Tik Tok updates to help you keep your teen safe! Finally!!

Episode 39: 

Tik Tok's updated parental control features can help you with guiding your kids while using this app. While I will always say to proceed with extreme caution, as these social media platforms are not made with our kids' safety in mind, these updates are helpful in light of criticism heard around the world about needing to make these safer for younger users. Listen in to learn more!

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 FULL TRANSCRIPTION:

Speaker 1: (00:00)
Hey there, my friends, we are going to talk about something that a lot of you may have allowed your kids to have. And if you haven't, it may also be a place of tension because it's so easy to access and so hard to monitor, and that is Tik TOK that we're going to talk about today. Just a few updates for you to help you manage it in a few thoughts that I've had of things you might want to consider going forward in relation to tick tock, as well as other things

Speaker 2: (00:28)
Stay tuned. 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 bead that mom movement with your host Dolly Denson. Alrighty, I am so,

Speaker 1: (00:56)
So excited to be back again today. I probably say that every single episode. So I apologize for being redundant, but here I am, again, broadcasting from my closet and it is my favorite place to be when I have some juicy stuff that I want to share with you to help you navigate this world of all the digital things and raising our kids to be strong people and, you know, balanced and safe and all of that. So I am glad to be here today. I hope that you're finding my podcast helpful. I hope that you will click the links in the show notes to grab some of the different resources that I share. I cannot emphasize enough to you how much I wish I would have had these things a few years ago, how much regrets and mom guilt. I feel on a regular basis that I have to fight back because I know that my lack of knowledge in this area did impact my kids.

Speaker 1: (01:44)
And while they are beautiful, wonderful human beings and doing wonderful, I feel like it made the challenges of their teen years, just a little bit harder than they had to be. So I hope that you will take it to heart. Look at some of the resources they share. I have a few things in the works that I think you're going to be interested in. I hope you will find really valuable. Probably will be coming out in January with some more guidance that you can grab on to that. We'll have lots and lots of information for you to help you navigate this. But please check in the show notes for all of those things. I cannot shout enough from the rooftops about some of the resources I have shared that could help you so so much. If you already, haven't gone down the path of the smartphone with the Tik TOK watch, I had trouble saying that at that episode that I talked about that too.

Speaker 1: (02:27)
And then the gizmo watch is great too. The pinwheel phone, which I think is absolutely the best option for a starter phone. The gab phone is also a very well rounded option to keep your kids safe. It just doesn't have the same features as a pinwheel phone. So certainly compare those and decide which one is best for you. I have discount codes for both of them in the show notes, if you want to check them out. And then if you already have given your kiddo a phone, the bark of course is the thing to get. I promise you, there's nothing more comprehensive out there. And with your kiddo, definitely do the layering of protection to help you out in this realm. So let's talk about Tik TOK, talk for a second because they have updated a few things to help you with keeping your kiddo safe.

Speaker 1: (03:11)
So when I talk about those and then some larger implications for you to think about. So I'm recording this the day after Thanksgiving here in the U S if you are also in the U S happy Thanksgiving, I hope you were able to spend a little bit of time with your family. Our family actually had to make a little bit of a change with our celebration because of issues around this virus that is spreading and all of that. So it was a little bit different for us, but we tried to look for the small things to be grateful for. And so I hope that you were able to do that as well. So as far as tick-tock goes, they have issued a few things to help you with guiding your kiddo. And I, let me just tell you what the things are. And then I will emphasize a few things that I want you to consider.

Speaker 1: (03:52)
The first thing that they've implemented is they have made it to where you can make your kid's account private. So this is absolutely a necessity to set it up towards private. So they aren't getting messages from weird people and people that don't have the best of intentions for our kids. The second thing is you can control who can see their likes. So if you're not familiar with tick talk, when you open it up, it will show you a four you feed. And it's basically showing things that it thinks you are interested in. And so then you can double tap or you can tap the heart and it will Hart to that video. And then that tells Tik TOK what to show you more of while when you tap that heart, other people can go to that same video, click on who has liked it, and look at all of the people, you know, and then go from there.

Speaker 1: (04:40)
So they have made it to where you can set up to where you can control, who can see their likes on the platform. The third thing is you can decide on who can comment on their posts so you can make it to where no one can, you can make it to where people only that they are connected with can or anyone in the world. The last thing is that you can disable the search feature so they could not just go in and search for anything and everything that they are curious about. So I don't know if you are familiar with talk or not, but I personally had not spent much time on it at all until all of the U S election stuff started happening. And I was trying to figure out what in the world was going on. And Tik TOK was one place that I started looking at more, and I actually find a lot of their videos entertaining and enjoy getting on there.

