Between the Youtube Kids app and the new Kiddle search engine, I’m feeling pretty confident that we’re going to be able to allow Olivia to search the things that she wants to find on the internet, without haphazardly allowing her to read things that aren’t appropriate for six year old eyes.
At six, the internet is native to her. If I’m not sure of an answer, she is the first person to tell me to ‘Google it’, and find out, and I often encourage her to do the same and develop those initial research skills.
Kiddle - www.kiddle.co
How does it work? Tiers are used to determine safe searches for children, with strict filters. We tried words like penis, sexy, sex and butts, and got an angry robot telling us that our search contained bad words.
When we used it for something that Olivia would likely search for, at six, like how to make slime, we noticed larger images and websites with safe instructions for children. In addition to being safer, font is easier to read for young eyes.
You can even customize the search engine with your own set of words that are blocked from searching, using the links at the bottom of the page (click here to see it in action) or request that a site be blocked that you’ve found access to on the page. We like the idea that if something is missed, parents have the opportunity to request it to be blocked. An ongoing process to make a safer, yet accessible and filled with information, search engine for children.
We have set Kiddle as the search engine default for Olivia’s ipad, with the parental controls and blocking, we will still remain in close contact when she’s using the internet - but this makes parenting a little bit easier without restricting access to information.