YouTube Kids Sports Options Reviewed By My Own Twins

When my oldest son was 3 he was obsessed with Cars. While my infant twins napped, he and I would hide in the office to be quiet. I’d do my thing at the computer, and he’d sit next to me in an office chair enjoying some iPhone time. Most of his allotted 20 minutes he’d spend on YouTube, following whatever trail led from my Lightning McQueen or Mater search that got him going.

On one particular day I was writing and chronicled the following:

The Boy, my 3-year-old, is easily influenced by what he sees on television. If something catches his interest, he commits every atom in his being to that one thing. It started with Toy Story and culminated with us buying him a Jessie hat, which thankfully he’s stopped prancing around the house in.

Then came Cars, and that obsession is still rocking. In fact, he’s sitting on an office chair next to me, watching YouTube on my iPhone. I don’t know what the video is, but I hear an adult male speaking with a slight accent describing a new Cars toy he recently purchased. He’s reading the box, extracting said toy from its container and describing it in detail…and it’s creeping me out.

The rabbit hole that is YouTube is a dangerous thing. According to Childwise, which specializes in children’s research, YouTube is the most popular digital brand between for those 16 and under. That’s ahead of Minecraft, Facebook and Instragram. And because of the way it’s designed, it’s so easy for a child to head down a road flacked by flowers and rainbows with a search so innocent and end up lost in a dark, dense forest of inappropriateness.

One day, while cooking dinner, Jax asked to watch Bambi clips on YouTube. I was convinced this was safe, and he could hide in his room from the twins for a bit before it was time to eat. Other than the mom dying at the beginning, it’s about as innocent as one could get, right? A few days later, he started asking me about zombies. He said Bambi’s mom was a zombie. Whattttt. This kid’s crazy, I thought. After some interrogation, he said he saw it on YouTube. So I searched Google and found what he was talking about.

Facepalm. Thanks for nothing, Cartoon Network.

Google recently relieved, at least a bit, parents everywhere when it released its YouTube Kids app for Android and iOS. As the company blogged, “the app was designed to be easier for kids to use, with a brighter and bigger interface that’s perfect for small thumbs and pudgy fingers.” It also includes features for parents to set up how and for how long the app is used. There’s a timer. We parents love timers. “Sorry, Little Jimmy. The timer says it’s time to be done, not me. I know, I think the timer is a bad, stinky mean guy, too.”

My twins, Ellie the girl and Gray the boy, just turned 4. I sat down with them to explore the sports options on the YouTube Kids app. Here is some of what we found.

SPORTS BALLS by Pancake Manor

“You throw this ball, through the hoop – a basketball” is sung by orange and purple muppet-looking things to the tune of a pop-punk two-minute music video. It’s the most watchable option under the sports search results. And that’s only because I have a huge thing for Marty Feldman.

Ellie: She really liked it, and she likes the orange guy. I guess she likes bushy eyebrows.

Gray: At first, he didn’t like it. He said the guys were weird. At the end of the video he pivoted, said he liked it, and now likes the purple guy. One day I’ll make him watch Young Frankenstein and it’ll blow his mind.

 

Baby Big Mouth Surprise Egg Learn To Spell – Sports

This is one part of a series of videos that utilize magnet letters, plastic eggs and cheap prizes to grab a kid’s attention. The camera isolates on the letters and a faceless man’s hands, which somehow creeps me out after a bit.

Ellie: She stinkin’ loved this and wanted to watch more. She’s interested in letters right now and loved discovering the prize in the egg at the end. I think he had her at the pink wristbands.

Gray: He was indifferent. He watched it, seemed interested, but at the end just wanted to move on.

Sports Finger Family

I despised this one. This is developed by a British company and features sports popular across the pond such as soccer, tennis and cricket. It’s filled with bad rhymes and gross animation. The singing isn’t any good, either. At the end of each sport’s short rhyme, the player becomes a finger puppet. A freaking finger puppet. I’d rather my kids watch zombie cartoons.

Ellie: She liked the girl playing tennis. She had no idea what the point was with the finger puppets.

Gray: Also unimpressed with the finger puppets. He asked what cricket was, and rather than get in to it, I simply told him I had no idea. He was satisfied with that answer.

Sports for Kids – Learning About Sports

Maybe I’m just a grumpy, cynical jerk, but the narrator’s voice is unlistenable. I’d rather listen to Fran Drescher read every line of hers from The Nanny. And as my wife would confess, I want to rip out Drescher’s vocal chords, load them on to the next rocket heading to space and pray that it explodes. The script worked for me, as it explains the goal in the sport, and that’s helpful to teach kids just learning about sports.

Ellie: She asked to stop watching after volleyball, 32 seconds in.

Gray: He asked to stop watching much, much earlier.

There’s more of the same after searching “sports” in the app. And while these videos were pretty lame, they held the attention of my preschoolers well enough. And I know I could hand them this app and let them head down a road that won’t lead them to zombies, twerking or Fran Drescher.

It does have Baseball Bugs, so even if it some day does lead to them learning how to assemble a pipe bomb with everyday craft items, the app is still a winner in my book.