Speaker 1: (05:27)
But the problem is that anybody and everybody can put information on there and you just have to be aware of what it is that your kid can have access to. So it's very important to familiarize yourself with it. And depending on the age of your kiddo, definitely set up the privacy settings and start that conversation about appropriate behavior on the app, what you want to allow, you know, all of those things, a few other things related to this app that you might want to look into is that if you go into the app and go to your profile settings and go to privacy, you can set it up or you can have different options for people being allowed to download their videos. So I know that a lot of the concerns about child pornography and different things like that are people downloading videos that young girls are posting.

Speaker 1: (06:16)
And of course, something to be concerned about is that anybody can screen record anything, even if you can't, if you set it up to not download that video. So nothing's foolproof. If you're going to allow your kid to be on a platform like this, there is an inherent danger regardless, but these are things that they were putting in place to kind of help you to, you know, put up some safety for them. So other things that they have on here is you can set it up to where, who can send them messages. You can set it up to where no one can or only the approved contacts. And then also who can do it with their videos. That's basically like a video that someone liked duet, where they play the video and then they play there. They record their reaction to their video. And then you can, there's a couple of other features in here.

Speaker 1: (06:57)
But one thing that I did want to tell you about that I was looking at when I was looking through this the other day, they have a tab called digital wellbeing. And on here, it is a screen time management setting and then also a restricted mode. So you do have those options as well as family pairing. So you can basically set it up to where you limit their watch time on the platform. You can limit content that isn't suitable for them. You can limit who can send messages to your family member, to your team, and you can choose whether your team can have a private or a public account. So this is called family pairing, and it is under the settings. When you go to your profile goat or their profile, go to me and then go to the three dots at the top. And it says settings and privacy.

Speaker 1: (07:44)
If you scroll down, there's the digital wellbeing, there's the family pairing. There's another one called accessibility. And then if you haven't found this on the platforms, it is something that I didn't know about in my earlier years of training navigate this. And that is that you can save data from these platforms. So you could set it up to where you have the data sent to you, and you can see what searches they have made, what their activity has been, all of that stuff. Okay. So all of these platforms inherently have dangers, like I've said, but these are ways that you can set it up. Now, I do know that say I had a video on here that I thought was funny, and I wanted to share it with somebody. I could very much look at TechTalk without a profile or account, and I can send a link to someone else.

Speaker 1: (08:33)
So I could be looking at, I could have tick talk and hat be on my account. I could share a link with someone else. I send it to them. I text it to them. You know, however, I send it to them. When they click on that link, they do not have to have a Tik TOK account in order to access that video. So that is one way that it's very frustrating with Tik TOK is that they do not have to have an account to get on it and to, you know, look at things. So that takes me back to my next point, that I just want to emphasize. And if you've listened to my podcast for any length of time, you've heard me say this, but with all the things going on right now, I don't know what country you're in. I know that I have several listeners that are in New Zealand and some other countries.

Speaker 1: (09:13)
So if you are not in the same country as me, you may not see these issues that I have, but in the U S we have just had an election. And with that election, I have seen some pretty marked, I don't know if Mark's the right word. I've seen some action taken by some of these large social media platforms that is kind of like concerning and a little bit baffling at the same time, because I can see that they can control. They can very much control what is on the platform, what activity is going on. So like I have said before, end of another episode, if they can control these things and why are they not making them safer for our kids? Why are they not scrubbing them? Of all these people, all these predators that are on the platforms trying to take advantage of our kids and the bottom line is it is not our kids that they are concerned about.

Speaker 1: (10:04)
They are not concerned about the safety of our kids. They have an agenda and they are focusing on that. And it does not include the safety of our kids. So the bottom line for all of this is to take a proactive stance with your kid. And if you're listening to my podcast, I know you are already doing this. You, you know, you have a awareness of this. Now, whether it's from making missteps with it, like I did, where you just didn't have any clue about things, or you have a younger kiddo in, in, maybe you've had an older one that you weren't aware and didn't, you know, make the decisions in hindsight that you would prefer to do now. And you're trying to navigate this better with another kiddo, whatever the reason I know that you're here, because you're being proactive for your kid, but it has never been more evident to me that these platforms do not have our kids in mind.

Speaker 1: (10:53)
And so I think we need to take a very firm and proactive stance when it comes to when they get a smartphone, when they get access to these social media apps, and that we are the boss when it comes to this stuff, and that we communicate with them bottom line, that it is not that we do not trust them. It is that we do not trust what is within the apps and the impact that it all will have as a whole on their development as they grow up. And so we are going to take a proactive stance for that. I don't know if I've just ran in a million circles trained to share that with you, but I have sat back over the last couple of weeks since the U S election happened and am just completely amazed with how much control these platforms have put on what information is allowed to stay on the platform.

