Cine Kids - Youtube Channels For Kids

Screentime

I have to admit that I learned quite early on in my daughter's life that Youtube is not the smartest thing to use for a babysitter. But I have to admit, I too am guilty of using a screen to get a little bit of rest when the chatter just keeps going while I tried to get something done. If you add to that last year we were in the process of moving countries and the kid could not attend kindergarten the last months simply because we could not reach the kindergarten by public transport (we already made sure our car was gone in time). This meant we both had to work AND had our then 6-year-old at home all day. It was challenging at times and Youtube has helped us a little bit here and there.

Youtube experience

When our daughter was a bit younger still, we made the horrible mistake of giving her a tablet of her own, not a fancy one just a cheap thing but good enough to watch some Netflix, and later on, Youtube went into the mix. Not because we wanted her to become a zombified kid, no it began innocently like it probably does for every parent. We were looking up a video of something she was curious about and then we let her finish it by herself. Big mistake! Before you know it your child is browsing and browsing and clicking and doing some more clicking.

The shit that's being pushed forward is insane! I checked what she watched, usually just funny videos or something about crafting which she is fond of being a creative soul, and at some point, you see the nastiest and mean shit appear, at some point even scary. I really started to see how these algorithms can mess up a child's mind.

Zombified toddler!

Judge me all you want but I'm pretty sure most parents fall into the screentime trap at some point, some earlier than others. I like to think that at least I fell for it early and also learned very early in her life that this is some messed up shit that's being presented to our children. It's very stupid (so I learned) to let a child browse for an hour without a parent supervising.

What happened was even worse, she turned into an angry zombie who didn't want to stop watching and had serious behavior problems because of it. We were horrified and I saw no other option than to throw the tablet into a cabinet for there to stay for about a year. It took a few days before she stopped complaining and crying about her wanting the tablet and then something magical happened, our child became the sweetest child!

We agreed this was not going to happen again

We didn't give her back the tablet until she was a bit older and could understand she had to behave to earn a bit of screentime and only a few things were allowed after we approved. If we'd find her clicking on other stuff, we'd take it away instantly. It worked well for quite some time until it didn't and I proposed to sell it before moving out of Budapest and so we did. We also decided it was not going to happen any time soon that she'd get her own tablet. If we were to buy one again, it would be one for us, which she could sometimes use if we were ok with it. And so we did, and it works much better this way!

Not all on Youtube is bad though!

We decided that maybe we'd need to check for something to help her relax instead of looking for suitable cartoons. Something like yoga for kids. I discovered Cosmic Kids yoga and was amazed how she went all in watching these yoga videos and was super chill while also learning how to ease the mind. Very relaxing, fun, and also educational! My biggest recommendation is definitely Cosmic Kids Yoga, they also have videos for kids and their parents, hint hint. Here's one of the videos we like:

And another channel that I think is Gabby's Dollhouse, this is quite a fun watch and she is actually doing quite some creative things which is great for a creative mind like my daughter. Here's an example:

This channel has inspired my daughter to make quite a few things for her own dollhouse which has been super fun to witness. I often didn't help at all and I have been amazed how she also started creating things that weren't in the video but she totally thought out by herself. This is something I can appreciate, inspiring the child's mind to create things.

That's it for this week, I'm not a huge Youtube fan still but I could sum up more channels, possibly because I simply forgot the names, haha. But if I have more to share, I will make sure to do so in the future. If you have any tips, please share them in a comment below!

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