Those ads are optional. You can just pay for it. Its actually pretty good value for the money.

Edit: I forgot to mention Family Link. Once you have a family membership (maybe even before?) You can also use Googles family link to enable a restricted mode that hides adult content for specific accounts.

You actually get a pretty great experience for the whole family for about $20/month.

Ads are only half the problem. The real problem with kids using YouTube is it's too easy for them to access any of the content on the platform.

If I could pay YouTube for the privilege of using an app where I choose exactly which videos are available, and no other video will ever appear on or can be accessed from that app, then I might pay for it.

IMO the only way YouTube can be kid-friendly is if there is an app where the primary utility is the ability to whitelist on a per video basis. There could be convenience methods like whitelisting an entire channel's videos with one action, but the whitelist needs to be built around a per video model.

Last I checked, they had nothing remotely like this as an option.

Then you'd be giving money to the Google company as well. You can also look up the content creators and donate directly.