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Comment by abalone | Hacker News Reader

My kids watch this stuff constantly and it's just too much and too random to vet it all. I'm putting a lot of trust in YouTube Kids to filter it to quality content.

That trust was shaken the other day when they said "daddy did you know you shouldn't sleep under trees because you can't breathe properly?" I'm like who told you that. "A video."[1]

Turns out it was a "learning" video produced by one of these outfits, not ChuChu but a competitor called AumSum. It's some weird urban myth that has traction in south asia.[2] It's a bastardization of tree respiration biology. They think it puts out enough CO2 at night to impact humans. So don't sleep near it because then you'll be oxygen deprived.

So yeah, apparently someone green-lit that stinker and turned into a cute animation. Which is funny until you realize AumSum as a whole has 139M views. Their singular mission is to make educational science videos.[2] And my kids are 100% addicted to YouTube Kids.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6_L7JOYz7U

[2] Compare the locations of the authors with pro-myth vs anti-myth answers. https://www.quora.com/Why-do-trees-produce-carbon-dioxide-CO...

[3] "We try our level best to create highly creative and refreshing videos of Physics, Chemistry and Biology. This channel can prove to be useful for students studying in schools, colleges as well as for people of all ages who have a curious scientific mind." https://www.youtube.com/user/Smartlearningforall/about

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I wouldn't advise sleeping under a Manchineel or a Water Hemlock, but for entirely different reasons.

> And my kids are 100% addicted to YouTube Kids.

Clearly things got out of hand then.

Meaning clearly I’m a terrible parent SMH.

Also I am exaggerating.. the kids enjoy the television programming they experience on the YouTube and I would prefer if there were fewer errors.

Tell me you weren’t 100% addicted to a television show when you were a kid (He-Man, GI Joe, Transformers...), oh holy one.

I was not. I had early access to a real computer though, with those big trackball mice (my parents said it was easier for me to grasp) and a keyboard, and I had my own computer in my room by 7. I was addicted to that I guess.

And that would be the first thing I'd do if I had to parent actually. Why dumb things down with tablets ? A computer is affordable for most HNers. Give them computers. They can do the same tasks and learn so much more down the road ! Let them use complex contextual menus and find their own way, type on a real keyboard with keys you actually need to press, move a cursor ... I don't get why tech savvy people give touch screens to their children.

These mobile environments lead nowhere. Whereas when I started using the internet I too wanted my own website and already had the tools needed.

Also you said

>as well as have a large assortment of crafts and novel activities for them to engage in every morning while I do stuff like bathe and eat.

I don't remember my parents having stuff ready for every instant of my life. Sure I was bored from time to time (no siblings) and I probably bothered them (again, no siblings, I guess numerous bored kids is messier, but that should be thought upon beforehand), but I had to find my own occupations. What are you going to do later in life anyways ? Ask friends to keep you untertained ?

I’m talking about younger kids. But, cool, feel free to report back when you actually have kids and tell us how your plan went.

My dad gave me a laptop with games and basic tools on it when I was 2 years old, and i figured that out pretty quickly.

When I was 6, I was allowed to use the internet but there were limitations for time and keyloggers.

My parents gave up when they found out I was booting up with linux off a flash drive at 14.

I feel like I learned more about technology when there were obstacles to overcome, rather than instant gratification.

I would start my own kids off air-gapped and then gradually allow access, since for me it gave me a healthy respect for danger and taught me to find solutions.

I think this is pretty close to what Linus Torvalds does with his kids, but I might be mistaken.

> Tell me you weren’t 100% addicted to a television show when you were a kid (He-Man, GI Joe, Transformers...), oh holy one.

But that was only once a day after school for 1 hour or so. Not constantly everytime I felt bored.

An hour a day of screentime is literally what I’m talking about. That’s a constant presence in life.

But it's more nowadays. I notice it even on myself. On the internet I can watch whatever I like, and stick to that for hours. On the TV theres maybe only 2-3 interesting shows to watch, so I would eventually turn it off.

> Meaning clearly I’m a terrible parent SMH.

