What are your kids watching on YouTube?
I am a 3½ years old dad now. It was November 2014 when this blessing was showered upon me. Being a dad to a daughter is probably the best feeling a man could have and mine, she is world to me. Not only she has grown so fast but also left me thinking, how? I wonder why didn't I start writing a blog about being a dad earlier. Of course, I didn't get any time to do it, but also I didn't have a reason to do it. However, after all that time that I have spent being a father, I can say that it's not just the kids that grow, or have to grow, it us that needs to grow as well. Being a dad or a mom or a guardian, you have a huge onus on yourselves. I will come to the specifics in next few lines.
We have recently shifted to a new country, Australia (from India). The culture is definitely contrasting and there would be a lot of new things that we need to settle for, and it is both for us (parents) and our daughter. Though, one common thing that I have been noticing not only with my daughter in last couple of years is that she is learning to use the gadgets at a rapid pace. I am not saying she is a wonder child, even your children must be doing the same stuff, and we are equally guilty, why? Because we were the first ones to hand them the mobile or an iPad, just to keep them from crying, or distracting them a bit so they could eat what they wouldn't otherwise or just to keep them busy so they won't bother us when we had to do some important work, or sometimes, just because we found them too cute using the mobile.
Now that my daughter is pro in accessing the YouTube videos, and scroll through the videos, skip the ads after 5 seconds, and going to recommended videos, I have found that it is getting worse everyday. Some of the actions that really worry me are:
1. They don't blink - Never ever!
2. They stare, and stare from what, about 5 inches and don't move their heads or eyes.
3. They keep on looking these video for hours and hours.
4. They can access anything on YouTube, since it is not for kids and even the channels which claim to be the kids channels post weird and eerie stuff, which is completely uncensored. I have had a bad experience with YouTube kids as well.
Now that I have been equally guilty in this, however, I have been trying to find a solution to all these. Trust me, it is not as easy as just not letting them see the videos or not giving them the phone, if you are a parent you must already know this. They would scream, cry and do whatever they can to get the phone from you. So, this is something which needs to be treated as a rehabilitation. As of now, what I have been able to achieve in last month or so:
As a first resort, I try that I keep her busy in toys, since she likes the blocks, puzzles and of course every kind of toy out there, so I make sure that I bring something that keeps her busy. Blocks do that in her case. However, once she gets bored, I'd have to bring in another but that doesn't mean that I buy a toy everyday, I make sure she knows the toys worth, So, I will buy a couple of different toys one day and then a few after a some days but she is courteous enough to respect her old toys after a few weeks. So I make sure once she is bored of Toy 1, I get her the Toy 2 and when she gets bored of the Toy 2, I get a Toy 3 and then I toggle around, you might need a few more combinations as well.
Since this is a rehabilitation, don't expect that you'd zero out the videos the very first day, they will need to be taken away slowly. Another thing I do is to make sure that if she has to see these videos, see them on the TV and from a distance. I also make sure that I am with her when she is watching them and I always take the onus of the following:
Making sure that she blinks, I ask her explicitly, "Aahana, eyes!!!" and she blinks it a couple of times.
Another critical point, I'd ask her to see a distant object every 5 minutes, and a different colored objects and in opposite directions. I also say "Fan" so she looks up, I say shoes, or table or anything on the ground just to make her move her head in all the directions. It might seem absurd but works well. She does gets agitated at times and would stop following my words, and also scream, or ignore, so I have to maneuver my tactics at that time, like saying a random weird things like - "look, there's a blue horse outside", "there's a pink cat on the wall" or whatever until she moves her head or eyes. Also make sure they don't see these videos for too long. Even 30 minutes are too much.
Once you've done the above, make sure you know what they are watching. They don't search, they just scroll and click randomly. From last couple of days, I noticed that the YouTube videos she was watching were very eerie. Not one channel but a lot of weird random uncensored videos on the channels. A channel in particular got my attention - Teehee Town's (not that I am being biased) videos. There were animated colored dancing skeletons in one video and animated zombies in another. As she was watching these, I heard a poem in one of these videos which was (In a zombie voice) - "Johny Johny" "Yes Papa" "Eating bugs" "No papa"
And the scene was - A zombie child with stitches and blood on his face was eating bugs, cockroaches, and that was it. I switched off the TV. She screamed but I was sure that I can't and won't let my daughter see this. Since it as on TV, logged in with my gmail account, I quickly went to my YouTube app on my phone and blocked all these absurd channels, and blocked a lot of similar channels, videos and also reported these videos. Since YouTube doesn't censor any content so I had to make sure I did. Once that was done, I double checked and made sure the videos on screen were those plain, soft and actual kids content. Elsa's, Pepa Pigs and doremons are fine, but there were also doctored videos of these characters, which I continue to monitor and block.
Look how my YouTube home page looks like:
As I continue to rehabilitate my daughter out of this, I would ask you new parents to make sure that if possible DO NOT handover the gadgets to your kids just to get some free time, give them toys, take them out, play with them, spend time with them. I have been doing all of the above but just did one mistake, which was to give her the mobile. Trust me, it is really really bad.
