TV Shows I Let My Kid Watch

I love to watch video content. From 80+ episode-long C-dramas to hour-long LEGO-building YouTube videos, I consume a wide range of content throughout my week. I particularly like videos where I feel like I’m learning something or, at minimum, help lift my mood after a long day at work. Given how much I love shows, it’s unrealistic for me to make our home a zero-TV household. It’s also not realistic for most households in the world. However, just because we allow our child to watch television doesn’t mean they can watch anything. The quality of the program and the content is important. Moreover, I like to pick content I enjoy watching with my child. Below are our top picks for a Pre-K/Kindergarten level.

TV Shows/Docuseries

Kid Specific Programming
- Alphablocks
- Numberblocks
- Octonauts (now streaming on Netflix, too!)
- Mochi and Waffle
- Ada Twist, Scientist
- The InBESTigators
Reality TV/Docuseries
Cooking Shows
- Food Network Baking Championship/Cookie Challenges
- The Great British Bake Off (GBBO)
- MasterChef Junior (also streaming on Hulu)
- Yan Can Cook

And if your child ends up loving these shows, start introducing them to the kitchen!

Documentaries

Animal Documentaries

Animal documentaries are some of my favorite content for young children. Watching wild animals helps us understand mammals at their basic instinct level and in their natural environment. Through this lens, heavy and sometimes sensitive topics can be explored and explained to young children, like why animals fight, why death is an inevitable aspect of life, why resources are essential, and how hard it is to thrive. Among these favorites are Monkey Kingdom and Island of the Sea Wolves because the behavior and social dynamics of monkeys and canines are more similar to those of humans than other popular animals like birds or bears.

On Netflix
On Disney Nature

Train & Space Documentaries

These docs will surely be a hit with any curious young child and parent alike. Good Night Oppy will likely be popular with engineering parents.

On Amazon

Introduction to Foreign Language - Mandarin/Spanish

If learning a foreign language is important to your child’s education, television is a highly effective way of reinforcing a language your child is learning. Note that the following shows are English-speaking, so a child can consume the content first in English and then re-watch it in a foreign language.

Be sure to check out even more suggestions here, specifically for Mandarin.

Lucky for me and my video content enthusiasm, studies show that children who watch high-quality, age-appropriate shows experience fewer adverse effects from TV, even when their screen time is the same as that of other children. With this in mind, I and other parents can be mindful when selecting educational shows that also reflect positive values they want to instill. By actively curating the age-appropriate programming suggested—and even co-viewing or discussing these shows—parents can ensure TV time becomes a positive, enriching experience for their children.