 What's up internet? We talk a lot about tech on this channel and if you're a tech enthusiast of a certain age you might have other people of other ages using your tech. Thinking children, nieces and nephews, er baka mga apo mo. Like this iPad which my 3 year old daughter dropped cracking the case, jamming the power button into the frame and I had to get it fixed by a stall tech at the mall. My 3 year old watches a lot of YouTube. This Mario game to play the latest, Zelda game to play the latest. Oh goodness, here comes my daughter. See, Chage? I don't limit her screen time. I don't censor what she can watch. Does that make me a bad dad? The thing is what she watches, I also watch and a lot of the stuff is surprisingly good. So in this video, I'll touch on some channels that you might want to let your young child watch and some that you might want to skip. No promises, but you might come away thinking that perhaps a little more screen time isn't such a bad thing. So these are established channels either with an established IP behind them or an established media empire behind them. The first being very popular Peppa Pig. I have a very good friend whose daughter got into Peppa Pig and according to him, she became really maarte, fosy, kind of overacting. So he banned it. She's not allowed to watch it anymore. And I don't understand why because I love Peppa Pig. It's charming from the voices of the characters to the animation style to the little nuances. Like each character's name starts with the letter of what animal they are. So Peppa is a pig, her name starts with a P. Same with Susie Sheep, Danny Dog, Mandy Mouse, Pedro Pony, Gabriella Goat, but that pattern only extends to Peppa and her cohort, her classmates that are the same age. So that doesn't extend to the younger children like George, her brother, or the parents and grandparents. Peppa can be mischievous at times, teasing her parents, getting into spats with her best friend Susie Sheep and all of this is typical normal behavior from someone of that age. The character is not perfect, but flawed and believable. And there are allusions and references inside jokes which adults and older kids will get and which challenge the younger kids to kind of figure out what the joke is about. There's one scene where Peppa and her class visit the zoo and the zookeeper bringing them around is Mr. Lyon. He accidentally calls Madame Gazelle, the class' teacher, Miss Wilder Beast. And Madame Gazelle has to pipe up and say my name is Gazelle, not Wilder Beast. And Mr. Lyon, who speaks in a really urbane, very cultured accent, kind of a bit different from the kind of savage Lyon voice that you would imagine in your head, he goes that, oh, I'm sorry, I always mistake those two. Because from a Lyon's point of view, there really is no difference between a Gazelle, kind of deer and a Wilder Beast. They're both prey. Thank you, Mrs. Crocodile and Mr. Lyon. It's our pleasure, Mrs. Wilder Beast. Gazelle! Of course, yes. And all of this is happening just after a discussion where Madame Gazelle points out that some animals eat vegetables and then you get into a whole subtext of but some animals eat meat. I wish I could get by just eating flowers. There are also some sly references that Madame Gazelle might be a vampire as she's quite old. She taught Peppa's parents as well and she doesn't have a reflection in the mirror. So there are patterns here which a precocious toddler can pick up and appreciate their subtext, their subtlety, basically everything that you would want in a work for any age. To either say, Peppa Pig is even a bit subversive at times. Where the storylines are meant for kids but there's a lot of nuance going on just underneath the surface. Another mainstream channel with no nuance at all is Sheriff Labrador. This is classic, moralistic children's storytelling. Sheriff Labrador is the straight policeman that you can always rely on. He always finds the missing child. He always reveals that the monster is not really a monster. He is determined, polite and invariably always tells you remember kids, don't go off with strangers. Remember kids, don't open the door for strangers. Remember kids, strangers can steal your identity online. It is very in your face about the lessons you're supposed to draw from the videos. Personally, I find it a little fascist. I mean, to be honest. But the animation style is very clear. The stereotypes are important stereotypes. The idea that you can always rely on policemen Sheriff Labrador is the hero reinforced by the fact that his deputies are loyal but a bit bumbling. There are bad guys but Sheriff Labrador will always save the day. So there is zero nuance and subtext here. But the stories are generally entertaining if not particularly challenging to a toddler or let alone an adult. Next up are independent channels so no established media empire behind them but very high quality. First channel is super simple kids songs. So these are the run of the mill. You take a nursery rhyme and put new animation. But the animation is very good. One particular favorite of mine and my daughters is the roll over song. So there are 10 monsters in the bed and the little one said roll over. My daughter really identifies with the little one. The drawings capture so well the kind of mischievousness