Speaker 1: (11:46)
So they have an age. Most of them have an age limit of 13 for allowing kids to be on them. I think that is too, in my opinion, at least for my kids, I wish I would have made a different decision. Mine were younger than that when I let them on Instagram and Snapchat, but I would not do that again if I had to do over. So what I want to emphasize is just that, just be aware that when you put this in the hands of your children, whatever age they are, that you need to have the open lines of communication, talk about the safety, talk about the overall balance of what you use a phone or what you use these apps for, and that they don't define them. They don't tell them who they are and that, you know, there's so much in the world to see and do besides sit and stare at a phone and that if they are not up and active and doing all the things, then it is hindering their development in other ways.

Speaker 1: (12:36)
So I hope that makes sense to you. I think that it is amazing that they are putting some of these limits on the apps, but I also think it is a very, very slippery slope. That gains speed so very quickly. And my ultimate mission is for us to spread awareness of this impact and the influence that these decisions have on our kids and their peers, so that less parents will be giving them access to the entire world and vice versa at such young ages. And even if you are monitoring it, so you give your kid a phone, you know, and you, you're going to put bark on it. And they're like 12 or 13, while you deciding that is influencing their friends that do not have a similar phone giving them, you know, kind of that fear of missing out thing. And then if you allow them access to the different social media things, it is to me, it is allowing in the world and telling them who to be before they have figured out how to do it themselves, you know, before they have figured out who they are personally, if I think back to those years, the teenage years to me were confusing.

Speaker 1: (13:41)
You know, you're always trying to, you know, do the thing that all the popular girls are doing in school, in all of that. We'll imagine taking that feeling of, you know, that feeling of comparison that you would get when you went to school and now putting it in their back pocket. And it goes everywhere with them, including into their bedroom and to sleep with them at night. It's, it's something that I made a huge mistake on, and I regret that, but I also know that it's just, you know, it's, we're the first generation of parents to have to deal with this. So I give myself grace with that. I also would not be sitting here trying to pay forward some of the knowledge and some of the things that I'm passionate about now in helping your kids to grow up, to be strong and safe and confident in all of that.

Speaker 1: (14:22)
Sorry, I should have turned off my notifications on my phone. So all in all, it has a purpose, but just be aware that even with these parental things that they put on these apps, I recommend a layered approach first with not putting these things in their hands too soon, you know, and communicating with them about balance, about health, about comparison, about them being enough. And then as you do allow them this guide them and help them to know it is only a tool and it does not define them. And then as they get older, you give them more access with an open line of communication. And with the premise that there are boundaries set up to where they can use them when they can use them. You know, if there is any sneaking around lying about it, then they will lose their privileges and all of that.

Speaker 1: (15:06)
So again, Tik TOK is, can be a fun thing, but they're all are always going to be inherent dangers with any of the platforms. So take a proactive and cautious step forward with this, check out these different settings. A couple other things that I recommend that you do, if you are giving access at a younger age, is to have them access it on your device so that you can see what they are accessing and be in there regularly to see what has been accessed, what things are popping up in there for you feed, because it's all an algorithm. And it's going to be kind of like, if I like for an example on my Instagram feed right now, my daughter, if you follow me on Instagram, you've seen this, but my daughter has a cute little miniature poodle and never in my life did I think I would own a poodle, but this poodle is the cutest little thing.

Speaker 1: (15:53)
We had to have an out hypoallergenic dog. And so she is one and she stays in the house. We haven't had a dog in the house since me and my husband were first married. I don't like to have like a pet hair and things like that around my house. And so, you know, after we had our first dogs, which were pugs, we vowed that we would only have dogs outside. Well, she is an inside dog. She is my oldest daughter's dog, the cutest little thing. You have to check out my stories on Instagram. It's at Dolly Denson. She's so, so cute. But because I post about her a lot in my stories, and sometimes on my feed, in my explore feed on Instagram, I have a bunch of dogs. Like I have other things there of other things that I look at on Instagram, but Instagram knows that I like to post about my dog.

Speaker 1: (16:34)
And so they show me other things about my dog. So if you are going to give your kids access to any of the social media platforms, start out by doing it on your device and allowing them to check it at certain times. And then you can go in and what shows up on there for you feed on Tik TOK or their Explorer feed on Instagram, or, you know, just the general feed on Facebook, if you happen to give them Facebook. But I think most kids do not want Facebook, but Snapchat is one too. They all work on an algorithm. So they are going to show the person consuming the information, what they think that person wants to see and read about and watch because they want you to stay on the platform longer. So if you can have, even if it's on their device, if you look in there and you start seeing something concerning pop-up, then you knew that they'd been, they've probably been consuming something that is related to that topic.

