Best Kids’ Shows and Movies on IPTV This August

Key Takeaways

• August brings a genuine wave of new family releases, from Disney+’s Camp Rock follow-up to fresh animated seasons built for younger viewers, plus back-to-school-friendly content as the summer holidays wind down.
• IPTV doesn’t replace your existing Netflix or Disney+ subscriptions. It adds live kids’ channels and a much wider spread of family entertainment on top of what you’re already paying for.
• Parental controls on IPTV apps like IPTV Smarters Pro and TiviMate are genuinely effective, but they’re off by default. Setting a PIN takes about ninety seconds and is worth doing on day one.
• Category locks, channel locks and hidden adult groups are the three main tools available across most third-party player apps, and using all three together gives the most reliable protection.
• The default PIN on most apps is 0000 or 1234. Change it immediately, because it’s the first thing any curious ten-year-old will try.
• Back-to-school season is a good moment to rebuild a family viewing routine, and having a locked-down, age-appropriate setup makes screen time easier to manage rather than harder.
• Live children’s channels fill a different role than on-demand libraries: background viewing, appointment TV, and the kind of low-effort entertainment that doesn’t need a search bar.

August has a habit of sneaking up on parents. The summer holidays are winding down, the back-to-school lists are appearing, and somewhere in the middle of all that, a genuinely strong run of family content lands across the major platforms. Between big franchise sequels, gentle new seasons for younger viewers, and the usual back catalogue reshuffling that happens at the start of every month, there’s more to sift through than most parents have time for. This guide covers the best kids’ shows and movies worth watching this August, and walks through how to set up a safe, well-controlled IPTV viewing experience at home so the whole thing doesn’t turn into a battle over the remote.

Best Kids’ Shows and Movies on IPTV, What’s Actually Worth Watching This August

For Tweens: Camp Rock Returns

Disney+ brings back the Camp Rock franchise this month with a new instalment following the brothers as they return to camp in search of a new opening act for their tour, sparking the usual mix of rivalry and romance among the campers. Rated TV-G, it’s squarely aimed at tweens who grew up on the earlier films or are discovering the franchise for the first time. Nostalgic parents will get something out of it too.

For Elementary-Age Kids: Descendants Continues

The Descendants universe keeps expanding, with Red and Chloe facing a new villain just as things seemed settled. It’s a reliable pick for kids who’ve already worked through the earlier films, rated PG and built around the same mix of adventure and light peril that’s made the franchise a staple of family movie nights for years.

For Little Ones: Dr. Seuss’s Red Fish, Blue Fish

The third season of this colourful, gentle Netflix series lands mid-August, aimed squarely at the youngest viewers in the house. It’s silly, visually bright, and genuinely useful for the classic parenting need of buying a few minutes of quiet without reaching for anything overstimulating.

For Older Kids and Tweens: Coyote vs. Acme

Landing right at the end of August, this one blends live action and animation and has been generating buzz for months. It’s a safe bet for slightly older kids who’ve outgrown purely animated fare but aren’t ready for full teen content yet.

For Anime Fans: The Ribbon Hero

Worth a mention with a caveat. This anime series follows a young character working through loss and grief, inspired by a classic manga property. It carries more emotional weight than most of the other titles on this list, so it’s better suited to older kids and tweens who are ready for a story with real stakes rather than younger viewers looking for something light. Watch an episode yourself first if you’re unsure, since the tone shifts noticeably from the lighter titles above and some scenes deal with themes that younger siblings watching alongside an older one might find upsetting without context.

For the Whole Family: What Else Is Worth Checking

Beyond the headline titles, August tends to bring a quieter batch of second-tier releases that don’t get the marketing push but end up as genuine family favourites. Older classics rotate back onto major platforms at the start of most months too, so it’s worth a five-minute scroll through your existing subscriptions before assuming you need something brand new. Sports content aimed at kids is worth a mention here as well: with live baseball, football pre-season fixtures and other family-watchable sport running through August, live channels can slot nicely alongside the scripted content on this list, especially for households with older kids who are just as happy watching a match as a cartoon.

Why Live Channels Still Matter to Kids

It’s easy to assume, in a household that already pays for two or three streaming subscriptions, that live television is a relic nobody under fourteen actually wants. In practice, plenty of kids still gravitate toward a channel that’s simply on, rather than a menu that demands a decision. There’s less friction in it. A child who struggles to settle on something from an endless scrolling menu will often happily sit through whatever’s playing on a dedicated kids’ channel, the same way earlier generations grew up with a Saturday morning cartoon block rather than infinite choice.

This matters more during the school holidays and long summer afternoons than parents sometimes give it credit for. A live channel doesn’t require supervision of a search bar, doesn’t surface autoplay recommendations that drift toward content you haven’t vetted, and doesn’t need a new decision every twenty-five minutes. For younger children especially, that predictability is genuinely calming rather than limiting. It also takes some of the pressure off parents. Nobody needs to curate a perfect playlist every single afternoon when a well-chosen kids’ channel is already doing that job on a loop.

Why IPTV Is Worth Adding to Your Family’s Setup

Streaming libraries like Netflix and Disney+ are excellent for on-demand viewing, and nothing here suggests replacing them. What they don’t do particularly well is recreate the experience of live children’s television: the channel that’s just on in the background after school, the appointment-viewing cartoon block on a Saturday morning, or the reliably age-appropriate channel a grandparent can put on without needing to know how to work a search function.

