We understand that parents and guardians sometimes have questions about children's behavior online. We’ve put together some tools and resources to help you manage your family’s experience on YouTube.
What age does my child need to be to use YouTube?
To sign in to YouTube, you must have a Google account that meets the minimum age requirements. If a video gets flagged and we find that the uploader inaccurately stated their age during the account creation process, we will terminate their account.
Tips and advice
We ask all of our members to review our Community Guidelines, as they outline what content and behavior is acceptable on YouTube.
Online safety tips for families from Google and Common Sense Media:
- Have your teenagers make playlists of their favorite videos, while you make your own. Then sit down to watch them together. You can see what your teens are watching, and they might learn a thing or two about you.
- Take your teens on a stroll through your own TV-watching childhood by compiling a playlist of clips from your favorite shows.
- Make watching YouTube a game : Guess what kinds of videos are popular in a particular place and then use Advanced Search to see videos only in that location. It's a great way to have a conversation with your teens about cultural assumptions, tastes, similarities, and differences.
- Be mindful of who your teen interacts with on YouTube.
Tools
- Inappropriate content: If you see a video that you feel is inappropriate or which may violate our Community Guidelines, flag the video. This is the fastest way to bring potentially inappropriate content to our attention. YouTube policy specialists review flagged videos 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
- Privacy: If you feel that your child’s privacy has been violated (e.g. use of image or personal information without consent), please visit our Privacy Guidelines, where you can learn more about our privacy policy and how to file a privacy complaint.
- Harassment and cyberbullying:
- If your teen is being harassed by someone on YouTube, direct them to block the user. This will help prevent further communication from the unwanted user.
- If the harassment persists, please review the harassment article within our Safety Center for harassment prevention information.
- If you or your teen wish to report harassment in videos, channels/profiles or comments, you can report the channel by following the instructions here.
- Restricted Mode: Enabling this setting allows you to specify that you do not want to see potentially objectionable content on YouTube. Learn more about Restricted Mode.
- Moderating channel comments: There are tools available that allow your child to remove comments posted on their channel, or moderate them before they appear on your channel. To learn more read our article on moderating channel comments.
- Visit your teens’ channel: Take a look at what your teen is posting on their channel. Check out their favorites and which YouTube channels they are subscribed to. Favorites and subscriptions can give you clues about what they are watching on the site.
- Privacy and safety settings: YouTube has a range of tools and settings help users manage their experience on the site. To learn more about the the resources that are available to your teen please visit our privacy and safety settings page.