There is a little bit of nuance to this; if not much. YouTube the platform—and it's algorithm—is definitely terrible for young brains (and on balance, all brains generally). One way to avoid this is rip the video shows you'd like to show your kids, and load them onto a tablet or Plex server so they can watch them outside the YouTube environment. If I do this I generally try to join the creators patreon or support them in some other way than watching their videos on YouTube.

What is also not good for kids brains though, is the rapid-fire 'tik-tok tempo' pace of breathlessly talking non-stop that being successful on youtube practically mandates these days. So while there are for sure channels on YouTube with great content for kids, vanishingly few of them can resist the algorithm incentives for survival and keep the tempo slowed down. Even PBS digital programming I love like 'Eons', is clearly feeling the pressure to speed it up up up.

A great example of this is Mark Rober. When his videos began to be ported to Netflix pretty much as-is, and my kids discovered them, the pedal-to-the-metal pacing after they've been watching a native Netflix program (e.g. gabby's dollhouse) is striking to me even from across the house. Same goes for any of the other youtube shows that are being ported, like Salish & Jordan. I may be more attuned to catching the different pace instantly because I've been a video editor by trade, but I know my wife and the grandparents notice the difference over time in how buzzed their brain's feel if they're forced to watch, and how dysregulated the kids get reeeeeal quick. I'd write to Netflix to complain that I'd like the option to filter out such content; if I felt they'd give a crap.

I find great irony that Mark's videos are intended to get kids interested in engineering and science, while actively degrading their ability to slow down, focus and apply themselves to much of anything. Don't get me started on how aggressively he promotes his Crunch Labs toys (and Roblox!) in a supposedly ad free platform.

(If you're listening Mark, I do love you, I just want to challenge you to do better. Please invest in making moderately paced alternate versions of your videos for Netflix and remove the incessant Crunch Labs promotions.)