of the little one. So they have good Halloween themed videos. There's also skidmer ink. They have a good video on skidmer ink. So just top notch, entertaining animations and music. Next channel on this category is Coco B which sounds like Coco Melon but they're very different. Coco B is in the same vein as super simple kids songs where they take nursery rhymes and then they come up with new words for them. They can become quite catchy. They're talagang nasa-stuck sila sa ulo ko. The songs like mosquito party. I'm the best hairdresser. The Tyrannosaurus Rex is selling ice cream. I am a parasite so all of those if your kid watches them over and over you will start hearing them in your head. Some of them is a bit gross out humor so they talk a lot about boogers and poop. It turned me off a little bit at first because what self-respecting child talks about poop and booger but actually they're at that age, right? Coco B has a very distinctive art style but the colors are vibrant. The songs are catchy and generally harmless. Similar high production values but for older thoughts is Masha and the bear. So there's a young blonde girl living in the woods and she seems to have no parents but her caretaker is the bear. He has no name and the bear is silent reminiscent of how in Snoopy, the kids in Snoopy can always talk to each other. They always speak in English to each other but when a parent comes in the parent is always unintelligible. They speak in goobligook supposedly mirroring how adults sound like the children. In the same way, Masha can't talk to the bear but the bear has to communicate with her differently either through pictographs, popping up in the videos, images, different audio cues and things like that he can't talk to her directly. So it's Masha and the bear and then there's a whole cast of another bear that's friends with the bear, being carrots. There are the wolves that run the ambulance. A lot of the adventures take place in the forest with Masha interacting and Masha as a character is very precocious or she's a real agent in the cartoon. Bear is oftentimes assaspirated by her which if you're a parent of a three-year-old you will sympathize very much with that feeling. Masha doesn't want to go to bed and bear tries everything to get her to sleep. So these are common childhood tropes done up in an entertaining manner with a very vibrant character. Masha is really the center of the series and her spunkiness will probably translate well to your toddler. In the sense that it encourages exploration as well as just basically interacting not being afraid of interacting with the world. A more sophisticated version of Kokobi or super simple songs would be their logo character is a rat so it doesn't look terribly sophisticated at first but they do take pop songs and then put in new words so not just the normal nursery rhymes plus there's a vaguely European feel to everything. When they're talking about getting sick and having to rest up there's a lyric that talks about take a herbal tea and soon you'll be better. It's a different kind of perspective kind of cookie cutter American style. The voices themselves also have a bit of an accent. Which I want to impress on my kid that not everybody speaks the same way and it's important to value difference even if just in terms of accent. So Horikid songs does talk about a lot of the usual childhood things sharing, getting sick with strangers of the same age and it does it in a sing-songy manner which can also worm itself very fast in your head. Next type of category is actually a grab bag because the beauty of the internet, the beauty of YouTube is that there's so many videos on it and I try to use it to expose my daughter to some of the cartoons that I used to watch. So she can now sing the Snow White hi-ho song of the dwarves she has watched the Three Little Pigs very old version from Disney. She also has a liking now for Beethoven with Otto Joy being according to her favorite song. So I think it's important to lean into the strengths of the internet that there's so much variety there that occasionally you can bring your child out of their comfort zone and expose them to different things in the hope that some of them do stick whether it's as varied as classical music playing on the piano or some really old Disney cartoon that you remember from your childhood. Now the last genre is the one that I wouldn't recommend. There are a bunch of these channels and they are super popular tens of millions of subscribers. The basic format is that you have kids, usually older kids seven onwards they're playing with toys interacting with their parents and the way the editing style works is it's like a fantasy integrated into reality. So you have toys but through editing suddenly a simple sword becomes a flaming sword or they are able to jump from different locations. Usually the kids in question are Caucasian usually there are a lot of corny sound effects the adult speak in very stilted cutesy voices. I mention that I don't censor what my daughter watches but I would prefer if she didn't watch these as I don't find a lot of value in them. They are spectacle for the sake of spectacle. They're like mindless brain candy. You're just watching but there is no subtext there's no nuance, you're not getting anything from