The app you need NOW to protect your kids in this digital age!

Episode 19

It takes a village to raise a child, and with our interconnected digital age, it is nearly impossible to keep them safe without THIS!! Are you using it? If not, you NEED to get connected to this app and make this app a part of your village TODAY!!! It monitors across all devices and computers, doesn't just monitor from home wifi, and basically gives you peace of mind and the ability to sleep knowing THIS is working on your behalf 24/7!!

This episode does a deeper dive into many of the features Bark has, and how to set it up. Whether you have given your kid the fanciest iphone or android smart phone, it can help you! Of course nothing is full proof in the hands  of a determined child, but THIS will help tremendously in this wild ride of raising kids in the digital age! 

• Already have a smart phone or ready to give them one? Protect your child (and your sanity) in the digital world with BARK! Use code BETHATMOM for 20% off for life! https://www.bark.us

Other options if you are considering a first phone:

• Giving your kid their first phone! Consider GABB Wireless, the creators of a phone that can give your child the perks of a phone without giving them access to the world and the world to them, sort of like training wheels on a bike, for a bike that could potentially change the trajectory of their entire life. Use code BETHATMOM for extra $$$ off or go to this link:  www.gabbwireless.com/promo/BeThatMom
• Relay go device can be found HERE or at https://www.target.com
• Gizmo Watch can be found HERE

(A few of the above links are affiliate links that I may receive commission from at no extra cost to you! Your support is greatly appreciated!)

Want to be THAT Mom besties??? Text BETHATMom to 50597 and jump in to my free Be THAT Mom Movement Facebook Community HERE! 

.

Email me at [email protected] or connect with me on IG @dollydenson https://www.instragram.com/dollydenson

.

More info on the Be THAT Mom Movement https://www.dollydenson.com

.

Simplify your fitness/nutrition routine! Join me in the Align Your Life Fit Club! More info can be found at https://www.dollydenson.com/fitclub

Listen now here or go to https://bit.ly/bethatmompodcast

 Full Transcription:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey, Hey, welcome back to another episode today. We are talking about the thing that I've probably mentioned on almost every episode that I have had so far, but it has been so impactful in giving me peace of mind in helping me to sleep at night and just moving forward without a state of panic all of the time, wondering what I am missing with my child, interacting with the digital world. I am so glad you were here. So stay tuned.

Speaker 2: (00:30)
Welcome to your source for tips, tools, and support to help you be that mom that is tuned in and proactive for yourself, your family, and for the wild ride of raising kids in this digital age, inspired by a mother's love with a relatable real life. Proud to be that mom flair. This is the be that mom movement with your host Dolly Denson.

Speaker 1: (00:56)
Okay, so today we are going to talk about the one app that has transformed the safety of my kids. Interacting with smartphones and technology use. It is my favorite way to sleep easy at night and to have peace of mind because it is monitoring my kids' activity online. Without me being all in their business. It is the bark app bark like a dog like bark, bark bark. You need to wake up, there's something going on. It detects things that you will miss. If you are not monitoring in this way. So starting at a low cost every month, you can protect your kid's phone. So I want to dive deeper into what this is and how it works. Cause I have been getting so many questions about this app and so many people checking it out. So I want you to know more about it, so you can definitely get it going on your kids' devices.

Speaker 1: (01:50)
And honestly, it just keeps getting better and better. They keep adding more and more features to it. I was blown away when I was looking through their information last night of things that I didn't even know that they added. So this is a organization that was founded by dads that wanted to have more control over what their kids were doing in the digital world. And they were very, very passionate about making this the most robust way for us to manage everything with our kids in the digital world, the digital world is not going away. So when the kids are young, my opinion is that we need to monitor the screen time and exposure that way, because that is influencing them, not doing other self-discovery things and being creative with their minds. But as they get older, we do have to teach them responsibility around the digital things, as well as safety and just being mindful of what they are doing and the way that apps are and the phones and all of the features.

Speaker 1: (02:49)
It is absolutely impossible for us to keep up with it without having something like this. So let's dive a little bit deeper into it. So if you have not listened to any of my other episodes, you may have not heard this. So I'm going to tell you a couple of background things on bark, and then we'll dive into what you do when you sign up for your seven day free trial. So bark is [email protected]. And if you decide to check it out, they have it seven day free trial. If you use my code, be that mom, they will give 20% off of your subscription for life. And the subscription is for the entire family for one cost. So whether you have one kid or 10 kids, it is going to monitor all of them across all of their devices, all of their interaction with the digital world from anywhere.

