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Best Streaming Services for Kids 2023

Your family can discover and enjoy content on these services — with a parent’s permission.

Streaming services may be your kids’ go-to source of TV entertainment aside from YouTube or Cartoon Network. Streamers such as Disney Plus and Netflix can offer something for the entire family to watch and are often the sole home of franchises you can’t find on YouTube. 

But as a parent, you probably want to keep an eye on their viewing habits, ensuring the content is fun and age-appropriate, whether it’s educational or entertainment. Fortunately, there’s more than one streamer that offers a mix of family-friendly content and parental controls. 

Each streaming service on this list is packed with great TV shows and films, with some acting as headquarters for your kids’ favorite characters. Here’s a guide for choosing which kids streaming service may be the best fit for your family.

Where do we begin? With a wealth of content rated PG-13 and below, Disney Plus has a large catalog of kid-friendly series and films. In addition to carrying Disney Junior, Disney Channel and everything else with the Disney stamp, you’ll find Pixar, National Geographic, Marvel and Star Wars titles on the platform. 

Keep toddlers occupied with animated and live-action versions of Disney classics, or binge on every title starring Bluey, Tinkerbell or all their other favorite characters. Tweens and teens can enjoy The Proud Family, Gravity Falls, Turning Red and Marvel’s Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur, and movies from the Disney Channel or the company’s blockbuster lineup are a click away. 

To navigate Disney Plus’s library, you can click on a designated tile for Pixar, Marvel, etc., or search by title, character, or genre. Kids and parents can scroll through the platform’s special collections, musicals, movies, and exclusive originals and shows from every decade of Disney.

Parental controls allow you to add a four-digit PIN and set ratings limits for each regular profile. But creating a kid’s profile automatically curates content that’s appropriate for all ages. To add an extra layer of security, toggle the Kid-Proof exit feature that prevents kids from switching profiles. If you opt for the $7 ad-supported version of Disney Plus, note that many kids’ titles contain commercials. But you can stream Disney Plus entirely ad-free for $8 a month.

Paramount Plus has its nice collection of iconic characters and series. It’s basically Nickelodeon central. SpongeBob, iCarly, Rugrats, Paw Patrol, Peppa Pig and other Nick superstars sit beside Paramount Plus originals Big Nate and Star Trek: Prodigy on the platform.

You’ll find a kids’ section on the menus for the shows or movies tabs, but you can also search for Noggin, Nick Jr. or other branded content on Paramount Plus. Additionally, there are five live channels that run content 24/7 for kids, including dedicated hubs for SpongeBob, Paw Patrol and «Kids and Family Fun.» 

Paramount Plus enables parents to create kids’ profiles by activating «Kids Mode.» Choose an avatar and specify whether it’s for older kids or younger kids, and the content will adjust ratings based on your selection. Subscriptions cost $5 for the ad-supported Essential version and $10 for ad-free Premium.

Netflix offers a range of kids’ titles in the realm of music, education and entertainment and the platform caters to every age and stage in your child’s life. Popular series include CoComelon, Octonauts and Ask the Storybots. The streamer routinely drops new originals including The Sea Beast and My Dad the Bounty Hunter, but there are plenty of Dreamworks titles on Netflix, too, such as Camp Cretaceous. 

Netflix’s search function allows you to drill for niche content like kiddo-friendly movie adaptations, cooking stuff or coming-of-age stories. Type in a specific term or a «hidden» code and you’re likely to find a match.

Where the streamer stands out is with its kids’ profile. While you can set up parental controls on each profile with ratings restrictions, the Netflix Kids Experience comes with a bright logo and a ready-made batch of content. No need to handpick shows and movies for young ones, because the streamer does it for you. If you select titles outside the ratings limits for Kids Experience, the logo is removed and the profile type is automatically changed.

To cap it off, the platform showcases a Top 10 row for kids’ programming and sends out biweekly emails to parents with recommendations and other child-centric tools. Last year, Netflix introduced a «Mystery Box» feature on kids’ profiles, which surprises them with a new title to check out. Go ad-free for $10 per month or try the ad-based plan at $7 a month. 