it. You see all of these toys and the toys have to be extravagant because that's what the content focuses around. The children playing with the toys and then that being hyped up by the editing. Before when you were kids and you would play with toys, you have to use your imagination to add the special effects. But for these channels, the special effects are of course already added in the video. So even the added element of imagination is nullified is no longer needed because all of the details even the imaginary ones are already filled in. I have not removed these channels my daughter has her own YouTube account which I made I tell the algorithm that I'm not interested in those channels. I am not the type to censor. We'll get into the whole parenting thing in the next segment of this video but for now, I don't want to censor like flat out, okay these channels will no longer appear on your feed but I'm trying to nudge the algorithm not to surface them as much or at all. As mentioned very little redeeming quality at least IMHO. Plus I do worry that most of the kids are usually Caucasian. My daughter is Filipino-Chinese so I worry about the representation issues like how come all these white kids are the ones having fun with all of these toys why can't I have these toys and the world is already a complicated enough place where I don't want her to constantly associate white kids having all of the toys all of these fun kind of things and I actually can't think of an Asian channel with a similar approach and that being said even if there was I probably would not recommend it also again just because it seems like a very dumb-down version kids, entertainment can be smart. It doesn't need to be dumb-down but these kind of channels seem to cater to a I'll just give you everything mindset instead of you know a little imagination a little creativity some subtext, some nuance would be nice but there isn't any of that in these channels so while my daughter still watches them kind of mentally in my head when I see her doing it so those were the shows on youtube that I find funny even for myself also for my 3-year-old daughter and some shows that I wish she wouldn't watch as much. Now this is a very hot-button topic for parents screen time, there's a lot of moralizing about it. Just for added background yes my daughter has unlimited screen time, no I don't feel that she abuses it and it's only centered in the house once we go outside she doesn't have any screens, no screen in the car, no screen while we're eating outside because I feel that when you're outside you have a whole world to explore, to put your imagination on, to run around in so I'd rather have her running around the restaurant with her brother one years old, counting tables looking at the other patrons rather than having her face stuck in a screen. So at home only screen time, outside no screen time. And this is kind of the way I was raised, a kid in the Betamax era and I remember watching Star Wars, A New Hope just the Death Star scene so when the briefing with the rebels I can recite that from memory the briefing on Yavin 4 all the way up to the attack and all the way up to the end like I would watch it over and over again on Betamax like rewind play, rewind play so in a little bit yes we didn't have the internet then we didn't have the variety but parents of my age already had access to AV equipment and depending on how your parents were you might have already had lots of screen time ngayon lang naging point of concern because screens are so ubiquitous dati ang laki ng mga TV you can bring them around a lot now the options for screens and the options for what to watch on those screens is so varied but I think I turned out okay and had a very happy childhood so I'm trying to take the lessons I learned from that to my own experience with my 3 year old I'm not saying that this is the best approach I'm not saying that you should do this I'm saying that for my situation now with my daughter because I always watch them with her all of her screen time 90% of it is beside me the shows that she watches I also watch when I said I love Peppa Pig that's not an exaggeration I love Peppa Pig my favorite character is Madame Gazelle I also watch Sheriff Labrador all of those mentioned and a bunch of other channels that I didn't mention in this video when my daughter watches I also watch beside her I provide commentary sometimes on the actual episode and later on out in the real world away from the screen I try to relate some of the things that she saw in those videos to the real world Sheriff Labrador and the police that we have here Peppa Pig's dad being an architect design buildings and then someone else the engineer making the buildings so she's not watching in isolation yes she has only screen time but it's only screen time with a parent with either myself or my wife this approach is working for us so far maybe some other parents have very strong opinions about it I'm not saying that's the approach that you should take for your kid what I am saying is that there's a lot of content out there that is targeted towards children but it's actually good both for kids and for adults and maybe more screen time isn't always a bad thing thanks for watching thanks for watching and maybe one of these days magkita tayo sa shop