I don't regret giving my son a phone at 11, but I do regret showing him how to use YouTube

• When my son was 11, his dad and I were getting a divorce, and we decided to give him a phone.
• We taught him how to use it wisely, and he's smart about social media.
• While I'm concerned about what he can watch on YouTube, I don't want to invade his privacy.

I gave my now-14-year-old a phone when he was 11. His dad and I were divorcing, and it seemed like the easiest solution for communicating while my son was at his dad's (and vice versa).

So far I haven't regretted giving him the phone. We had him sit through Google's Be Internet Awesome program and put some rules in place, some of which have fallen off as he's aged. At first he couldn't have TikTok or Instagram, but he later got both. His dad and I signed into his accounts in case we wanted to check on his activity. (We don't do that anymore, though we can if we become worried.)

He understands it's not magic that his feed is all animal videos and anime clips — that's what he's telling the app he wants to see. He knows how to spot a follow request from a fake account, and we've talked about how bots are used to create them and the risks of interacting with one.

We regularly chat about social media, including his preferences and usage of different platforms. He seems to rarely be on Instagram and TikTok. I think we've been lucky that he hasn't gotten too sucked into social media, as plenty of kids his age have been.

But if there's one part of the internet I wish I had never introduced him to, it's YouTube.

It might seem irrational to single out YouTube. But when I speak with other parents about it, there seems to be a consensus: There's something especially grating about a YouTube fixation, because many of our kids spend more time on the platform than on any other.

I'm concerned about how easy it is for misinformation to proliferate on social media

These days, avoiding YouTube is virtually impossible. If I hadn't introduced my son to the platform, someone else would have — a friend, another family member, or even a teacher.

My problem is the ease with which people can create any kind of content they want, publish it online, and present that information as fact. This is true of most social-media platforms, but YouTube is what my son has gravitated toward the most.

While videos on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube are suggested via an algorithm, YouTube videos are often longer, so it becomes even easier for him to lose hours watching them.

YouTube was a wonderful resource when he was young and we wanted to put on "Sesame Street" but it wasn't on PBS. But I didn't realize what it would become; now it can be difficult for even the most internet-savvy among us to wade through videos of misinformation and disinformation.

Hearing him watch gamers on YouTube shocked me

I realized YouTube was a much larger beast than I'd anticipated when my son was 9 and got into watching young men play video games on the site.

At first I thought that was more or less OK. But while he was watching videos of people playing first-person shooter games, I heard things that alarmed me, like young men insulting others who chose to play female characters or casually using racist slurs.

My son and I had many conversations about what they were saying and what it really meant. I didn't want him to feel judged or as if he'd done something wrong by listening to those phrases. That was really hard to do, especially when I was shocked and mostly mad at myself.

I don't want to invade his privacy, but his use of YouTube still makes me anxious

To my son's credit, the things he watches are mostly fine. In a perfect world, I suppose I'd have time to sit next to him and approve or disapprove videos on the site before he watches them, but I have assignments due, pieces to write, dinner to cook, trips to plan — I cannot be a sentient parental control.

I'm also not a fan of monitoring everything my teen does —there's a fine line between being protective and creating unnecessary anxiety. It's been a while since I've glanced over and seen something questionable on his screen.

I've been online since 1999, and I've learned that almost every resource the internet can give me is widely available in the real world; I respond better to an in-person yoga class than a YouTube yoga video, and while I can buy any book I want on Amazon, I enjoy getting lost in a bookstore for an hour on a Thursday afternoon. I'm thrilled on the days my teen wants to get out of the house and live life offline, because it means fewer hours staring at a screen.