We were in the car on vacation when Big Kid pipes up with:
"You know dat Numa Numa song? Da one I like? "
We nod, having heard the song and every possible remix of it at least 900 times thanks to him.
He pauses, seemingly deep in thought. "W-well, uh, I wanna tell you somefin', you know dat cartoon you were watchin' last night? When I came out of da room and you said for me to hurry up back in bed 'cuz it's a grown up show you don't want me watchin'?"
"Yes," I answer, remembering saving him from seeing South Park the night before.
"Hmmm," he said. "You know what I heard from a friend of mine? Dis is not somefin' I seen on YouTube, dest somefin' I heard from a kid at school..."
"What's that?" I ask casually, Mr. Ashley and I exchanging glances in the front seat.
"A friend told me dat dose cartoon people sang da Numa Numa song and it was on YouTube, but only for grown ups. Dat's what my friends were sayin'."
Other than his blatant LYING, the alarming part of this whole scenario was the completely casual and convincing way he delivered his lie. Sure the lie itself is absurd, and I'm not quite so dumb as to think that Numa Numa remixes on YouTube are a hot topic amongst normal Kindergartners, but his ability to play it off as cool as he did was cause for concern. He used to make a completely bizarre face whenever he lied which was a dead giveaway, but once he attains the ability to come up with reasonable lies, I might be in trouble.
"Hmmm, that's interesting. That's why kids aren't allowed on YouTube, because grown up stuff is on there. If you ever saw anything really weird or confusing, I hope you'd ask me about it though because I wouldn't be mad, I would just want to know what you saw so that I could help you understand it or why it isn't appropriate for kids. But you're not allowed on YouTube without a grown up around and that's why."
"I know," he said, looking completely guilt-stricken. I left it at that because I was on vacation and half-assed parenting is allowed on vacation.
Recently we downloaded KidZui, the internet for kids, and that's been perfect because he can watch videos and wander around to different websites that are all kid-friendly and it keeps him busy and seems safe. I also just heard about Kideos and it looks like it is right up his alley; he loves clicking from video to video and seeing different things, so that may cure his YouTube craving.
Out of curiosity, I did search for the clip in question and don't think he saw anything (that I know about yet) that would permanently damage him but I think it's best to keep him contained from here on out.
7 comments:
oh lord.... years ago my son tried to go to Disney.com but spelled it wrong...I can;t even tell you the bizarre, gross stuff that came up!
My son just turned 7 and has been obsessed with YouTube for almost 2 years. It's awful. He tricked me one time by just hitting the back button several times after I had showed him a video he wanted to see and then redirected him to nickjr.com. I walked in and he was watching some car video with lots of bikini clad women describing them. I was mortified and have since had to block the site all together. I'm definately going to try the kidzui site though. I could use all the help I can get! ;o)
He's smart. Not a lot you can do about that.
Eh, it could be worse. My friend's 8 year old saw a BJ online a few weeks back. Talk about an awesome conversation.
If by *awesome* you mean 'feeling like the worst parent in the world'.
All I want to know is... where can I find this BJ online?
It's a strange feeling when they cross over from not even having the ability to lie, to doing it quite handily. I think they learn it in school when they are around other kids. Our princess wasn't even able to lie until the age of five. It was funny. You could always count on her telling on herself. When the first lie came, it was a weird feeling. Now she pulls it whenever she gets in trouble. I don't know whether to feel sad about it, or indifferent. She's 10 now, and a pro at drama.
Kideos and Kidzui seem to be a great alternative to YouTube etc. Thanks for the post!
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