THE CHANNEL 46
As a parent, honestly, I feel it’s best to be upfront with kids and tell them that you will be monitoring their online behaviour, especially YouTube. When kids know their parents are monitoring their online activity, they are less likely to engage in risky behaviour.
YouTube can be accessed with or without a google account. However, to track your Kids YouTube history effectively, you will need a shared google account. You could allow them to use yours on their devices. This gives you the freedom to access their search either on your device or your kids’ device.
Thankfully, YouTube has recognized youngster’s accessibility to inappropriate content and is making good on its promises to up their YouTube security measures. Use YouTube’s ‘Restricted’ Mode on Browsers.
Many parents turn to YouTube Kids, an app created by YouTube to offer a safer online experience for kids with more parental control offerings. For stricter controls on smart devices, download the YouTube Kids app for iOS and Android phones and tablets.
Restricting content with the YouTube parental controls is fine and all, but let this be a friendly reminder that kids access mature material all over the internet. Your first priority should be turning on the ‘Safe Search’ filter in any browser your child uses.
There are several applications that allow parents to block their kids from watching illicit content on YouTube. Just download one such app and let it do all the monitoring! What’s more, these apps can be used to track your kids’ real-time location, monitor app use, set screen time limits.
You can’t monitor your child’s online activities in places you can’t be in or can’t see. So don’t allow a computer in places you can’t supervise. Common places like the living room work best to keep the PC. There’s no better way to keep an eye on things than to be able to wander by and casually say, “Hey, what video is that?”.
THE CHANNEL 46