It all started with a 19-second video of a man talking about elephants at the San Diego Zoo.
“Me at the zoo” was the first ever video uploaded to YouTube on April 23, 2005; and the young man is Jawed Karim, one of the platform’s creators.
Nearly 20 years later, over 1 billion hours of YouTube is consumed daily and the platform has more than 2.7 billion active users – many of whom are children.
According to our 2023 report on children’s tech habits, YouTube was the most popular app, with kids spending a global average of 70 minutes a day watching their favorite gaming channels, music videos, and singing human-headed toilets (see Skibidi Toilet!)
With YouTube being such an integral part of many kids’ lives, it’s not surprising if your child wants to become a creator. Although there are risks you need to be aware of, YouTubing can be a rewarding pastime for your child.
Should you let your child create their own YouTube channel?
In short, absolutely!
Creating a YouTube channel can be a valuable creative outlet for your child. It can allow them to express themselves and connect with a community while learning life-long skills, like presenting, storytelling, and video editing.
When they get older, they can even use their YouTube channel as a digital portfolio to showcase their skills to colleges and prospective employers.
However, there are always safety concerns whenever a child connects with others online. That’s why we recommend that parents balance creative freedom with a little guidance and supervision.
How old does my child have to be to start a YouTube channel?
According to YouTube’s rules, a child needs to be 13 and over to create a channel, and under-17s require parental permission. This is mostly due to child data protection laws.
This isn’t a hard-and-fast rule as many children younger than 13 have had their own channels – in 2016, the most-viewed YouTube channel in the world was hosted by a 4-year-old! Often, parents of under 13s will be in charge of the account and do the uploading while letting their child create the content.
Tips to help your child be a safe and successful YouTuber
1. Get to know YouTube’s policies
Before your child embarks on their YouTube journey, it’s a good idea for both of you to familiarize yourselves with the platform’s policies and guidelines. This will help you stay on YouTube’s good side when it comes to safety, content, community, copyright, and potentially, monetization.
If your child wants to create content for YouTube Kids, they’ll have to adhere to a separate set of rules as the spin-off platform has stricter guidelines.
2. Set appropriate privacy settings
With it being the most popular video platform for kids, parents are likely aware of the safety issues of watching YouTube and its sister app YouTube Kids.
However, having a channel comes with a new set of risks as it often involves sharing your image and personal information, as well as connecting with users via comments.
One way to minimize safety risks is by choosing the right privacy settings for your child’s channel. You have three main options for publishing videos:
- Public. Your child’s video can be searched for and viewed by anyone on YouTube. Only public videos are eligible for monetization.
- Private. Only those who’ve received an invite link can view your child’s video. This is useful if you just want to share videos with friends and family.
- Unlisted. Videos can be viewed and shared by anyone but they won’t appear in searches or recommendations. This could be a good option if you’re not yet sold on the idea of your child being a YouTuber.
By default, the video setting for creators aged 13–17 is private, but this can be changed to public or unlisted. With private and unlisted, your child’s videos will be less likely to be found and viewed by strangers – but they also won’t get the chance to go viral or be monetized.
You can also customize settings to disable comments and sharing, and to hide the video from searches, related videos, and recommendations.
As these settings can be changed later, it can be a good idea to play it safe in the beginning and ease up as you get more comfortable with your child’s new hobby.
3. Don’t use real names
You can help protect your child’s privacy by making sure they avoid using their birth name in their handles, channel names, video titles, descriptions, and the content itself.
Instead, you can both have fun coming up with aliases!
4. Supervise your YouTube star
Your child might not like being micromanaged (who does?!) but you should be watching each video they create before they upload it – at least at the beginning of your child’s YouTube career.
This is so you can ensure your child’s work does not violate any of the platform’s rules and that they haven’t disclosed sensitive information, like their address or full name.
You can consider setting up the channel under your own Google account so that you can have the final say in what gets uploaded.
5. Moderate comments
Anyone who’s been on the internet longer than 5 minutes knows that the comment section is not for the faint-hearted. It’s where trolls, bullies, racists, homophobes, and other nefarious types can spew vitriol while staying hidden from any real-world repercussions.
Luckily, you can help protect your child from inappropriate remarks and keep their community a positive place by enabling comment moderation. This allows you to review comments based on your settings before they’re visible under your child’s video. If your child’s channel or video’s audience is set as “made for kids”, then comments are automatically disabled.
With older children, it can be healthy to allow them to review comments themselves and to encourage them to report and block problematic users.
6. Set limits
It’s natural for kids to become obsessed with a new hobby, whether it’s video games, lego, or pumping out amazing content as a rising YouTuber star. While you should encourage your child to embrace their creativity, spending too much time on their channel could impact their school work and more.
Work together with your child to create an upload schedule that balances school commitments, social life, family time, and sleep. You can use YouTube Kid’s time limit feature to keep your child in check or help your family form a healthy routine with a comprehensive parental control app like Qustodio.
Launching a YouTube channel can be an exciting and rewarding pastime for your child, but like with most online activities, there are safety risks involved.
We recommend supporting them on their YouTube journey by choosing appropriate privacy settings, monitoring their videos and comments, and setting healthy time limits.
And last of all… good luck!