> Also I am exaggerating

> 100% addicted

> oh holy one

Perhaps you should use less hyperbole in your writings, it would certainly lead to fewer misunderstandings.

I was, although I'm of an older generation. I watched tons of TV as a kid and I turned out OK. ;-)

Koreans seem to believe fan-death is an actual thing too.

It's an urban myth that Koreans believe that urban myth.

In my experience they do their best to propagate the idea that Koreans believe this myth.

I have yet to meet a Korean who wouldn't defend fan death.

Maybe it is like the Australian drop-bear.

It’s strange that in 2018, superstitious beliefs without any evidence are widely believed. It makes me wonder what kind of bizarre superstitions will exist 100 years from now.

I lived in Incheon for 2 years and can confirm that belief in fan-death is definitely not uncommon. I even have a couple Korean friends who can rationally explain why fan-death makes no sense but still reflexively leave the window open when going to sleep with a fan on.

Why do you let your kids watch Youtube? I never understood this. You as a parent have sole responsibility for what your kids consume.

I know, I'm a shitty parent, and I'm solely responsible for my kids being exposed to shitty things in the world. I should throw out their iPads and read books to them constantly (more than the 20m/day I do every single day after 2h dinner & bedtime process) as well as have a large assortment of crafts and novel activities for them to engage in every morning while I do stuff like bathe and eat. Sorry for being shitty.

Don't mind him/her. Distracting a single-digit-aged human long enough to put dinner on the table or get some work done is hard on the best of days.

I don't have kids so I'm curious, why youtube? I assume most families don't have the time for a full time parental distraction but is there really no other alternative? I'd imagine Disney or some other media giant would have figured something out by now. Is youtube content just so practically endless and passive enough that no one can compete? Or is it just that they don't like gaming or TV shows that much (or you dont allow it)?

Kids will adjust to whatever their circumstances are though. If you just pull all media, kids will complain for a few days, but eventually just get used to it and play with their real toys. Hell, kids don’t even really need toys to have a good time, take those away and they’ll go dig in the dirt, jump off couches, and make pillow forts.

It’s not hard to “distract toddlers”, my daughter is three and LOVES to help cook. She fries eggs pretty well and I figure the worst that’ll happen is she’ll burn herself (which she hasn’t). Given the right opportunities and structure children can actually be much more helpful than we give them credit for, especially in the USA we’re just sort of taught that children are useless ingrates that are wholly incapable of the most rudimentary tasks (I mean I was certainly treated that way).

It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, the more constantly stimulated the kid is, the more difficult it is for them to pay attention when it’s important.

>It’s a self fulfilling prophecy, the more constantly stimulated the kid is, the more difficult it is for them to pay attention when it’s important.

I think this is true for all humans in general. I actually think it is worse for teenagers who have more unsupervised time and don't know any better. --

FYI.. there was a program on about kids in Costa Rica or maybe Honduras where they all had chores. Even the 3 year olds. I thought it was interesting as the kids themselves were very well behaved.

I read this about Mayan parenting recently and really enjoyed it.[0] We (the USA) are definitely a WEIRD[1] nation.

[0] https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2018/09/01/6412662... [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/10/weste...

I think this is what I was trying to find.

> my daughter is three and LOVES to help cook. She fries eggs pretty well

Maybe I'm over protective, but hot oil around a 3 year old sounds like a bad idea. I get it that they can do it, but it only takes 1 accident to scar them for life and 3 year olds are super uncoordinated. I have been called a helicopter parent before though, so maybe it's me being a bit weird.

So you’re right, it is a bit scary. We cook on low, with just a little bit of butter. I certainly wouldn’t deep fry ANYTHING with her around, and when I have the kitchen is a no go zone. To me it’s about calculating risk, and a small amount of ~175° with a closely supervised child is not that risky.

I get some judgy looks on the playground for studiously ignoring my kid and letting her play for three hours and everyone else stays for maybe 15 minutes being super engaged with their kids before they get super bored and leave, so I guess I’m not really normal. I consider one of my goals to get my daughter to walk to the park alone at five, since that was the age I had agency to go wherever I wanted. I’m not super optimistic, I may end up moving to a small town to make that possible, if I can get a good remote position eventually.

