 PM on December 16, 2015 [6 favorites]


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