My son watches NetFlix movies from my Kindle.  My hubby got me a Kindle Fire last Christmas, and it’s helped me to read a lot more, which was my goal.  But to be honest, my son uses it a lot more than me.  I downloaded several educational learning apps for him on my Kindle and to his LeapPad.  He’s very savvy on the Kindle, so I had to block the web so that he couldn’t surf YouTube videos online.  I do allow him to watch Netflix movies with permission, but there was still a problem.

Even though the parental control for my Netflix account is set to only let G-rated movies to play, there’s still a lot of G-rated movies I don’t care for my son to watch!

I had to do a lot of manual monitoring when he used my Kindle.  So I wondered if I could automatically control what he watches, and there is!  The method I excolor-box in the video below seems to work great.  Check it out.

You can also watch this video online.

For those of you who would rather, “read how to do it,” continue reading.

First, make sure you’ve restricted Netflix to only play G-rated movies.  You do this by clicking into MY ACCOUNT in the upper-right corner, then under PREFERENCES select the first option, PARENTAL CONTROL. You’ll be prompted to log-in again (for security purposes). Then select G AND BELOW to only show G-rated movies.

Now follow these 3 steps below to further censor G-rated movies:

1.  Rate the Videos.  

You can do this from the WATCH INSTANTLY tab (usually the homepage).  Hover your mouse over any movie and select 5 if you want your child to watch it. Select NOT INTERESTED if you don’t.  Netflix will no longer readily suggest the videos you’re not interested in.

2.  Configure Taste Preferences.

 Under TASTE PREFERENCES, first go to TASTE PREFERENCES, then in the upper-right change the drop-down menu to select CHILDREN’S AGES.  Set all the ages to NEVER except the age range that matches your child.  Also under TASTE PREFERENCES at the top, this time to go RATE SHOWS & MOVIES.  Then change the “Rating Movies in” from ALL GENRES to CHILDREN & FAMILY.  The number in the right-hand part of the screen will show you how many movies you’ve rated to-date.  I”ve rated 341 so far. It took me a good half hour or so to do that but it’s a great investment of time due to the result.  Also on this same screen it will show you videos you’ve not yet rated or new ones added to that category. You can rate them now or later.

3.  Review Recently Watched Videos.  

Lastly, on the WATCH INSTANTLY tab again, this time click the RECENTLY WATCHED link in the upper-LEFT corner, just below the Netflix logo.  When clicked, you will see all movies watched on your account, and you have another opportunity to rate them.  The red colored ratings are ratings given by Netflix on your behalf. You can change it if they’re guess is wrong. The yellow colored ratings are movie’s you’ve rated.

After after the above three steps, your tablet or smart phone device will not readily suggest or offer videos that you don’t want your children to watch!   I’ve read elsewhere on the web that making changes to the parental controls can take up to 8-hours for this to take effect, but I seem to get instant results. I use the Netflix app on my Kindle Fire.

I should also mention that this “tactic” doesn’t work if you child is a great speller and savvy on your device. For example, if your child can spell “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” (or really just the word “turtle”) and does a SEARCH for that title in the search field provided in the upper-right corner of the Netflix app, then the video will come up and your child will be able to play it. So this trick of rating the videos is more applicable for smaller children who can’t spell. For example, my son falls into the 2-4 age range, and he can not spell that great yet.  And fortunately he doesn’t know the names of the titles I don’t want him watching to spell those!  So bear that in mind.

My son already noticed that he’s no longer offered movies that Mommy doesn’t want him watching.  But he also sees more of the movies I do want him to watch and has taking a liking to them (e.g., Veggie Tales, SuperWhy, etc).  So I knew I had to share it with other parents.

Please share this info with parents you know who have small children.  Thank you for reading!

Question:  Did you find this tip helpful?  Was it easy to find and understand?  What can make it better?  What other tips do you think would be helpful to have online?   Comments are welcome below!