"studiously ignoring my kid"... haha you sound exactly like me. I've got a two year old so a bit behind you guys, but same exact philosophy. The anti-helecopter -- give kids just a smidge more responsibility than they can handle (rather than hovering), make sure they don't get seriously injured, but let them learn from the scrapes and bumps. It's crazy how fast they learn and how capable they get at such young ages.

>I consider one of my goals to get my daughter to walk to the park alone at five, since that was the age I had agency to go wherever I wanted.

Are you maybe misremembering your age at the time? I have a 4.5 year old at home and there is no way that I think he will be ready to go the park a couple of streets away on his own. By not ready I mean, in no way capable of judging when to cross a street safely and may get lost on the way, especially if he gets distracted and absentmindedly wanders in an unfamiliar direction.

There was a recent study [1] that showed that kids have a highly elevated risk of accident when crossing the road right up to the age of 14 (!! was surprised to read this). Some points from the research:

- simulating traffic showed accident rates as high as eight per cent with six-year-olds

- Even those aged 12 were hit by vehicles two per cent of the time

- It was not until early adolescence that children crossed the road safely

Just thought I'd point this out in case you were not aware of the research.

Kudos for promoting self-reliance and independence though. I am a long way in the other direction where I do way too much to try and ensure my kid's safety. I know I need to ease up so that he can start to make his own mistakes.

[1] https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/04/why-children-struggle-cross-bu...

In Japan they send their kids shopping at 5-6. It's Super safe in Japan, but the point is kids are very fast learners and learn to be independent fairly easily if pushed or directed in that direction..

I wonder if these kids need to cross any streets and what the accident rate there is. I'm assuming Japanese 6 year olds are developmentally very similar to western 6 year olds. So according to the research that I linked to above they have an 8% chance of getting hit by a car when crossing the road.

Would you cross the road if you were hit by a car for every 12 times you crossed?

> kids are very fast learners and learn to be independent fairly easily if pushed or directed in that direction..

An acceptable level of risk awareness can't be taught to kids under a certain age because their brain development is not yet at the level where they are capable of learning certain things. For example: do you think there is any level of training that you could give a 5 year old to safely handle a loaded gun? Do you think there is a level of training you could give a 5 year old to then leave them unsupervised with a gun? Crossing a street is no different. It's life and death.

If you've ever spent any time around kids 6 and younger you will know that they have very intense tunnel vision and very poor situation awareness. It's not their fault. They literally don't yet have the brain development necessary for accurately predicting future events and predicting the consequences of their actions.

I agree and wouldn't push my own kids for that type of activity, simply not safe here.. But as other people's comments, there are lots of ways to make kids responsible and independent even in the confines of your own home such as cooking, cleaning, other types of chores, etc

I suggest you read David F. Lancy’s Anthropology of Childhood. If children were as stupid as you suggest none of them would make it through childhood. No parent can watch even one child all the time and it’s possible to kill your self getting out of bed.

> “Perhaps the most persuasive evidence regarding the attitude of adults toward children acquiring culture through play – without the need for adult guidance – comes from widespread reports of parents’ indifference and even encouragement of toddlers playing with machetes and other sharp and dangerous tools (Howard 1970: 35). For example, from the Kwoma of Papua New Guinea: “I once saw Suw with the blade of a twelve-inch bush knife in his mouth and the adults present paid no attention to him” (Whiting 1941: 25). Aka mothers regret it when their infants cut themselves while playing with “knives but they don’t want to restrain their exploration and learning (Hewlett 2013: 65–66). The Aka provide scaled versions of items in their tool inventory to their very young children and enjoy observing (and, occasionally correcting) their practice strikes (Hewlett et al. 2011: 1175). Four-and-a-half-year-old Okinawan children readily peel the outer skin off a length of sugar cane with a sharp sickle. When a mother was asked how the child acquired this skill she was at a loss for a reply. “‘I don’t know! He must have watched us and learned himself by trying it out!’ she said” (Maretzki and Maretzki 1963: 511)”

>If children were as stupid as you suggest none of them would make it through childhood.

