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How to actually block Caillou and other irritating shows from Netflix

There was a post that went around a couple months ago explaining how to block irritating kids shows on Netflix. Unfortunately it was light on details and it’s actually a multi-step process. I spoke with someone at Netflix who said they’re working on offering more granular control for parents but in the mean time here’s how you can at least stop Netflix from suggesting mind-numbing crap like the demonspawn that is Caillou.

This was all done from the web interface, which will affect any devices that profile uses. We’ll assume you’re aware of step 0: log into your account.

1. Make your kid’s profile an ‘adult’ profile.

Yes, this is counter-intuitive. But only ‘adult’ profiles can rate shows so you have to temporarily set your kid’s profile to be not a kid. Don’t worry, we’ll change it back when we’re done. Go into “Manage Profiles” and uncheck “Kid”

netflixkid

2. Log in under your kid’s profile. Find the show you hate and give it 1 star.

Before the UI change you could mark it as “not interested” but now for some reason you can only give it 1 star. So go ahead and do that. This will let Netflix know you hate that show.

3. Go into the viewing history and remove the show entirely.

You can find the viewing activity link under your account settings, or just go directly there with this link. Make sure you’re on your kid’s profile.  Find the offensive show (ctrl + f to search the page if you have to) and click the X on that line. You’ll get something like this:

The Hoarders episodes are mine.
The Hoarders episodes are mine.

Click the Remove Series link to remove the entire series from the viewing history. This will make it as though your kid has never seen the show (for Netflix, sadly memory wiping for your child isn’t part of this).

4. Turn your kid’s account back into a kid’s

Re-check the button you checked in step 1.

This isn’t a perfect solution. If your kid can read/write they can still search for and find the show. But at least Netflix will no longer suggest horrible irritating stuff you hate. And maybe someday they’ll let us truly block certain shows. We can hope.

8 thoughts on “How to actually block Caillou and other irritating shows from Netflix”

  1. Beautiful! Thank you. I was just about to try to do exactly what you have suggested. So far I think this the best fix until Netflix gives the option to block certain shows. Thank you.

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