In this age, it really is not about earning bread and butter for your family and kids, it is also about knowing what they are up to. She is just 3 and a half now but as she grows, I will too, as a dad.
I hope my write-up could also help the once in similar situations or the new parents or to-be parents. If you have anything to add, please feel free to add it to the comments.
Happy parenting.
We have recently shifted to a new country, Australia (from India). The culture is definitely contrasting and there would be a lot of new things that we need to settle for, and it is both for us (parents) and our daughter. Though, one common thing that I have been noticing not only with my daughter in last couple of years is that she is learning to use the gadgets at a rapid pace. I am not saying she is a wonder child, even your children must be doing the same stuff, and we are equally guilty, why? Because we were the first ones to hand them the mobile or an iPad, just to keep them from crying, or distracting them a bit so they could eat what they wouldn't otherwise or just to keep them busy so they won't bother us when we had to do some important work, or sometimes, just because we found them too cute using the mobile.
Now that my daughter is pro in accessing the YouTube videos, and scroll through the videos, skip the ads after 5 seconds, and going to recommended videos, I have found that it is getting worse everyday. Some of the actions that really worry me are:
1. They don't blink - Never ever!
2. They stare, and stare from what, about 5 inches and don't move their heads or eyes.
3. They keep on looking these video for hours and hours.
4. They can access anything on YouTube, since it is not for kids and even the channels which claim to be the kids channels post weird and eerie stuff, which is completely uncensored. I have had a bad experience with YouTube kids as well.
Now that I have been equally guilty in this, however, I have been trying to find a solution to all these. Trust me, it is not as easy as just not letting them see the videos or not giving them the phone, if you are a parent you must already know this. They would scream, cry and do whatever they can to get the phone from you. So, this is something which needs to be treated as a rehabilitation. As of now, what I have been able to achieve in last month or so:
As a first resort, I try that I keep her busy in toys, since she likes the blocks, puzzles and of course every kind of toy out there, so I make sure that I bring something that keeps her busy. Blocks do that in her case. However, once she gets bored, I'd have to bring in another but that doesn't mean that I buy a toy everyday, I make sure she knows the toys worth, So, I will buy a couple of different toys one day and then a few after a some days but she is courteous enough to respect her old toys after a few weeks. So I make sure once she is bored of Toy 1, I get her the Toy 2 and when she gets bored of the Toy 2, I get a Toy 3 and then I toggle around, you might need a few more combinations as well.
Since this is a rehabilitation, don't expect that you'd zero out the videos the very first day, they will need to be taken away slowly. Another thing I do is to make sure that if she has to see these videos, see them on the TV and from a distance. I also make sure that I am with her when she is watching them and I always take the onus of the following:
Making sure that she blinks, I ask her explicitly, "Aahana, eyes!!!" and she blinks it a couple of times.
Another critical point, I'd ask her to see a distant object every 5 minutes, and a different colored objects and in opposite directions. I also say "Fan" so she looks up, I say shoes, or table or anything on the ground just to make her move her head in all the directions. It might seem absurd but works well. She does gets agitated at times and would stop following my words, and also scream, or ignore, so I have to maneuver my tactics at that time, like saying a random weird things like - "look, there's a blue horse outside", "there's a pink cat on the wall" or whatever until she moves her head or eyes. Also make sure they don't see these videos for too long. Even 30 minutes are too much.
Once you've done the above, make sure you know what they are watching. They don't search, they just scroll and click randomly. From last couple of days, I noticed that the YouTube videos she was watching were very eerie. Not one channel but a lot of weird random uncensored videos on the channels. A channel in particular got my attention - Teehee Town's (not that I am being biased) videos. There were animated colored dancing skeletons in one video and animated zombies in another. As she was watching these, I heard a poem in one of these videos which was (In a zombie voice) - "Johny Johny" "Yes Papa" "Eating bugs" "No papa"
And the scene was - A zombie child with stitches and blood on his face was eating bugs, cockroaches, and that was it. I switched off the TV. She screamed but I was sure that I can't and won't let my daughter see this. Since it as on TV, logged in with my gmail account, I quickly went to my YouTube app on my phone and blocked all these absurd channels, and blocked a lot of similar channels, videos and also reported these videos. Since YouTube doesn't censor any content so I had to make sure I did. Once that was done, I double checked and made sure the videos on screen were those plain, soft and actual kids content. Elsa's, Pepa Pigs and doremons are fine, but there were also doctored videos of these characters, which I continue to monitor and block.
Look how my YouTube home page looks like:
 |
| Creepy, Eerie and what not! |
As I continue to rehabilitate my daughter out of this, I would ask you new parents to make sure that if possible DO NOT handover the gadgets to your kids just to get some free time, give them toys, take them out, play with them, spend time with them. I have been doing all of the above but just did one mistake, which was to give her the mobile. Trust me, it is really really bad.
In this age, it really is not about earning bread and butter for your family and kids, it is also about knowing what they are up to. She is just 3 and a half now but as she grows, I will too, as a dad.
I hope my write-up could also help the once in similar situations or the new parents or to-be parents. If you have anything to add, please feel free to add it to the comments.
Happy parenting.
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