Parents' Guide to

YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Poster Image

Common Sense Media Review

Patricia Monticello Kievlan By Patricia Monticello Kievlan , based on child development research. How do we rate?

age 7+

Solid parental controls help sort variable videos.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 7+?

Mother Goose Club</a> and <a href=https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/"/website-reviews/discover-the-forest">Discover the Forest</a>. Some look more like contests and entertainment than ads, making it hard for kids to know they're being marketed to. You can skip most after a few seconds. Videos featuring branded content aren't marked as advertising, are mixed in with other videos. Parents have reported seeing occasional ads with inappropriate content. Some videos are focused on products (e.g., backpacks, toy sets), often titled and filed under "Unbox It" (e.g., a video on the Brick Queen channel features unboxing of a <a href=https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/"/tv-reviews/pokemon">Pokémon toy). Other branded content includes videos featuring Disney dolls, Hasbro products, and whole channels from brands such as McDonald's (with videos about Happy Meal toys). A <a href=https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/"https://www.youtube.com/premium">YouTube Premium</a> subscription eliminates ads.</p> ">

Any Positive Content?

Reading Rainbow</em></a> and <em><a href=https://www.commonsensemedia.org/app-reviews/"/tv-reviews/sesame-street">Sesame Street</a> </em>help teach letter recognition and reading. Lots of non-educational content available, as well. Bottom line? YouTube Kids definitely has content that facilitates learning, but with so much to choose from, parents might have to specifically steer kids toward that content to make it happen.</p> ">

Parent and Kid Reviews

age 9+

Based on 39 parent reviews

age 3+

it's more like you tube babies

Honestly, don't bother with this app. I thought this was good for my 9 year old but sadly not, first of all the music is annoying for older kids but that's just the beginning. We went on this app to see if it was any good. It was beyond terrible, I'm not gonna force my kid to watch baby nursery rhymes instead of perfectly good youtubers that never curse like logdotzip and Leah ashe. (She watched those sometimes on normal youtube.) And I was absolutely appalled by the inappropriate things I saw on there when I was trying it out. I'm just going to let her watch normal you tube from now on. Absolutely trash app please don't waste your time on this.
age 14+

the worst app for kids

i don’t even know where to start on this one but let’s just say the app is horrible. as i looked over this app i have came across inappropriate videos, violent videos, videos with bad language included, and smoking on here. the inappropriate videos were stuff like barbies having sex and disgusting animations of disney princesses and my little pony characters sticking their butt into the camera and pulling their underwear off with the title of the video being “MLP put your ass in the air” and stuff like that. there was violent videos i’ve seen on here of stuff like this girl playing with my little pony toys and pinkie pie goes around killing other ponies, there was 30 episodes of it and strong language was included. there was strange videos of people recording kids and asking stuff like “what are the cuss words that you know?” and they were obviously making the kids very uncomfortable. there were even videos with the title “spoiled kids getting owned” and the videos included short clips of kids swearing and destroying stores and stuff and then getting beaten by their parents. there was even a video of a woman walking through a park and comes across a 8 and 6 year old smoking a pack of cigarettes and the woman just sat there and recorded it. just don’t download this for your kids

Privacy Rating Pass

  • Personal information is not sold or rented to third parties.
  • Personal information is not shared for third-party marketing.
  • Personalised advertising is not displayed.
  • Data are not collected by third-parties for their own purposes.
  • Users's information is not used to track and target advertisements on other third-party websites or services.
  • Data profiles are not created and used for personalised advertisements.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (39 ):
Kids say (135 ):

Several levels of parental controls make this a solid go-to video app for kids, though its curation cracks and consumer-focused videos make parents work to insure appropriateness. The timer feature on YouTube Kids is a standout, letting parents set clear limits on how long kids can watch. And kids will love the whimsical visuals and silly sound effects, which will have them swiping through the video gallery with ease. They'll also love the Recommended menu, where they'll find suggested videos related to those they've previously viewed. Most importantly, parents can set a safe list of channels so that they can handpick content themselves. Or if parents are worried about what content might pop up, they can disable the search function so that kids are limited to videos from channels that have been "verified" by YouTube Kids.

That said, despite robust parental controls, a great kid-friendly interface, and the filters to -- in theory -- weed out videos with mature content, the quality of the videos ranges widely, and not all content that makes the cut will be something that parents really want their kids to watch. So, to really feel confident that your kids won't run into anything you don't want them to, you have to use the safe list feature. While it's great to have, this also puts a burden on parents who are hoping to let their kids watch and explore in a safe space. As with any tool for letting kids view videos -- and particularly for this one -- context and supervision are key: Parents should be close by to monitor which videos (and ads) their kids view and to give context and criticism as needed -- and to deal with any unexpected videos that may pop up.

App Details

Did we miss something on diversity?

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