They're not stupid and I didn't say they are. They lack experience and do not have the skills (brain development) that are necessary to cross a road without significant risk.

Read: https://now.uiowa.edu/2017/04/why-children-struggle-cross-bu...

From the research:

> "The researchers found 6-year-olds were struck by vehicles 8 percent of the time; 8-year-olds were struck 6 percent; 10-year-olds were struck 5 percent; and 12-year-olds were struck 2 percent. Those age 14 and older had no accidents.

Children contend with two main variables when deciding whether it’s safe to cross a street, according to the research. The first involves their perceptual ability, or how they judge the gap between a passing car and an oncoming vehicle, taking into account the oncoming car’s speed and distance from the crossing. Younger children, the study found, had more difficulty making consistently accurate perceptual decisions.

The second variable was their motor skills: How quickly do children time their step from the curb into the street after a car just passed? Younger children were incapable of timing that first step as precisely as adults, which in effect gave them less time to cross the street before the next car arrived."

Your quote from David F. Lancy’s Anthropology of Childhood is an anecdote. Was there a study done to measure child mortality and injury in this community? Would it be acceptable by modern standards?

My dad was raised in an eastern European village in the 1950s. From his stories child supervision was non existent. He has many stories of children who died due to accidents, e.g. children who misjudged the thickness of a frozen lake, fell through and drowned. Of course most survived into adulthood, but by modern standards child mortality rates were completely unacceptable.

Your associations with the word stupid are your own. If children were as poor at dealing with the environment as you believe they are I would not be unable to name a classmate who died during primary or secondary school.

I haven’t read the article you quote and I won’t because the conclusions you’re drawing from it are insane. Maybe the internal validity is good and if the experiment was replicated the same results would be obtained. The external validity is obviously not there. They are attempting to measure how traffic mortality from independent road crossing and they get numbers so high that it’s obvious their experiment doesn’t generalise to the question they’re actually interested in.

If we pretend that children do not cross the road until age 12 and assume 0.99 chance of surviving one crossing a day, after 100 days 63% will be dead.

Or I could just examine my own experience. My father and I both grew up within 100m of a main road with heavy traffic and we survived unscathed. The paper does not support your conclusion.

There may be a sensible conversation to be had on child supervision but my father grew up in the 50s too and it was not the hellscape you depict. If you look at deaths per 100,000 young children 5-14 they’re at worst three times current levels. By the 80s they’ve dropped to less than double current levels and people weren’t going insane wrapping their children in cotton wool and depriving them of all contact with the real world then. Deaths in childhood are so low that accidents are a minority of childhood deaths.

You’re advocating depriving children of freedom under a model of the world where childhood is so dangerous no one would survive when the trends in death rates are pretty much the same across industrialised countries while the insane helicopter parenting isn’t.

www.freerangeparenting.com

It really depends where the kids grow up. Free range parenting is possible, but in metropolitan neighborhoods with lots of traffic and psychos the risks are quite high. Im a parent and would love for my kid to grow up the way I did, free range and all. But there are always risks. I remember being hit by cars twice. The first time just a bruise, the second time broken leg, double fracture, from which I developed a slight scoliosis. Some kids I grew up with died in stupid accidents so I keep the risks in balance. Are you a parent yourself? Would you let your kids free range in a city like NYC?? Yikes..

> I haven’t read the article you quote and I won’t because the conclusions you’re drawing from it are insane

They're not my conclusions, I quoted a summary the researchers provided.

>Or I could just examine my own experience

Since when do personal anecdotes trump research?

Barry has a point, one piece of research does /= the absolute truth. Research is the scientific process of moving closer to the actual truth through experimental investigation. While you may believe this study, do not be certain that it can't be falsified.

sure, but you counter research with more research not a personal anecdote.

So you refuse to read the study because you don’t like the conclusion and instead rely on your own personal anecdote. Your reasoning has no place on HN.

One thing that's different is that in many places in Japan there's a 2- or 3-foot high metal barrier between the sidewalk and the road. It's impossible to just wander out into traffic except at crossings.

