Comment by pests
You're in luck! They recently rolled out updated parental controls letting you block it.
https://blog.youtube/news-and-events/updates-youtube-supervi...
"YouTube has introduced enhanced parental controls allowing parents to manage or block YouTube Shorts for teen accounts. Parents can set daily time limits for Shorts ranging from zero to two hours, configure custom bedtimes, and set "take a break" reminders" (AI summary)
You can block shorts this way? Neat! Excuse me, I need to go set up a subaccount for my newly adopted fictional child.