Spotify Kids now supports shared playlists, letting parents control the music

Parents can now influence more of their kids’ music taste through Spotify. The audio streaming platform announced a new feature for Spotify Kids today called Shared Playlists, which allows parents to share playlists they’ve created with their kids. The Spotify Kids app gives kids access to child-approved audio content with the goal of gating them into a safe place to click around and access music and stories. This new feature allows kids to gain access to the content that lives outside those walls, however, with parents acting as the main gatekeeper. Spotify says the idea is to give parents a way to share the music they loved growing up or that they enjoy regularly as a family.

To share a playlist, parents have to access the PIN-protected area of the kids app. They can then select the music playlists they want to share, which have to have been created by the parent. Songs with potentially explicit tracks will be marked with an E, and if a parent wants to remove those tracks, they’ll have to do so from their Spotify app. The first time they share a playlist, a pop-up will appear asking the parent to confirm this decision.

Spotify launched its Kids app in 2019 and has continued to expand its reach, along with the introduction of new features. Parents can now view their kids’ listening history and block tracks. Shared playlists is another incremental feature but one that parents might appreciate.