Those are the exception, not the norm. Just about all residential neighborhoods are filled with streets that have no sidewalks, much less barriers between car and pedestrian traffic.

> I get some judgy looks on the playground for studiously ignoring my kid and letting her play for three hours...

If you are watching your child for three hours on the playground then it is obvious you either do not have a regular job or only doing this on the weekends.

Check your privilege before you lecture others on how to parent. Also the hot cooking with 3 year olds is idiotic and dangerous even if it’s “just with butter” (??).

>or only doing this on the weekends.

Problem being ?

Problem being they lectured that it’s “not hard” to occupy kids everyday.. not just on the weekends. Parenting is hard and takes lots of resources and tons of time every day optimally.

Keep in the back of your mind: the goal is to release competent independent agents into the world. Help them push their constraints all the time.

You're _going_ to burn yourself cooking from time to time. Should you then never cook? :)

Good luck!

> Should you then never cook? :)

risk vs reward. Have you spent any time around a 3 year old? They are super uncoordinated at this age and can't take off a sock without falling on their butt. GP clarified that it was supervised cooking with low heat and without oil, so that sounds safe to me, but certainly wouldn't have any other pots with for example, water boiling around since they don't have the experience to avoid it and the results can end up catastrophic.

Are you thinking of deep frying?

Frying eggs doesn't require hot oil, just a non stick pan and maybe a dab of butter.

Reportedly one of my first words was "hot!" after I stuck my hand on an electrical stove top burner that was on. I don't remember it. Scarred for life? What do you remember before age 4? Edit: ah, you meant physical scars.

>Scarred for life? What do you remember before age 4?

A 2 year old in my wife's mother's group got 3rd degree burns from tipping a hot cup of tea on himself. Luckily it missed his face, but his neck and chest are now permanently scarred (and disfigured). The child required 6 months of physical therapy because the burn was down the neck and under the arm so movement was affected due to scar tissue. Any liquid over about 60 degrees C is a very real hazard for small child.

It really depends on context. A closely supervised 3 year old "cooking" using very low heat without oil and without a boiling pot around? Yup that sounds ok.

To be fair, she's frying eggs, not deep-frying them. I'm sure the parent in question is taking appropriate steps to keep her safe. Kids are more capable and resilient than we give them credit for. Give them a chance to excel.

I think small accidents help kids learn. Splashing a bit of oil on yourself isn’t the end of the world for adults and I don’t think it is for my toddler either.

We don’t have a yard, my kids can’t cook eggs while I’m getting ready, and pillow forts get old. Maybe there is another solution to improving online educational content than shaming parents who find mornings “hard”.

Why is isn’t it shaming when we tell people to get vaccinations, then? The current medical research suggests that children 2-5 should have no more than one hour of screen time. The current medical research also suggests children should be vaccinated on schedule.

Your parent-shaming was not about exceeding one hour of screen time, it was about any screen time at all. Not all of us are able to spend our mornings frying eggs with our kids before taking them to the park for three hours (which means you probably have a working partner who is considerably less involved.. shall we judge their parenting?). My comment was about improving the quality of educational content on YouTube, not skipping vaccinations.

> Distracting a single-digit-aged human long enough to put dinner on the table or get some work done is hard on the best of days.

I don't doubt that it is, yet this is a problem that humans have been solving literally since the dawn of time. I doubt very much that YouTube is necessary.

Kids like to watch other kids. You can sometimes get them into a cartoon or an educational program... But they really like to watch other kids do things invent and play.. and they learn from them.

If you really are worried the pbs kids videos app is great.

We have two under three so I understand the exhausting routine

For me it’s the only acceptable content.

Nobody really has a right to tell parents how to parent. Parenting is hard.

Personally, I don’t let mine near YouTube unless we’re looking something up together. They’re allowed kids Netflix but even that has plenty of content I don’t let them watch. Annoyingly, there’s no way to remove a show from Netflix. I’ve been meaning to make a chrome extension so I can blast the likes of Horseland into another dimension.

