Curation is key and there need to be better tools. I strongly limit my kid's screen time, and was pleasantly surprised by the PBS kids video app (and to some extent the games app). I felt very comfortable leaving her alone with that at the designated screen times, as most programs had at least some educational component... or at least had some generic but positive moral lessons. And (key!) she gets personal choice in what she watches, out of a curated garden.
As she's gotten older these programs are not cutting it, though, and she is asking for Netflix more and more. The problem is that the vast majority of kids shows are just garbage. Basically the equivalent of sitcoms or (worse) dramas about girls being cliquey or mean or whatever. I'm looking for another garden with a wide variety of bigger kid shows that have some positive qualities to them.
Sure, there are great programs on there, but I wish I could pre-select those programs and give her a selection out of them. Netflix lets me set age limits and block programs, but I'd rather spend some time selecting 20-30 shows/movies that allows her to feel free while still giving me some control
"Designated screen time" makes my stomach curl. That's a surefire way to make sure a kid who has interest never develops any skills and resents you for ruining a career opportunity later down the road (I know from experience).
I find it odd that most people in this thread are equating "screen time" to "watching videos". My parents were like that, they never understood that mucking around in OSes and writing crappy software is a totally different thing from watching YouTube videos about eggs.
I think you should modify your limits on screen time. Make limits on mindless entertainment kind of screen time, not on productive learning screen time. I'd consider it abusive to force your kid off the computer when they're in the middle of configuring a kernel "for their own good".
Like I said, I know from experience. I feel like I'm a decade behind because my parents thought I was "playing" on the computer instead of learning valuable professional skills which is what I Was doing. I doubt you're actually that kind of person, but to a point they were suspicious of my attempts to learn those things. They thought I was up to no good because I wasn't mindlessly glued to YouTube or whatever they do on their computers.
Nope, not surefire -- speaking from experience. My parents also set limits to screen time, but I have worked in software for over a decade now and see it as my main creative expression.
Torrent the shows you want her to see and setup Jellyfin server. I run one on a Xeon SOC from 2016, but i would be surprised if a Raspberry Pi 4 couldn't handle the transcoding.
Install Jellyfin app on a tablet, you just built a curated version of Netflix.
You really do have to do this if you want your kids to be able to pick what they're watching without you right there all the time. If only all these video services would just let parents add content to allow-lists for kids' accounts. But no. It's literally all we need, but they won't do it.
[EDIT] Incidentally, Jellyfin doesn't have an allow-list, either. You have to put kids' content in a separate library. They have block lists based on tags, but not a more-useful allow-list. It's been requested and I've thought about doing it—I've looked at the code, looks pretty easy—but, LOL, I have kids! Which I expect is why all the other kid-havers requesting the feature haven't gotten around to it, either.
[EDIT AGAIN] The reason the separate-library solution kinda sucks is it fragments your content, so if you're browsing based on library you have to think "wait, did I decide this was OK for the kids' library?" and it doesn't de-dupe so if you put content in both (say, with hard links to avoid wasting disk space) they'll show up twice on accounts that can access both libraries, plus it means shelling in to move files around to change what's available, plus it's a huge PITA if you want multiple kids' accounts with different content (tags are easy—older kids gets all the kid tags as allowed, younger kids get a smaller set of kid-tags allowed). I'd also personally really like to be able to not display all my kid-friendly content to them all the time (too much choice, same as adults experience on streaming services) and change it up periodically (this also lets me push better things on them that they might not pick from a list of 100 but might pick from a list of 10) which makes the separate-library especially painful, since it means file-management actions every single time I want to change up the kids' library, rather than just some quick tag-shuffling on the Web UI, which I can just do from my phone in a pinch.
There is an easy solution to this. Make 2 folders. One with stuff for you, one for stuff for kids. Make an account for the kids that can only see kids folder. Make an account for yourself that can see BOTH folders. Isn't stuff like this normal for plex/jellyfin/kodi? Before these media servers I used to organize everything based on genre and if I liked the video or not (watch using vlc)
It works, but it's worse than a tag-based allow-list.
With tags you don't need to shell or sftp in to move things around.
You never have to wonder which library something is in ("wait, did I put Star Wars in the kids' library...?") which, admittedly, matters more for some Jellyfin clients than others (the natural way to browse in the web UI or on Roku is by library—the natural way to browse on my 3rd party tvOS client is by type, which browses across libraries, i.e. movie, TV, et c., so it matters less on there).
Since it's easier to make changes, you can swap material in and out on a whim, from any device with a web browser.
I use Plex and just only input shows I want my kids to watch. It's more work, but allows me to have a garden. It's probably not Kosher legally for me to be pirating shows, but I'm only doing shows that I have access to via Netflix, Amazon, HBO etc. So morally, I feel I'm justified.
They're probably doing fine at their job. Building better tools for curation would be nearly antithetical to the goal of serving an endless stream of highest-bidder ad-supported content algorithmically chosen to keep a viewer engaged to maximize impression counts and duration.
I’m not sure that most TVs would allow much of that. But disconnecting them from the network seems wise after I saw the amount of connections mine was making (via Pihole).
As she's gotten older these programs are not cutting it, though, and she is asking for Netflix more and more. The problem is that the vast majority of kids shows are just garbage. Basically the equivalent of sitcoms or (worse) dramas about girls being cliquey or mean or whatever. I'm looking for another garden with a wide variety of bigger kid shows that have some positive qualities to them.
Sure, there are great programs on there, but I wish I could pre-select those programs and give her a selection out of them. Netflix lets me set age limits and block programs, but I'd rather spend some time selecting 20-30 shows/movies that allows her to feel free while still giving me some control