Videos – not a need, a want

Even if they are a coping tool, they are not a reliable or adaptive one. They are maladaptive in that they make you more dependent, not more independent and they reduce your ability to focus by deliberately trying to catch and keep your attention.

They can be very entertaining and help us learn and explore, and if we only learn and explore that way, we are missing out on other forms.

Either don’t watch or watch responsibly/deliberately/intentionally/mindfully.

Why? To avoid seeing something horrible that cannot be unseen.

To do responsibly:

Watch with (supervising authority) or watch only ones from subscribed channels – (supervising authority) needs to approve, double check if kid added subscriptions. To ensure one of those two:

Before starting a new video, tell (supervising authority) how long the video is, who it’s by (confirm that it is subscribed/approved or request supervision if not) and set a timer for the video length.

This is to avoid losing time watching one video after another with no deliberation – at the mercy of the algorithm. Kid has gotten very upset before at losing track of time watching videos and requested help making sure it did not happen again and that no more than 5 hours a day was spent watching videos even on the weekends. Kid wants to make sure they have a diversity of experiences (we use Trello for tracking things that we don’t want to forget and can’t do right now).

This method did not work because (supervising authority) was not capable of enforcing it yet and kid wasn’t capable of following it yet.

Kid and (supervising authority) agreed that we would only use YouTube kids, or YouTube on kid’s google account so that it can be restricted. Kid’s google account can only be used on kid’s user account on the tablet – this is a software limitation.

Right now kid can still access (supervising authority)’s account on the tablet. If kid cannot stick to using YouTube kids or YouTube on their account, (supervising authority) will have to change the password so that kid can only access his account.

(supervising authority) will need to work on moving game data over from their google account to kid’s. Kid will need to work on being patient or helping around the house so (supervising authority) can move the data.