Yeah except that in everything else people take advice but you say boo about someone’s parenting and you might as well have suggested they’re literally abusing their parents. There are plenty of things that are known to be suboptimal.

The American Association of Pediatrics recommends no screen time under 18 months except for video chatting, and only 1 hour a day for children 2-5 [0]

Most of us are engineers here, but as soon as parenting comes up people become so superstitious and irrational.

[0] https://www.aap.org/en-us/about-the-aap/aap-press-room/Pages...

That could be for the simple fact that all it takes is a couple of concern people to make phone calls, and not only are you a bad parent, but you're in the system and have to do a bunch of remedial work. It's not hard, happens every day.

I have a fair amount of experience with this system. Not due to those phone calls but due to other things I did, foster care being one.

I missed edit window. Let me say just a bit more:

I cared for kids, who got placed with us. Some of those people earned that. Not good. Obvious.

On those, my wife and I did a good public service. It is hard.

But, I saw many cases where a disgruntled person ruined families too. Those kids should never have been with us at all. Yet they were, and worse, we had to hold a terrible line or it gets worse for the kids and potentially us!

A few samples:

Baby sitter feels she can do better, phones the father in. Boom. He spends 6 months being psych evaluated, his wife does not know what to think, and part of his struggle is having his johnson in a clamp while being shown suggestive kiddie pictures. That family got past it. We helped once we were free of the system. Labor of love and justice there.

They left the State the moment they could. Cannot blame them.

Ex wife hated step mom. Similar thing, both parents end up in some program. Never did get right. Just a mess, kids with relatives.

Dad loses his mind in the store. Brats got under his skin. Delivered a quick swat, lets go home. Ended up in all sorts of trouble for essentially getting a toddlers attention. Concerned people trump up abuse case. Never did see that one conclude.

People lose their kids these days. It does not take much. You should also know all public servants, teachers, many coaches are obligated to report or face charges in many places. The report bar is very, very low. An angry kid can get another kids family in the system. I saw that happen.

Having frank conversations about parenting carries grave implications these days. It was once not like this, but it is now. Among a trusted peer group it still happens as it always has.

Out in public? Internet? People are crazy to mention specifics. Just don't do it. Ever.

I do not have answers. I wish I did given what I saw.

I can help share hard won understanding. So I have.

Just know the touchy parent convo is systemic, not so much people being snowflakes or something.

Downvoted because this is your personal struggle and trauma, whereas the “bad parenting” discussion was really just about screen time. Just letting you know. But please talk to someone about it if you’re not already.

I have no struggle. Those events were hard. No doubt. Not the point.

It was an answer to the question of why bad parenting discussions often are met with angst.

People get questioned on parenting, and suddenly they are in the middle of a mess and they are there because other people said, "bad parent" essentially.

Understanding how that can happen is germane.

Here is all it would take in many States:

Those parents just leave their kids with an iPad, and do not watch their kids. Follow that with just about any scary scenario and it is likely to trigger people at your door asking questions.

What I did here was share a little from the other side of some of those events gone bad. None of those should have happened. They all were rooted in literally, "bad parent" allegations created out of thin air with basis as thin as "screen time."

Parents here should be aware of what can happen. Comments to the effect of, "WTF is it with parenting discussions?" These potential events are part of WTF.

Frankly, I only shared difficulty to underscore complete disapproval, and I should have shared we quit due to how out of control and abused it can be, and is regularly. Some if those families were of non trivial means too.

"It won't happen to me." Know I have seen otherwise, and that is all.

By the way, I really appreciate you giving the reason for the downvote. Kudos!

I rarely downvote myself, preferring to promote signal out of the noise instead. But that's just my preference. What I appreciate is knowing why, that's some understanding right there. I can use it, it's got value. I wish more of us would understand that.

Parenting is hard. Not giving your child an iPad or Youtube is not.

It’s ok, I’m a YouTube dad too.. I’ve tried to lock it down as much as possible. We mostly watch Ryan and ninja kids now.

My kid doesn't and will never have iPads until he is able to buy it for himself. Kids adjust and find ways to entertain themselves. It's an important skill they should be developing. You'd be doing them a service to just give them some inanimate toys to play with and leaving them to self-explore.

