This month’s article is about one of the most difficult online experiences for parents to control – YouTube. The author starts with a bold statement:

Most kids spend far too many hours watching videos, particularly on YouTube. With that in mind, I’m asking you to say NO more often than you say YES, when it comes to how much they watch. If (and when) you decide your high school student is ready for the YouTube app, then you should also have plenty of “look ‘em in the eye” moments to talk through what junk they might be seeing. Remember, YouTube has pornography.

As a committee, we offer this article with mixed feelings. On the one hand, there is so much horrible stuff on YouTube, it would be best to simply block it 100% of the time. And on the other side, there is the good stuff like a step-by-step video outlining how to repair your truck, or your kitchen faucet, or a lesson explaining a problem in mathematics. It is precisely this reason that we find ourselves in a dilemma. Please read this article cautiously. What the author recommends as appropriate for a certain age, may not necessarily be so. We feel the ideas he brings forward and the accountability he proposes hold merit, and we hope you can read it within that context.