Speaker 1: (17:21)
So that's another way to kind of watch and, you know, know what's going on with what they're doing. So all in all take a proactive stance. It is ultimately your decision as the parent and how you move forward with it. If you have the energy and the know-how to monitor closely, certainly, you know, make whatever decision you think is appropriate for you. My goal is to share with you knowledge so that you can move forward with this, you know, not with a blind eye like I did, and, you know, to just help you to raise a more competent and strong and healthy child and for you as a family, to have a healthy relationship in all of the good things. Okay. So I hope you enjoyed this. I think this was kind of a bit long and I kind of rambled a little bit, but I hope that it was helpful for you.

Speaker 1: (18:04)
And I hope that you're doing well, that you have a nice holiday season. Of course, I will be back soon for more episodes, but I hope that everything is well in your world and that you were doing what you can to make the best of the things going on right now. Please check out the show notes for the different things that I have mentioned, get access to those things. Don't take it lightly that this whole digital world is not going to impact your kid. It absolutely is. It will, for all of us, just like we are seeing with ourselves and all of the stuff going on with the election, I have had to disconnect myself, shut down my notifications, all of the things on my own phone, because I can't handle all of the constant incoming of information and just, you know, the unbelievable things that are going on right now.

Speaker 1: (18:43)
So just be mindful that that is the same for our kids and even more so for our kids. So we need to be mindful of it. Take action about it, talk to them about it and just help guide them with this because the digital world is definitely not there for our child wellbeing. It is there for an agenda. It is there for us to consume more of it and to do more things on it so that they can get our attention, our money, all of the things. And so in the hands of our children, it's even more dangerous. Okay. I will get off my soap box right now. I hope you have a fabulous rest of your day. Thanks so much for tuning in and I'll chat with you next time. Oh, and I almost forgot. Got it. Before I let you go that I have a new way for us to connect and stay in touch.

Speaker 1: (19:25)
If you haven't heard about this, maybe you have, maybe you haven't, but there's an app called telegram. It is basically like Facebook messenger or what's app. So I've never really used, but telegram is a place where I have set up a channel, which is basically kind of like a messenger thread where I can share information. So if you're interested, I've got two of them. If you're interested in hearing more about what episodes are coming out, new things that I learn about all of the things related to the digital world stuff, you can subscribe to my beat out mom movement channel. And if you go to the telegram app that you can go to look for at, to be that mom, and that is the channel, or if you want to go to the link, H T T P S colon forward slash twice, and then T dot N E forge slash be that mom, I will put that in the show notes because I bet that was just like crazy trying to follow that.

Speaker 1: (20:15)
So anyways, on the telegram app, go to the, be that mom, and that's a channel where I will share upcoming episodes, different resources and things. So you can check that out if you want to stay connected. And I've just set that up. So I don't have a lot going on on it right now because I'm the only subscriber. But if you want to get on that, and then it will be a way for us to stay connected better. I do also have my group on Facebook and that group is booming. But with some concerns with Facebook, I want to just have another place that we can connect that isn't related to one of these social media platforms. And then the other thing is that if you have any interest in just wellness tips for yourself, because like I have said several times before your own wellness is your own strength.

Speaker 1: (20:57)
And that brought me so much strength for myself and some of my hardest days and struggles as a mom is in, before I had that, it was a really hard place to be. But once I established a routine of regular workouts, how to eat and feed myself and my family and really prioritize my own needs and have a safe place for that, for me, it helps me to be more present, be more patient, all of that as a mom. So as a nurse practitioner, I'm very, very passionate about health and wellness. And so I do run an online group where I support you. I connect you with the tools that I have used to really turn things around for myself, but I also have made this channel on telegram. So if you were interested in just connecting with that, if you don't want to be on Instagram or Facebook, I do have that.

Speaker 1: (21:42)
It's totally free. You don't have to be a part of my fit club in order to join that. But that one is at, hold on, I'm opening it up here is if you go to at align your life, when you're on the telegram app, then you can find that channel as well. And I will be sharing tips about things there. And then you also, if you're interested in, you're just prioritizing that in your life and having that safe place of something you can control right now, I do have specials going on for the end of the year. I would love to get you into my group. My December group is cranking up. We're going to have a lot of fun things going on to really help us kind of skate through the holidays, without losing ourselves in all of that. And then we will have things going on in January as well. So if you haven't, don't join me in December, you can certainly join in January as well, but definitely check out telegram for be that mom that'd be that mom channel and then also align your life channel if you want to connect in that way off of other platforms. Okay. So I will chat with you next.

Speaker 2: (22:39)
Thanks for tuning in being that mom is an 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.