Don't worry. Everyone have this idealization of what type of parent they will be until they actually have kids. There are no rule book to say what good parent looks like.

Sounds to me like you're doing fine. Usually the people most critical of how others raise kids have no kids themselves (and/or are idiots), and therefore have no idea of the constant trade-offs you must make to keep them safe, fed, clothed, entertained, educated and also keep yourself sane.

Give them legos?

What did you think kids did before youtube?

I dunno... watch TV?

They have legos btw.

I’m a broken record on this post, but have you tried the PBS Kids video or games app?

In general no, but when it comes to plonking them down in front of a screen and turning on YouTube, that’s very much your choice. I don’t think that makes you a shitty parent either, but I think you’re misplacing your trust and it has a good chance of coming back to haunt you.

I dunno. My kids like to take YouTube things and bring them into the real world in imaginative play. You have to block peppa pig Spider-Man dentist but it’s not specifically bad. My kids are great at iPads fyi and there are a lot of educational apps. The only downside is my kids want to make YouTube videos now. Which when I was a kid my cousins put on plays and my friends and I made home made videos too.

Yeah, my oldest is actually brilliant and has learned many advanced things from YT educational videos way ahead of the curve. It's a powerful tool for self-directed education.. and also for junky toddler crack.

The problem is these content farms and ultimately the low payouts. Listen up YouTube: I would happily pay for better quality kids content. I'm about to trial Amazon FreeTime...

Why do they even have iPads? At least with a $100-200 laptop/chromebook they can learn things and build typing skills. Tablets are literally impossible (even for adults) to be productive on.

This is a very weird response. iPads are breakthrough child computers. They can use them prior to typing, reading or even fully speaking. And you said it is “literally” impossible for adults to be productive — like, not just slightly challenging. There are approx 80M iPad users. It is literally impossible to take you seriously.

> They can use them prior to typing, reading or even fully speaking.

Are you trying to say that this is a good thing? Do we expect our children to be able, say, to speak English?

This is even weirder and outright nonsensical. Observing the fact that a child can use an iPad at age 2-3 does not imply anything about expectations for their speech development.

Not OP, but from my experience my son until a certain age:

He would be very rough with my laptop, even pulling out keys and trying to throw it but be very careful with ipad. I'm not sure why.

He obviously likes the iPad more than the laptop. As a kid, I would tear the keys out of mechanical keyboards all the time out of curiosity and boredom, but that didn't break them.

Why isn’t there a Popcorn Time equivalent of children’s programming? Mr. Rogers, Sesame Street, Avatar:TLA and similar vetted content only. And strong parental controls if parents want to further limit the content.

Kernel Time?

Because their are massive anti-incentives to write that software as you won't make you any money and it puts yourself at legal risk for writing software which is designed to skirt copyright laws.

Someone wrote Popcorn Time under those same conditions...

Yeah, and then "Following its creation, Popcorn Time quickly received positive media attention, with some comparing the app to Netflix for its ease of use. After this increase in popularity, the program was abruptly taken down by its original developers on March 14, 2014, due to pressure from the MPAA" [0].

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Popcorn_Time

Ok, then why don't you write the "kids Popcorn Time"?

Because I don’t have the physical, mental, or emotional capacity to take on something of that scope. A good day for me is one where I only have to shit 10 times instead of 20 - that sort of thing kills a lot of hopes and dreams.

Usenet + Sonarr + Radarr + Plex. Kids watch curated stuff. They want something they ask me, and it's on plex in 4 minutes.

There is, its called PBS Kids and all you need to do it note your local PBS station for it to work. My 4 year old loves all of the shows on there and it is amazing what she remembers after watching because it becomes a topic at the table several days after.

Not sure why this is downvoted.

I understand it is one of the easiest pacification mechanisms for parents at the moment, but there is a cost.

Don't defer your parental responsibilities to Google's algorithms,designed to increase engagement, not "learning".

Does anybody read books to their children?

