Helping Our Kids Make Good TV Choices

This post about TV choices is sponsored by XFINITY.

Matthew and I have always been passionate about limiting our children’s screen time. Whether it’s a television or iPad or laptop or a handheld video game, if the device features a screen, we try our best to regulate the number of minutes they spend watching and/or tapping its screen.

In addition to the number of minutes, we also are diligent about monitoring and reviewing the content that our kids engage during their screen time. Our approach isn’t to be overly strict or controlling, but rather to empower our kids to make good TV choices and help them understand why their entertainment choices matter.

Of course, like many of our parenting passions, keeping an eye on everything that our kids watch or play is often easier said than done. But one thing that has helped make this journey a bit easier is familiarizing ourselves with all of our devices’ built-in parental controls,. I’m so thankful for those settings, which give us the ability to limit what our kids can do or see.

For instance, when Elias wants to view something on YouTube, he only uses the Kids YouTube app that we’ve preset with certain limitations. Or when Adeline wants to watch something on Netflix, she knows that she can only use the account we’ve set up for her and Elias, one that again, we’ve preset with age-appropriate limitations. While we parents should never simply trust a device and its parental settings to keep our kids viewing habits in check, being familiar with all of parental controls that apps and devices offer is certainly helpful.

Recently, Matthew and I made the decision to upgrade our current Comcast plan from XFINITY to X1 from XFINITY. Even though we’d long seen Comcast’s advertising prompts encouraging us to upgrade to X1, we didn’t instantly make the switch. After two weeks with X1, both of us have wondered why it took us so long.

In addition to X1’s user-friendly On Demand navigation and its clean, less noisy layout (thank goodness for no more commercials when we go to On Demand!), the biggest benefits are the numerous kid-friendly features its added, features that are exclusive to X1 and not available with other providers like Google Fiber.

So far, my favorite option is XFINITY’s Voice Remote. It is fun to use and so much easier than scrolling and trying to find a show or network.

It also very kid-friendly. Using the Voice Remote gives Elias and Adeline the ability to speak the name of an individual show into the remote and immediately be offered an easily navigable set of options ONLY regarding the show they want to see.

And what’s fun is that you can also speak a particular theme or topic into the remote (love the Minions? Say “banana” into the remote!) and be shown kid-friendly TV choices that are both age-appropriate and shows your kids actually want to watch. Again, Google Fiber and other providers don’t offer this.

The other X1 kid feature that we’ve fallen in love with is its Kid’s Zone, a fantastic kid section that features a huge selection of free and premium kid-friendly programming, including, movies and TV shows.

As a parent, I really appreciate that the X1 operating system from XFINITY has a large number of exclusive kid-friendly options and features that keep parents in control. My favorite safety option is the ability to prevent my kids from moving the channel up or down, ensuring that they’re not going to go channel surfing and be subject to violence, language, sexual situations, or adult-oriented commercials. Again, these features don’t alleviate a parent’s need to be fully engaged in their child’s viewing habits, it just makes the journey a good bit easier.

So far, Elias and Adeline love X1’s new kid-friendly features as much as we do.

What are your family’s favorite kid-friendly shows? How do you help your kids make good TV choices? Do you use parental controls on families systems and devices?

This post is part of a 3-month compensated partnership with XFINITY. However, our family chose to upgrade to X1 prior to any outreach from XFINITY.  All thoughts about the service’s benefits are my own.