Help! My Tween Daughter Would Rather Watch Things on YouTube Than Do Them Herself

When she was younger, my nine-year-old daughter—I’ll call her R—loved to play pretend with her brother, do arts and craft projects, go to the playground and engage in all that other normal kid stuff. And she still enjoys these activities…on a good day. But I’ve also noticed a troubling trend in her behavior, and it all revolves around her newfound obsession: YouTube. 

I admit that I gave up on screen time limits a while ago (i.e., when I separated from her dad and had to figure out how to get my work done and run a household on my own). I also don’t have a huge problem with her vegging out and watching TV. After all, she spends seven hours a day at school where she tires herself out learning challenging new material, running around at recess and navigating complicated social dynamics.

But then…these mindless YouTube videos started to replace her daily watches of Bluey, Just Add Magic and The Babysitter’s Club. So what’s the problem with YouTube, you ask? Well, it isn’t that she’s watching inappropriate content per se; it’s more that she’s taken a liking to these (in my opinion very weird) videos of other people doing things that she could be actively doing herself. 

Think: The random middle-aged woman who animates Barbies along with squeaky high voices. (I’m guessing at her age based on her hands because that’s the only thing you see in her videos, which adds to the creepiness). Or the admittedly entertaining and rather likable YouTuber who transforms ‘squishies’ with paint. R had an enormous Barbie Dream House and plenty of Barbie dolls collecting dust in her room when she started watching these videos. And she’s a talented artist who has plenty of supplies at her disposal to use for her own projects. What gives?

To help parse my discomfort with the platform, I chatted with Dr. Bethany Cook (PsyD, MT-BC), a licensed clinical psychologist and author of For What It’s Worth: A Perspective on How to Thrive and Survive Parenting.

Dr. Cook agrees that the addictive quality of YouTube can make kids and adults, well, lazy. “It's [a platform for] ‘I need stimulation and some dopamine. But I don’t need to get it myself because I know I can go turn this on [for] instant dopamine gratification,’” she explains.

She also notes that the ease of this dopamine hit is particularly tempting for kids like my daughter, who show signs of ADHD. Kids who feel like life has too many options, who want to do something but are paralyzed by choice, can watch YouTube and feel the rush of activity, without actually having to make the decision to do it. Truth be told, I can relate to that feeling…and so can you, if you’ve ever spent 45 minutes mindlessly scrolling Instagram or Facebook.

Then there’s the issue of perfectionism. When kids watch perfectly curated content on YouTube or other social media platforms, perfectionism can become a major deterrent to action. When I asked my daughter about all of this, she insightfully described it as a feeling of self-doubt. As in, “I know I want to paint…but what if the art I make doesn’t come out looking as picture-perfect as the one I see unfolding on the TV screen?”

As for the antidote, Dr. Cook told me that I don’t need to remove her access to the YouTube videos she enjoys, but rather to take them as an opportunity to better understand R’s interests and encourage her to pursue them in a more hands-on way. If she’s watching a slime-making video, she should follow that up with a slime-making session. If she’s binging ukelele content, maybe I should get her lessons. The catch? According to Dr. Cook, I have to encourage my kid by doing those things with her. Indeed, the real takeaway from the conversation wasn’t that there’s something wrong with R, but that there might be something wrong with me. I have lost touch with my inner child, and to help my daughter I need to channel it better.

So how is all this inner-child-playfulness going? Well, when I first instructed R to play with her Barbies instead of just watching someone else do that on TV, she told me she was too old for pretend play. But the second time I asked, she relented, and said she would if I would with her. I suggested we use our 3D doodling pen to make some new accessories for the Barbies together and, you know what, it was an afternoon well spent.

And on that note, I guess I arrived at my New Year’s resolution a month later than most. So here it is: Playing with my tween at least twice a week in areas related to her YouTube interests…even if it means learning new things or dealing with slime on my carpet. See you in Neverland, friends.