You Tube Pros and Cons

Youtube is an amazing internet tool for both information and entertainment. It can however be very dangerous for the family. It contains many great and entertaining videos, but it also contains much pornographic and offensive content.

What can you do as a concerned parent?

Should you ban your kids from Youtube?

The answer is not a simple ywes or no answer. Maybe, you should ban your kids from you tube. That depends on many factors. I for one enjoy youtube, but I exercise much caution when using this site. Here are a few tips that I think will help you out on this subject.

1. Don't let any child or teenager use youtube, or the internet for that matter, who has not been taught what type of content and websites are appropriate and which are not. They need to know what is right and wrong if they are allowed to use youtube.

2. There are systems set up on you tube to flag inappropriate content. I don't know how effective these systems are because there is so much garbage out there that we could never flag it all and if you choose to flag it you have to look at the thumbnail or video for longer than you may want to. On the other hand it is important to voice our opinions. We know the other side of the fight is more than willing to voice theres. I'll let you decide whether or not to flag inappropriate content and whether or not to teach your children to flag inappropriate content.

3. DO NOT let your children have computers in their bedrooms or in overly private places. Put the computers in a high traffic area of your home.

4. Install some type of internet filtering software on your computer. In future posts I will make recommendations and write reviews about these types of products.

5. Choose to watch you tube videos on familysafemedia.blogspot.com. I will post videos I find on youtube and other sites that are 100% family safe.

I hope these were helpful tips to keeping your family safe on Youtube.

I want to here your opinions on the subject. Please debate the comments I've made and other people have made in the comments section of this post.

Help answer the question should we allow our kids to go on Youtube and similar websites?
If we allow them to how can we help keep them safe?