Don’t sleep on HBO Max. Not only is it the place to stream Cartoon Network favorites like We Bare Bears and Adventure Time, but also Sesame Street, Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry, and animated DC superheroes. That includes the OG Teen Titans. 

HBO Max allows you to select Kids & Family from its menu and then you’ll be taken to its dedicated page. To make it easy to find content, you can click on a character’s icon — like Elmo, Scooby Doo and Batman — for a program lineup featuring said characters.

Prefer to search a different way? HBO Max divides content into categories for kiddos ages 2-5, 6-9, 10-12, and 13 and up. You can also browse titles from A-Z or search specifically for series or movies. The streamer also announced the addition of Lellobee City Farm, Blippi and Vlad & Niki for its preschool Cartoonito audience. But don’t forget there are plenty of movies available for teens who need a break from animation.

While you can watch TV with your children, you can also just give them their own kid profile on HBO Max. The service requires adults to log a four-digit PIN in order to create it, and then provide birthdate information so the system can customize age-appropriate content. Subscribe to HBO Max for $10 a month with ads or $16 for the ad-free version. 

For decades, PBS Kids has been the destination for Sesame Street and other childhood favorites. Elmo, Arthur, Daniel the Tiger and Curious George are among the characters who entertain while teaching lessons. While SpongeBob and Disney get a lot of love, it’s noteworthy that Arthur was the longest-running animated kids’ show in history. The 8-year-old aardvark is a PBS rock star. And though Warner Bros. Discovery and HBO own Sesame Street, new episodes are still available to watch on PBS Kids.

PBS Kids is available to Prime Video subscribers for free, and kids can access it 24/7 on The Roku Channel. But parents, you can also download the stand-alone PBS Kids video app for free on your mobile device or TV. That means your children can stream Elmo or Wild Kratts when you’re on a road trip or visiting family. 

Like PBS Kids, Kidoodle TV offers free entertainment that’s geared toward younger children up to age 12. Some of the content is educational, and some is purely recreational. The app features licensed TV shows and movies from properties such as Lego, My Little Pony, SpongeBob, Pokemon and Baby Shark.

But there are also videos from the Dodo about nature and animals, game-themed content with Mario, Minecraft and Roblox, and a host of crafting tutorials. YouTube favorites like Ryan’s World are nestled in with picks that focus on learning. Kidoodle also has a set of originals that launched in 2020, including StoryRaps from Wes Tank. Another plus is that parents can choose videos from Little Pim that teach five different foreign languages: French, German, Spanish, Russian and Mandarin.

You can watch for free as a guest on Kidoodle without registering. But if you sign up, you’re able to create accounts for kid or parent users. Everything on the app is age-appropriate, vetted by Kidoodle parents and staff. The Freemium account includes family-friendly ads, but if you want to skip the commercials, you can get the Premium version for $5 per month.

PIN-enabled parental controls enable you to set screen time limits, choose titles or set curfews with the option to automatically turn the app off. And the analytics feature gives you a glimpse at viewing habits. Kidoodle is available on Roku, FireTV, smart TVs and other devices.

Kids streaming services FAQ

Are Hulu and Amazon’s Prime Video great for kids too?

We considered both streaming services for this list but examined content offerings as well as user-friendly interfaces. While Prime Video has some original content, it gleans much of its kids’ programming from Nickelodeon, PBS Kids and other Viacom properties. The same holds true for Hulu. It’s easier to access these shows and movies directly through Paramount Plus or PBS. 

What if you don’t want your kids watching ads while streaming?

We know that screen time is not the only area of concern, because advertising impacts kids, too. Disney Plus has an ad-supported plan that includes commercials in its kid-friendly content. But Netflix’s ad-based plan keeps ads out of children’s titles. Both services — in addition to HBO Max, Kidoodle and Paramount Plus — offer more expensive plans if you want to watch all content without commercials. The PBS Kids app is ad-free.

