Children and You Tube

fifix

I heard my son's friend, who is seven, describing a video he had watched on you tube called The Retarded Policeman. It sounded unsuitable for kids, so I checked it out and was appalled. Not only was it disturbing cos it was mocking someone who appeared to have Down's Syndrome but the episode in question was about two girls who get stopped for speeding and offer the cop an alternative method of payment. It's called Boobies cos that's what the cop repeatedly says when the girls reveal their very tight tops. I'm telling the boy's parents about it tomorrow cos if they don't do something about monitoring their son, I don't want him playing with mine.
This is one of many times that I've heard friends of my children telling them about inappropriate stuff that they've watched on tv or the internet.
Why do some parents not care what their kids are watching? I work so hard to monitor and limit screen time for my kids, and it really annoys me that some others don't.

RainyDay

A first step would be to report the video on Youtube, so that Youtube know about this kind of abusive material.

vicwatson

RainyDay wrote: »

A first step would be to report the video on Youtube, so that Youtube know about this kind of abusive material.

You could spend your life doing this about videos on there.

The fear I have of youtube is the likes of a 7 year old typing in Moshi Monsters innocently and getting some complete and utter other not suitable material put up by some moran that thinks they are funny. This can apply to any search to be honest, morans put stuff up all the time under innocent names that are not suitable for children. Also, related videos along the sides on youtube can be as bad if not worse.:(

fifix

You Tube has a Safe Mode option that doesn't let any videos considered only for over 18s be accessed. Just scroll to the bottom of the page and you'll see a Safe Mode button. It gives instructions on how to lock it in Safe Mode and it can only be unlocked with a password. I think that every parent should opt for this.

Also, the Google search page has a Safe Search mode. Children often hear words or terms in the playground or from older kids that they don't understand. Then they go home and type it into Google for a definition - without Safe Search in place your child could be exposed to a huge amount of adult material. With Safe Search on, if the word isn't child-friendly, Google won't return any search results.

Moonbeam

A 7 year old should be supervised while using the internet or the internet should be filtered for that child.

RainyDay

vicwatson wrote: »

You could spend your life doing this about videos on there.

I understand where you're coming from, but if you can't be bothered doing the few clicks to report a video, then you can't really expect other people to worry about it. I'm not suggesting that you become the Youtube police, but if you see something offensive, take the few seconds it requires to report it to Youtube for action. The more people that report stuff, the more action gets taken.

Big Bag of Chips

My nephew watches Power Rangers stuff all the time. The PC is in the sitting room, but he would often be alone there. One day, while I was in the room, he called my daughter over to watch one of the Power Rangers videos saying 'this one has cursing in it'.

It was over dubbed, and really really not suitable for a 6 (or 4.. my daughter!) year old.

Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, they are all dubbed over. Sometimes the title warns that they are dubbed.. sometimes not.

My 4 year old is obsessed with Disney Cars at the minute and loves watching the clips on YouTube. I have to keep a close eye, and ear, out!

OctoberRain

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

My nephew watches Power Rangers stuff all the time. The PC is in the sitting room, but he would often be alone there. One day, while I was in the room, he called my daughter over to watch one of the Power Rangers videos saying 'this one has cursing in it'.

It was over dubbed, and really really not suitable for a 6 (or 4.. my daughter!) year old.

Postman Pat, Fireman Sam, they are all dubbed over. Sometimes the title warns that they are dubbed.. sometimes not.

My 4 year old is obsessed with Disney Cars at the minute and loves watching the clips on YouTube. I have to keep a close eye, and ear, out!

There is a relatively safe search engine called 'Yippy' that is designed to filter out accidental, unappropriate content. www.yippy.com . I tested it briefly and it seems adequate for a very young age group.

To set this as the homepage goto: Tools / internet options / general tab / type in or overwrite the existing homepage with www.yippy.com . That should work as a temp measure.

The best option overall though is to not shove the kids into the bedroom to get a quiet moment (as tempting as it might be). This leads to long term expectations and problems. I would reccommend keeping all internet activities in the main room where adults are present from start to finish. This stops bad habits from happening i.e. kids ending up as teens shut in their room bullying or getting bullied on sites that they shouldn't be accessing on their own.