Speaker 1: (03:32)
So it's not just from home on their wifi. When I was looking at different things like this, I did look at a couple different services that were very, very similar and other people had recommended to me. But the limitation that I found with some of them were tied to your wifi. Some of them you had to buy a device. And the problem with that is that, do you install it in your house? Sort of like a filter, but at some point they upgrade it and then you have to buy another one. It's also not really going to help you very much. The kid knows to get off the wifi in order to do it things they want to do once they get it in their head, that they want to get around, whatever it is, you're monitoring or limits you are setting, they are going to do that.

Speaker 1: (04:12)
They will get around it, but bark has several safety guards in place so that even if they managed to get around it, which is highly unlikely with bark, they will send you an alert that they are trying to do these things. So while there are other things out there, bark is absolutely the one that is the most comprehensive. If you are wanting to put a smartphone in the hands of your kids, and like I've said before, if you are first giving your kid a phone, there's another episode I did where I talked about the alternatives to the smartphone as the first device, when your kids are younger. Um, so definitely check out the relay, go device, check out the gizmo watch and the gab wireless, the phone for alternatives to giving them a full blown smartphone. But the idea behind a monitoring is that with a smartphone, they pretty much have access to the entire world and people that are on the digital in the digital world and accessing our kids through the digital world, do not always have the best of intentions.

Speaker 1: (05:12)
So this is a way for you to monitor at a greater depth with so many things, not just what they are actually doing, but conversations that are going on and people that are interacting with them online. So you cannot go wrong with this. So bark to date has protected 5.2 million children. They have prevented 16 school shootings and they have detected 55,000 severe self-harm situations. And in 2019, they did a case study where they looked across all of the things that they analyzed for the year. They analyzed 873.8 million messages across texts, email YouTube, and then 30 plus apps and social media platforms. And this is what they found. And this is for preteens and teens. So it is frightening. This is not just for teenagers. It is actually for pre-teens. So I'm thinking that is probably the age of like 10 to 12 or maybe even younger, but they found that 86 to 89% of preteens and teens expressed or experienced violent subject matter or thoughts as was detected by bark 55 to 67% engaged in conversations about depression, 76 to 78% experienced cyber bullying as a bully, as a victim or as a witness 75 to 84% engaged in conversations surrounding drugs and alcohol, 35 to 54% were involved in a self harm or suicidal situation of themselves or someone that they were interacting with 70 to 84% encountered nudity or content of a sexual nature.

Speaker 1: (06:53)
And that 70% is for the preteens. So that means seven out of 10 children in the preteen age are encountering nudity in content of a sexual nature. Is that not mind-boggling it makes me cringe because I had no clue when I gave my kids their phones years ago and my girls are older now, but they got Snapchat and they got Instagram at a young age. And I thought it was just a way for them to take pictures and to interact with their friends. I had no idea that there was so much going on online. And a lot of the things with the sexual content is related to people, contacting them and to sending them information now. And I will do another episode that talks about that, but just be aware that our concerns need to be not only with what they are accessing, but what they're looking at, who is contacting them and what their intentions are with interacting with our children.

Speaker 1: (07:47)
So when you sign up for bark, there's two different plans. They have barked jr, which is only $5 per month or $49 for the year. And it's the entry level product. It's perfect for younger kids. And it helps parents and guardians to manage screen time and to filter which websites your kids can visit. And then it also has a feature where you can do check-ins much like life three 60 or something like that, where they can check in and share with you where they are, if they are not with you. The other plan is now $14 per month or $99 for the year. And it is a comprehensive parental intelligence solution. Seriously, it's so robust. Um, it monitors texts, email YouTube in 30 plus apps and platforms. You will get alerts for issues like cyber bullying, online predators, suicidal ideation, and other things. It manages screen time.

Speaker 1: (08:39)
Now it will filter which websites your kids can visit. And then it also has the location feature. So when you sign up for one of those plans, you will have a seven day free trial. And again, use my code, be that mom for 20% off of your subscription for life. So it will be 20% off that $14 or that 99 a year. And that will continue. It's not just a one time thing. So when you sign up, you will get access to a dashboard that will be for each child. And it's really simple to set these up. I am not tech savvy. My husband is, and it did not take me going and getting him to help get this set up. I did it all on my own, but the main thing is you just have to have their passwords and you can install this on their computer.

