For Your YouTube Babysitting Files: The Kid Should See This

I’m one of those mothers who generally thinks “screen time” is bad for the kids. I try to limit the amount of television time but also the amount of time my toddlers spend in front of computers. And phones. Why do they love my iPhone so? I’m not extreme about it, I just know that learning that is tactile and involves multiple senses is best for the little ones.

Having said that, there are those times when I’m desperate. I’m trying to think about what I’m going to be writing next while the little one is having one of her world-famous ‘make her body extremely stiff and scream’ tantrums and the older one is pretending she didn’t just send the little one into fits of rage by poking her in the eye repeatedly.

This is how we discovered YouTube babysitting. That’s where you find something that will distract the kids for a precious few minutes while you put the chicken thighs in the oven or sweep the floor.

And yes, the fact is that our own household is responsible for probably a hundred of the hundreds of millions of views of the Justin Bieber “Baby” video (side note: I went to link to the video and it says it’s not on YouTube anymore. Crisis.)

But let’s say that you want your children to avoid Justin Bieber. Or you don’t want to waste time finding something fresh for your YouTube Babysitting files.

Check out “The Kid Should See This.” Curator Rion Nakaya (and her 3-year-old “co-curator”) have come up with all of these awesome videos that give kids little bite-size pieces of science, nature, music, arts, technology and storytelling.