Parental controls
Supervised search (optional)
In short
Supervised search is off by default. When you enable it for a profile, your child can search YouTube — but every query is classified before it runs, and every result is rated against that child’s settings before it is shown. Blocked queries become requests you decide on.
What it is for
A curated library is the right model for most children most of the time. It stops being the right model somewhere around the point a child starts having specific, legitimate, unpredictable questions — how to do a particular thing in a game, what a word in their homework means, how something they saw actually works.
For that child, a library you maintain by hand becomes a bottleneck, and the realistic alternative is not "no search" but "search on somebody else’s device, unsupervised". Supervised search exists so the answer can be yes without the answer being open YouTube.
It is off by default and we would suggest leaving it off for younger children. It is a widening of the boundary, offered deliberately, not something that should switch itself on as a child gets older.
What happens when your child searches
The query is classified before it runs
The search text is evaluated against safety themes and your child’s settings before it ever reaches YouTube. Queries aiming at content you have chosen to block do not execute.
A blocked query becomes a request
Rather than a dead end, your child sees which theme blocked it and can ask you to allow that specific query. Approved queries are remembered for that child, so the same search works next time without another round trip.
Results are rated individually
An allowed query still does not mean unfiltered results. Each returned video is evaluated against that child’s rating preferences, so results that fail are not shown even when the search itself was fine.
Daily limits apply to searching too
You can cap how many searches a child may run per day. Searching is a different activity from watching, and it is worth being able to bound it separately.
The settings
- Allow supervised search
- The master toggle, per profile. Off by default. With it off, there is no search beyond the child’s library at all.
- Safe mode
- Strict or moderate. Strict is the default and rejects a wider range of queries. Moderate suits an older child where strict produces too many false blocks to be usable.
- Auto-approve threshold
- Optionally allow clearly-safe results through without review, above a confidence level you set. Off by default — with it off, borderline results wait for you.
- Daily search limit
- A cap on searches per day for that profile. Leave it unset for no cap.
Common questions
Is supervised search on by default?
No. It is off for every profile until you turn it on, and it is set per profile — enabling it for a twelve-year-old does not affect a six-year-old in the same family.
Can my child see what blocked their search?
Yes. They see which safety theme caused the block, which is the point — a specific reason is something they can understand and respond to, whereas an unexplained dead end just produces another attempt with different wording.
Do search results bypass the content filter?
No. Results are rated against that child’s preferences before being shown, in addition to the query itself being classified beforehand. Both gates apply.
Should I turn this on?
For a young child, no — a curated library is a better fit and the request flow handles the exceptions. For an older child who is otherwise going to search somewhere you have no visibility into, supervised search is usually the better of the available options.
Related articles
Try it with your own kids
The free trial needs no card, and nothing installs — build a library, set a limit, and hand the device over.