Speaker 1: (09:20)
So I know there's a lot of concerns about that with kids being on their computers, more with all of the virtual learning that we have going on. And if you have a teen, you know, or a child that you expect may try to tamper with that being on their computer, you can actually hide it in their browser so that they don't know it's there, but I do encourage open communication about this so they understand why you're doing it. But, you know, there are those situations where you have to do what you have to do in order to keep them safe. And I was there. So I know, but I'm on this dashboard. It will show you a weekly report of how many activities were analyzed and how many potential issues there were to review. I get alerts sometimes for emails that my son gets, I'm related to some of the games that he plays.

Speaker 1: (10:04)
And these are games that I have reviewed, but when they send the emails, it triggers their filter thing for violence or something like that. So you can go in and you can set up that you don't want to hear about certain issues. If you've already approved it, you can also set up to where you want to hear about them, but on the dashboard, it will tell you that, um, how many have been analyzed. And it'll also, you also get a weekly report that tells you all the activity for the week, how much screen time, all of that stuff. And if it sends you alerts, it will give you like little blurbs of conversations. Like if someone says I'm so depressed, it will send alerts for things like that. Then that gives you a chance to look through them and have a conversation with them, but it still gives them privacy overall.

Speaker 1: (10:50)
So that's kind of the beauty of it is you don't have to always be in their business and creating that friction between them because, you know, as they get older, they want that independence, that separation from you. And it's not always a bad thing. You know, it's just that with the digital world being so accessible, it's a very, very slippery slope when it comes to them accessing information that you don't want them to access or someone getting to them, things can happen very, very quickly. So if you have this on there, you will get alerts and be able to intervene quicker than if you were just randomly checking their phone. Okay? So besides the dashboard, what you're going to do when you set it up is you're going to take your child's phone and install the bark kid's app and all of these things that I'm telling you, you get in an email and is on the website.

Speaker 1: (11:39)
And it's very, very comprehensive. They have a wonderful support team that is very responsive. All of them, most likely are parents that are using this. And they're very passionate about protecting our kids. So when I have messaged them with any questions or anything, they respond quickly, they follow up and they want to make sure that they are providing you with all the resources you need so that we can protect our children. So when you install the bark kids app in there, you will log in using your parent log in to set it up on their phone, and then from your dashboard. And you can set the limits on what things you want them to, to access or not access specific websites. You don't want them going to, or web sites in general that have certain ratings. You can shut it down at night to where there's a certain time at night.

Speaker 1: (12:29)
They can't access a specific app or feature on their phone or just their phone in general. So like you said before, there are differences is in an iPhone versus an Android. So you may have a little bit of specific setup that is different, but barks instructions are wonderful and will help you to get this set up. The other thing is that what I have highly recommend you do when giving your kid a phone, even if you're not installing bark yet, go to the settings on your phone and set up the screen time feature. And you probably have to have like the family sharing thing on, and you set it up to where it's the family. And you can, you can say who the kids are. And then through your phone, through the screen time setting, I'm on an iPhone. So I'm looking at it right now.

Speaker 1: (13:13)
You click on your child and then in it, it has a downtime where you can put that they cannot use their phone. During these certain times, you can set app limits. You can set to where you can set to where they cannot use their phone in general or apps, certain apps in general, after they have done so many hours in the day, you can also set communication limits so that they can only contact these certain people in their contacts. You can set it up to where they cannot add new contacts in their phone. So there's so many different controls. You can also put that certain apps aren't allowed at a certain time of the day and then content and privacy restrictions. So the iPhone that I have has all of this stuff to sync with my son's phone. We both have iPhones, but if he had an Android, I'm not sure how this works.

Speaker 1: (14:02)
You will have to look into that a little bit more, but this, these settings are wonderful. I'm so glad that they have added them, but they, I do not monitor conversations and interaction. And I'm just there overall general activity across all devices. That's why bark is it just an added safety feature? And the other day, when I went in and set up the bark on my son's iPhone, I set this up and then I also set up the bark stuff. And then I played devil's advocate and went in and tried to delete the bark app. I tried to change some of the settings. I tried to add an app. I tried to delete an app and change all the things around. And because of the settings I had from my family sharing thing on my iPhone plus bark, I was not able to do that.

Speaker 1: (14:49)
It appeared that I could. And then I got an alert from bark on my phone saying that my child attempted to remove bark and that my child attempted to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. All the things that I had tried. So in a, you know, of course it was me who was not him, but that is why I think it is necessary for you to add bark on because this screen time is good, but if they get around it, it doesn't send you an alert to let you know. I don't know that they can get it around around this, but you know, it is just an amazing world what our children can do. So just proceed with the utmost caution with this. If you were having to back pedal on things like I did, don't be afraid to take that phone away until you can get a handle on things because the slippery slope and their interaction with the digital world can get dangerous very, very quickly, and it will influence their mindset.

