I recently became an ambassador for Bark, an app that helps parents monitor their children’s online activity. You can find my discount code here and at the bottom of the post. Still, as always, all opinions here are my own.
I began working with Kayla1 and her family when she was fourteen years old.
She was a lovely young woman. She had a sharp sense of humor, knew how to take constructive criticism (from me, at least) and was self-aware enough to offer her own insights about the sources of her depressive symptoms. She was open about her relationships, both social and romantic, and seemed to genuinely enjoy asking my opinions about the choices she faced on a daily basis. She didn’t always take my advice – what teenager would? – but she always listened.
As is the case with many teenagers, Kayla and her parents argued fairly often. Kayla had so much practice asserting her independence and testing her parents’ limits that she could have made a profession out of it. Her curfew was too early, she wasn’t allowed to talk to her friends when she wanted to, her parents were too critical of her academic performance and her fashion choices… she had a litany of grievances about her relationship with her parents. She wasn’t always right about her parents – I think they were doing their best, most of the time – but she wasn’t always wrong either.
About a year and a half after I began working with Kayla and her family, Kayla began refusing to go to school.
Kayla had a history of not going to school from time to time so this wasn’t a complete surprise. Some days her depression got the better of her; some days she had appointments; some days she cut school to spend time with friends in the neighborhood.
But this time was different.
This time, Kayla was angry. She dug in her heels and she wasn’t budging. She didn’t care what consequences her parents implemented and had no problem rattling off a string of defiant curses to make her point. She wasn’t going to school and there wasn’t anything anyone could do about it.
Eventually, after quite a bit of probing, prodding, nudging, cajoling and just plain asking, Kayla finally disclosed to me why she didn’t want to go to school. She said that she had just broken up with her boyfriend and that he was now with someone else. Kayla said that she got a text from his new girlfriend that she had found some nude photos of Kayla on Kayla’s ex’s phone and that she had spread them around to other people in their grade.
Kayla and I talked for a long time that day – well, she talked for a long time and I listened – about dealing with embarrassment and shame, her situation with the girl at school, her options for handling the situation and how she could be safer with her phone in the future. We talked about online safety, some of the pitfalls of social media and ways that she could keep her private life… well, private.
It’s been a few years since I worked with Kayla but, ever since that day, I’ve thought about ways that Kayla and her family could have prevented that situation from happening. I know that Kayla’s parents had enough other stressors in their lives that they could not have focused on Kayla as closely as they might have liked. I also know that teens can keep just about any secrets from their parents if they really want to. In theory, I suppose Kayla’s parents could have demanded access to her phone so they could monitor her activity, but Kayla still could have found ways to keep secrets hidden and any requests Kayla’s parents made to see her phone would have turned into gigantic arguments.
That’s where Bark comes in.
Bark didn’t exist when I was working with Kayla and her family but it would have provided a critical security measure in preserving Kayla’s safety. Bark could have monitored Kayla’s text messages, emails and social media activity and let her parents know about the apparently adult nature of her conversations with her then-boyfriend. Bark covers an incredible number of apps that kids and teens use – seriously, check out this list – and notifies parents when there are signs of trouble.
The best part about Bark, though, is that it still respects kids’ privacy. Parents only get alerted to potential problems that come up in their kids’ conversations so, as long as the kids are safe, the parents don’t get involved. Kayla’s parents wouldn’t have needed to know about Kayla’s texts about making plans for the weekend but they definitely needed to know that someone was asking Kayla to share extremely personal photos of herself. Bark could have told them about adult content, references to depression, cyber bullying and any number of other online threats so that they could have gotten involved when Kayla needed them to.
If you’re still not sold, consider what Bark has been able to do over the three years since it began:
- 3 million children protected.
- 16 school shootings prevented.
- 10 thousand severe self-harm situations detected.
(You can also go here to get the rest of your questions answered about Bark.)
My seven-year-old son may not be old enough for social media at this point but he has definitely built up some experience navigating through YouTube and the Google Play store, so it’s only a matter of time before he starts getting into other spaces where he might be vulnerable. I’ve installed Bark on his Android tablet and I’ll be using it on any other devices as he gets older.2
If you want to keep your kids safe – without the stress and frustration of forcing them to hand over their devices for inspection – use my link to sign up: https://www.bark.us/signup?ref=KFSNMZW. You’ll get 20% off your subscription for as long as you use it and, aside from the fact that I’ll get a little something too, you’ll sleep more soundly because you won’t be as worried about your kids online. It’s win-win-win!
Please sign up for Bark. If you use my discount code, you’re keeping your kids safe online for just over the cost of a Starbucks latte each month. A slight caffeine headache once a month is worth it to know that your child’s safety is in good hands.
1. Not her real name.↩
2. You know, I’m not just an ambassador; I’m also a client.↩