 

Which streaming service has the best parental controls?

While you can set parental controls on streaming devices from providers like Amazon, Roku and Apple, you can also monitor and restrict what your kids watch directly on the services. Netflix, Disney Plus and HBO Max have the best features for allowing you to set maturity ratings and PINs for kids’ profiles.

Technologies

iOS 26: AI Summaries Come Back to iPhone News Apps, but With a Warning

Apple initially disabled these summaries in January.

Apple released iOS 26 on Monday, a few months after the company announced it at the June Worldwide Developers Conference. The update brings a new Liquid Glass redesign, call screening and hidden features to your iPhone. The update also brings AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps back to Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhone.

Apple disabled AI notification summaries for news and entertainment apps in January. That came a few weeks after the BBC pointed out in December that the feature twisted the media organization’s notifications and displayed inaccurate information. 

Here’s what to know about those AI summaries and the new warning.


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iOS 26 warns about summary inaccuracies

When I updated to iOS 26, I was greeted by some splash screens asking for various permissions. One splash screen was for the AI notification summaries. When you see this screen, you have two options: Choose Notifications to Summarize or Not Now. If you tap Not Now, the splash screen goes away. 

If you tap Choose Notifications to Summarize, you’re taken to a new page where you’ll see three categories: News & Entertainment, Communication & Social and All Other Apps. Tapping one of these categories allows notification summaries for apps in that category. Beneath the News & Entertainment category, there’s a warning that gets outlined in red if you tap it.

«Summarization may change the meaning of the original headline,» the warning reads, adding, «Verify information.»

There’s also a warning across the bottom of the screen that reads, «This is a beta feature. Summaries may contain errors.»

After tapping the categories you want, tap Summarize Selected Notifications across the bottom of your screen. If you selected all the categories, this button will read Summarize All Notifications.

And if you don’t want these summaries, you can tap Do Not Summarize Notifications. If you allow these summaries and don’t like them, you can easily turn them off. Here’s how.

How to turn off AI notification summaries

1. Tap Settings
2. Tap Notifications.
3. Tap Summarize Notifications.

4. Tap the Summarize Notifications toggle in the new menu.

You can also follow the above steps to turn AI notification summaries back on. You’ll have to select which categories you want these summaries for again, too. 

For more on iOS 26, here’s my review of the OS, how to reduce the Liquid Glass effects in the update and how to enable call screening on your iPhone. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet.

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Technologies

Amazon Prime Is Ending Shared Free Shipping. What to Know and When It Happens

How Prime Invitee program’s end could affect your free deliveries.

If you’ve been using someone else’s Amazon Prime membership for free shipping, but you don’t live in the same house, you may need to pay another subscription fee soon. According to Amazon’s updated customer service page, the online retail giant is ending its Prime Invitee benefit-sharing program Oct. 1.

Amazon’s Prime Invitee program is being replaced by Amazon Family, as reported earlier by The Verge. It includes many of the same benefits, but Amazon Family only works for up to two adults and four children living in the same «primary residential address» — a shared home. 

You’ll still be able to use free shipping to send gifts elsewhere, but your Prime Invitees will no longer be able to use the perk.


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Amazon isn’t the first company to prevent membership sharing between family and friends. The e-commerce giant is just the latest to follow Netflix’s account-sharing crackdown. While it’s unclear whether this change will work for Amazon, Netflix gained over 200,000 subscribers following its policy change. We also saw a similar account-sharing crackdown with Disney Plus and YouTube Premium. 

Read more: More Than Just Free Shipping: Here Are 19 Underrated Amazon Prime Perks

What the Amazon Prime shipping crackdown means for you

If you’re the beneficiary of someone else’s Prime Invitee benefits, you have one more month to take advantage of the current program before the changes take effect.

Starting in October, you’ll have to get your own Amazon Prime subscription to benefit from the company’s free shipping program. First-time subscribers get a year of Prime membership for $15, but you’ll be stuck shelling out $15 a month to maintain your subscription thereafter.