Speaker 1: (15:38)
It will influence their belief in themselves and their self esteem, so many things. So I do think that bark is absolutely the best thing out there. And you just can't go wrong with a price of $14 plus 20 per 20% off when you use my code, it monitors so much stuff and gives you so much peace of mind. So if you have any questions about this, please reach out to me. My email is [email protected]. I hope that you are already in my free community on Facebook. It is the be that mom movement community. And you can find the link in the show notes, and then please access my website for a free download of digital resources that does include this bark. If you have any trouble with the installation, don't hesitate to reach out to their support team. Okay. And then I have to tell you about one last feature that Holy cow, I discovered it last night.

Speaker 1: (16:27)
And I was like, Oh my God, I cannot believe I have never found this. And I think it's a relatively new feature that they have I have, but it's called bark Omatic. So it, it says, it's the ultimate resource for online parental controls. So what you do is you, you go in and you put in specifically what platforms and devices your child uses, and then it will give you a specific instruction list for all of those platforms and devices across the board. We'll give you instructions on what to do to safeguard those, their accounts with that, to set the settings and the things to be mindful of. So I went through and I did it last night and I was talking excited. Cause it's like the thing that we all need. So we don't have to be experts ourself on all of these platforms. So just to give you an idea of how so specific it is, it asks, does your kid have a smartphone if they do which one?

Speaker 1: (17:27)
And then when you say iPhone, if you have an iPhone, it asks you which iPhone, because the settings will be different for that. Then skew, what apps do they have access to Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, tick tock, discord, which all of the things, then it asks you who the email provider is. And then for gaming, it asks you what platforms they use for gaming and X-Box PlayStation, steam, EA origins, fortnight, and then the games that they play, Fortnite, call of duty, animal crossing, all of the different ones. Then it asks what streaming services do they have? Amazon prime, Hulu, Netflix, Roku, Disney plus on and on and on what browsers do they use? And then you click for your results. It emails it to you. And then it is all of those different sites. It will tell you, this is what you need to watch out for.

Speaker 1: (18:17)
This is what the settings are. And, um, even for the iPhone, it tells you how to set up the Apple family, sharing how to set up that account. What settings to look at, how to add a child, um, putting in their Apple ID, screen time, downtime, app limits, privacy restrictions. It has it all there. Oh my God, this is the most wonderful thing ever I should have started with this. Um, I, and I almost forgot to mention it, but then I don't know about you, but when I go to some of the games, it just blows my mind, trying to figure out what in the world I even need to be looking for. And so like, fortnight, I clicked on that and it has kind of a summary of the game. Is it appropriate for children, Fortnite and Twitch, Fortnite, parental controls, how to turn off the voice chat option and fortnight, how to report another user that, and then it just talks about how bark can help with us.

Speaker 1: (19:08)
So please sign up for bark. You cannot go wrong with them. And then one last point when it comes to bark is that they stay on top of what things are going on with apps. They will tell you what apps are hot with the teens and preteens at the time and things to look for and watch out for. And then also like the iPhone has an update coming in September and they have already sent a couple of emails with kind of a heads up on what you need to know with this update and how it can affect the screen time and what things you need to adjust for safety. So I think that is completely awesome. Parenting children in the digital age truly takes a massive village and the way things are so tech related is no easy feat doing this and we absolutely cannot do it alone.

Speaker 1: (20:07)
So get onboard with bark, to connect with me on social. If you sign up for bark, tagged me in a post in your stories. If you're on Instagram or Facebook, I would love to see it. It absolutely fills my heart to know that the children are being protected and that hopefully I am helping other parents out there not endure the things that I have faced with my own family. And the most important thing is the regret that I feel that I didn't know better. So that is absolutely my mission when I bring this here to you today. So I hope you found this very, very helpful bark is absolutely the best thing in the world. Get it on your phone. Let me know that you've got it on your phone. Get into my free community and connect with me on my social. And let me know how this episode is helping you. I would love to chat with you and get to know you better so we can be that mom strong together. All right, thanks so much for tuning in. I'll catch you next time.

Speaker 2: (21:01)
Thanks for tuning in being that mom isn't easy, but together we can be that mom's strong. Don't forget to leave a review, connect on social and join Dolly's free community till next time