Yes I read daily. I also feed my kids pizza and ice cream from time to time and let them stay up past 8 last night. THERE IS A COST TO NEGLECTING MY PARENTAL RESPONSIBILITIES.

The best thing about YouTube and such is that you can use it as a reward activity. So effectively it's a behavior training tool.

And who are you to judge? You as a parent are welcome to see parenting your own way without imposing it to other or shaming them.

I'm not shaming him/her. They complained about something that is the easiest thing to fix. Take the damn iPad away. It's like complaining you're thirsty when you have a bottle of spring water in your hand. Not even Steve Jobs let his kid have an iPad.

Uh, you are hardcore shaming.

It was an honest question. I am genuinely perplexed at why you give your child YouTube. I'm sorry if I upset you. It wasn't intended.

This idea that people shouldn’t be shamed needs to die. People who harm people should be shamed. Parenting choices can be a way of harming people.

Not on HN, please. If you want online shaming, the rest of the internet is available.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Working backwards a bit:

> Parenting choices can be a way of harming people.

Sure, but the clarity of the information on which choices are likely harmful outside of fairly direct, physical harm is often far less than the shakers would like to pretend; it wasn't long ago (in fact it still happens even though the recommendation of the AAP has since caught up with the science) people were being shamed for providing early exposure to various nuts (the evidence note suggests the old advice that shaving was based on produced a huge surge in nut allergy prevalence, rather than mitigating risk.)

> People who harm people should be shamed.

And shaming, anyway, isn't all that effective (and certainly not a harm free) method of correction even when based on correct premises; when based on faulty premises it's an unmitigated harm.

So shamers generally deserve, by that standard, to be shamed; by a reasonable harm minimization standard they need to be corrected.

By showing youtube kids video to their child? Com'on, you're extrapolating and pushing it beyond the point.

The entire anti-shaming movement seeks to legitimize all choices. It’s wrong.

I think the best you can do is point at the scientific evidence that screen time is bad for kids, and if they won’t accept that there’s not much you can do outside of your own kids.

My sister has a 10 year old son and has absolutely no interest in even talking about parental controls. He spends all his time watching Logan Paul and who knows what else. I know how I was as a boy coming of age with unrestricted internet, and I worry about him.

> I know how I was as a boy coming of age with unrestricted internet, and I worry about him.

did you turn out ok?

when I was a kid in the early 80's kids would bring torn out pages from dad's dirty magazines, we'd sneak in to watch adult movies etc, and as far as I can tell we all turned out just fine.

On the other hand there is liveleak now and I'm not sure what effect that would have on a 10 year old's psyche. I guess we'll find out in the next decade or two.

I understand your argument. I had those experiences as well. Then I got high speed internet at 13 or so. Things changed very rapidly from there.

I really didn’t turn out ok. I don’t really want to go into details, but I turned out very far from ok. Maybe I wouldn’t have turned out different without internet, I can’t really know. I do know that I’m going to be really zealous in keeping the unrestricted internet away from my sons. And my girls, but for different reasons.

That's because people like you see 1 example and extrapolate that onto everyone's life circumstances.

For example: What about a single mom who puts on youtube for her child while she does the home chores and cooks because she does not have the money to pay for anything else (youtube is free)? Should she force her kid to sit there without any stimuli while she works? I'd argue that is far worse.

That's a false dichotomy - if you have money to buy a device to show YouTube on, you have money for books, toys whatever. And they needn't be expensive - at least in the UK, you can regularly buy 2nd hand books in mint condition for as little as £0.01 from Amazon, and we have lots of charity shops with great bargains on 2nd hand toys.

No, it doesn't. It recognises that shaming people does nothing to change behaviour or to prevent people taking up unhealthy behaviours. If anything shaming just entrenches those "bad choices".

And you're looking to shame anything, no matter how benign. That's even more wrong.

Why shouldn't parents trust a multibillion dollar company that employs literal geniuses when they say "hey, we have some videos that are suitablefor children"?

Until you've tried it you don't know how terrible it is. And by that time it's normally too late.

I'm not a parent, but I can totally see why as it is a free method for entertaining/potentially educating your child that requires extremely little involvement (time cost to the parent).

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