YouTube Safety and Autism
Most kids love YouTube. And many autistic children really, really love YouTube.
My son loves the never ending stream of Barney and Thomas videos. He loves the music and the variety. He can easily move from trains to Daddy Shark.
And honestly, I’ve never really worried about it. Jamie or I are always near him. We monitor what he watches. We listen. And even giggle when we hear Barney speaking in German or Spanish.
But unfortunately, some frightening news is surfacing about the platform. The same things that make YouTube great for kids also attracts people who are using it to introduce children to concepts like suicide and self-harm.
And while my very verbal six year old can tell me if he sees something scary my nonverbal autistic son cannot. He internalizes fear and it comes out in different ways.
Meltdowns, sleeping troubles, extra stimming. And as every autism parent knows, it’s a mystery to figure out why.
This is scary, scary stuff.
If your child watches YouTube, we as parents needs to be extra careful.
PediMom says, ‘Four minutes and forty-five seconds into the video, a man quickly walked onto the screen, held his arm out, and taught the children watching this video how to properly kill themselves. What did I just see? Did I really just see that? I immediately turned off the video. My son’s nose stopped bleeding, and I further investigated the video in private while he went to play. I watched it again, certain that I had dreamt it up. I know YouTube had some sick videos, but I thought YouTube Kids was safe. They sure make it seem like it is.
But – no. There it was again. Four minutes and forty-five seconds into the video. The man quickly walked in, held his arm out, and tracing his forearm, said, “Kids, remember, cut this way for attention, and this way for results,” and then quickly walked off.’ Click HERE to read the rest of the article.
YouTube is aware of and trying to fix the problem, but it’s a really hard one to fix because it’s really hard to police YouTube.
Recently, another terrifying video circulating the web is encouraging children to kill themselves.
And it’s showing up in videos targeting 2-5 year old children.
It’s called the ‘MoMo Challenge.’ A creepy, bugged-eyed woman offers children instructions on how to take their own lives. The horrifying video has been infiltrating popular children sites like YouTube Kids.
Momo targets children and when they do not comply with Momo’s request, Momo threatens to kill them or their families. Momo requests the child to take suicidal actions like sticking a fork in a power socket.
A 12-year-old girl has already died from what is believed to be “completing the Momo challenge.”
This image is enough to haunt my dreams let alone an eight year olds.
Kids are impressionable.
We need to be so careful as parents.
With a verbal child you could ask questions to figure out if they have seen Momo or something similar. With my son, that is not an option. I need to be extra vigilant.
If you have concerns, think about removing the YouTube app from devices. I know Cooper would be so confused and upset. And of course he will struggle to understand why.
But this stuff is just too scary.
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I highly recommend the amazon fire for kids and subscribing to the amazon free time program… endless apps for children that are fantastic… engaging and not disturbing. They even have appisode like my son who is two is in to the lion guard appisode right now where they watch a show and play games along the way
Much much safer than YouTube
This is horrifying and the person responsible needs to be locked up. Our sweet little 8 year old boy is autistic and mostly non-verbal. Just like so many of our kiddos, he loves to surfe YouTube. Last summer some man was filming and posting videos called “well it flush”. Our kids can take things quite literally, right ? So yeah, he started flushing everything and anything he could get in his hands. It was a nightmare to us because he kept clogging toilets, overflowing toilets so badly that we had leaks downstairs. Another time there was an object stuck so badly that we had to call a plumber in. That cost us right around what a car payment would be. Everyone told us to lock our bathrooms. Easy to give advice but not the right situation for our son. He was potty trained, for the most part, by the age of 6. We WORKED so hard to help him with this. He would still have an accident now and then if he waited to long to go. He became fully potty trained by 7 years old. I didn’t want to lock the bathrooms. I didn’t want to undo all the training we did and clause a set back. I was SO upset the. That some sicko would post these types of videos. Now this??!! Now we have to worry about a sick minded person who instructs children how to harm or possibly kill their selves? Why should we have to cut off Youtub for children because they allow a demonized person post such harmful videos ? ! We do have the Kindle and I’ve tried to get him to use it. For some reason he just doesn’t take to it.