Read more: Your Free Pass to Prime Day Deals (No Membership Required)

Why is Amazon ending the Prime Invitee program?

This move follows shortly after Reuters reported that Amazon’s Prime account signups slowed down recently despite an extended July Prime Day event. While the company reported blowout sales numbers, new Prime subscriptions didn’t meet internal expectations. In the US, they fell short of last year’s signup metrics. 

According to Reuters, Amazon registered 5.4 million US signups over the 21-day run-up to the Prime Day event, around 116,000 fewer than during the same period in 2024, and 106,000 below the company’s own goal, a roughly 2% decline in both metrics.

By forcing separate households to have their own subscriptions, Amazon could be looking to attract more Prime accounts after previously failing to do so. 

The new Amazon Family program (previously known as Amazon Household) offers Prime benefits to up to two adults and four children in a single home, including free shipping, Prime Video, Prime Reading and  Amazon Music. The subscription also includes benefits for certain third-party companies, such as GrubHub.

Impulse Buys Under $25 on Amazon That Make Surprisingly Great Gifts

See all photos

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Technologies

Pokemon TCG Pocket’s Pack Points System Needs an Overhaul Yesterday

The pack-opening pity points system is pitiful. There’s a very easy way to improve it.

Pokemon TCG Pocket is more than a mobile game: It’s a money-making machine. The virtual trading card app raked in more than $900 million in its first six months, eclipsing even Pokemon Go’s revenue in the same post-release time span. As it turns out, fake Pokemon cards are just as much of a hot commodity as the real thing.

People love ripping open card packs, hunting down ones with their favorite illustrations of fan-favorite Pokemon. It feels great to beat the odds by pulling an elaborately-inked full art or a shiny secret rare. But it really starts to irk me when I’m missing only one or two cards from a set and I can’t get lucky enough to pull them out of a pack.

Pokemon TCG Pocket has a «pity points» system that’s supposed to make this feel less terrible: Every time you open a pack, you earn five pack points, which you can directly trade in for a card of your choosing.

You can trade in 35 points for a common card, but if you want to get the rarest cards from a set, they could eat up 500 points, 1,250 points or even a whopping 2,500 points each. That means you’d have to rip open 500 card packs in order to earn a single copy of one of Pokemon TCG Pocket’s rarest cards.

It sounds absurd (and it is), but that’s to be expected for a free-to-play game, especially one where the developer makes money by encouraging players to pay for extra card pulls. My real big issue with pack points is that they’re restricted to the expansion set you earned them in.

For example, I have 210 pack points for the latest card set, Secluded Springs, and I’ve been exclusively pulling those packs since it was released. I also have 700 pack points for the game’s first-ever expansion Genetic Apex — but those points are locked to Genetic Apex, and can’t be used for any other set. I’ve accrued hundreds of pack points, but they’re essentially useless to me because they won’t help me complete the sets I’m still missing cards in.

Pokemon TCG Pocket expansion sets are released on a monthly basis, which means no one really has time to earn enough pack points for a rare card before the next shiny slate of cards is dangled in front of your eyes. It propagates a desperate sense of FOMO that I’ve criticized in the past, but there’s a simple solution that would make the problem disappear overnight.

Instead of locking pack points to any one set, they should be an account-wide currency instead. Every time you earn pack points, they should be added to one large pool that you can use on any of the in-game card sets. That way, players wouldn’t have to feel a manufactured sense of guilt for ripping open packs from older sets.

While it’s customary for gacha games to have a pity system that guarantees a certain reward after a certain amount of pulls, it’s by no means a requirement for these games to have these systems. In a sense, I’m grateful that the pack points exist in Pokemon TCG Pocket in the first place.

I think we should always argue for a more consumer-friendly experience in modern gaming. Overhauling the pity system so that pack points can be used universally across all of the in-game card sets will make the game fairer and give more players a real chance to get the rarest cards.

It creates a greater sense of parity between free-to-play and paying players, and it might even cause some people to spend more money on pack openings to boot. Universal pack points are a win-win for players and DeNA alike.

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