i've got a preteen son who spends time on youtube, and I can't block it with pihole because there are tons of really awesome things on there. Currently he's geeking out on animal facts.
What I've done as a bit of a middle ground is to use ublock to strip away the recommendation sections and comments. He can still search and watch whichever videos, and even look at all the videos on a particular channel, but at least he's not getting sucked down a rabbit hole. I've had the conversation with him that its not that I don't trust him rather I know how distracting those things can be and have found them detrimental even to my own attention/life.
Of course he'll probably go around them eventually as he learns how things work and finds some motivation to do so, but in the meantime he gets a cleaner experience of the internet.
FWIW these are the rules. They might be breaking something, but they're working alright for now.
What I've done as a bit of a middle ground is to use ublock to strip away the recommendation sections and comments. He can still search and watch whichever videos, and even look at all the videos on a particular channel, but at least he's not getting sucked down a rabbit hole. I've had the conversation with him that its not that I don't trust him rather I know how distracting those things can be and have found them detrimental even to my own attention/life.
Of course he'll probably go around them eventually as he learns how things work and finds some motivation to do so, but in the meantime he gets a cleaner experience of the internet.
FWIW these are the rules. They might be breaking something, but they're working alright for now.