That’s the gap IPTV services like ZumTV are built to fill. Rather than another on-demand library competing for the same slot as Netflix, it’s a broader spread of live channels and family entertainment that sits alongside your existing subscriptions. For a lot of households, that combination, streaming library for the big-ticket new releases plus live IPTV channels for everyday background viewing, ends up covering family entertainment needs more completely than either one alone.

Browse ZumTV’s family and kids’ channel line-up. Start your free trial today.

Setting Up Parental Controls: The Ninety-Second Job Most Parents Skip

Here’s the part that actually matters most for peace of mind, and it’s the part most families never quite get round to doing until something goes wrong. IPTV apps ship with parental controls built in, but they’re switched off by default, and the setup process is genuinely quick once you know where to look.

Setting a PIN in IPTV Smarters Pro

Open the app and head to Settings, then Parental Control. The default PIN on most installs is 0000, and it’s sitting there unprotected until you change it. Enter a new four-digit code your kids can’t easily guess, and avoid anything obvious like a birthday or repeated digits. Once it’s set, the app will prompt for that PIN before unlocking whichever categories you’ve chosen to restrict.

If you ever forget the PIN, uninstalling and reinstalling the app resets it back to 0000, though your playlist typically survives if your provider stores it server-side. Worth knowing before you panic and start troubleshooting something that isn’t actually broken.

Setting a PIN in TiviMate

TiviMate’s parental controls sit under Settings, then Parental Control, then Enable Lock. From there you can set a four-digit PIN and, usefully, lock individual channels by long-pressing on them and selecting Lock Channel. TiviMate is generally regarded as having the more thorough controls of the two most popular apps: PIN protection for channels, PIN protection for the settings menu itself so kids can’t quietly turn locks off, and the ability to hide entire channel groups rather than just locking them behind a code.

Three Layers Worth Setting Up Together

Category locks handle the broad strokes, restricting entire groups such as adult content or anything rated for mature audiences in one move. Channel locks let you get specific about individual channels you want restricted regardless of category. And hiding groups entirely, rather than just locking them, is the most thorough option: content a child can’t see at all is safer than content that’s merely locked behind a PIN they might eventually guess or watch you type in.

Using all three together, rather than relying on just one, is what actually gives reliable protection. A category lock alone can still leave individual channels exposed depending on how your provider has organised its listings, so it’s worth spending the extra two minutes to check.

See how ZumTV’s family-friendly channels and setup guides work.

A Few Practical Habits Beyond the PIN

A PIN code is the foundation, not the whole job. It stops casual access and accidental wandering into the wrong category, but a determined twelve-year-old who’s watched you type a four-digit code a few times will eventually work it out. Pairing it with device-level tools adds a second layer that doesn’t rely on the IPTV app alone. On Android and Google devices, Family Link manages app installs and purchase approvals independently of whatever the streaming app itself controls. On Apple TV and iPhone, Screen Time restricts app purchases and sets content limits at the operating system level, which matters if a child ever finds their way onto a different app or browser entirely.

It’s also worth checking whether your IPTV provider offers a family-friendly playlist option separate from the full channel list. Some do, and starting a child’s profile from a pre-filtered list is simpler than manually locking dozens of categories one at a time. If your provider supports multiple device profiles, setting up a dedicated kids’ profile on the tablet or living room box, rather than sharing one login across the whole household, makes the age-banding approach below much easier to maintain long term.

Finally, revisit the setup every few months rather than assuming it’s done forever. Kids get more capable at finding workarounds as they get older, provider channel lists change, and an app update can occasionally reset settings you thought were permanent. A quick check-in during the school holidays, when you’re likely already reorganising routines anyway, is a natural moment to confirm everything is still locked down the way you left it.

Age-Banding Your Setup: A Practical Approach

Rather than treating “kids” as one category, it helps to think in three rough bands when you’re setting up channels and locks. Under-fives generally do best with a single, tightly locked channel or two, since the goal is calm, repetitive, low-stimulation content rather than variety. Six to ten-year-olds can usually handle a slightly wider rotation, including some of the tween-aimed content like Descendants, but still benefit from category locks that keep anything rated for older audiences out of easy reach.

Tweens and young teens are the trickiest band, old enough to want more autonomy and more mature content, but still young enough that a completely open account isn’t appropriate. For this group, channel-by-channel locking tends to work better than blunt category locks, since it lets you make specific calls rather than an all-or-nothing decision.

Setting this up by age band rather than a single blanket configuration takes a bit longer up front, maybe fifteen minutes instead of two, but it saves the recurring argument about why a ten-year-old can watch something their six-year-old sibling can’t. Once it’s done per profile, it mostly runs itself, and it’s rarely worth revisiting more than once a term unless a child’s viewing habits shift noticeably.

Building an August Viewing Routine That Doesn’t Feel Like a Fight

The back-to-school run-up is a genuinely good moment to reset family viewing habits, not because screen time needs to disappear, but because routines that get loose over summer are easier to rebuild now than in the chaos of the first week of term. A locked-down, age-appropriate IPTV setup paired with a short list of approved shows makes it much easier to hand a child the remote without hovering over their shoulder.

Pick a small rotation of channels or shows for the week rather than leaving the whole catalogue open. Kids generally respond better to a manageable set of good options than an overwhelming, unrestricted one anyway, and it saves you from refereeing an argument about what counts as appropriate every single evening. Try walking through the week’s picks together on a Sunday evening. Ten minutes of choosing as a family does more for buy-in than any lock ever will, and it turns the whole setup from something imposed on kids into something they helped decide.