10/11 yo on Tik Tok - do I just keep quiet?

[BarnOwwl]

Hi all, we’re pretty new to SM among kids as DD10 has just got her first phone ahead of Sept move to secondary school. She has been great so far, really stuck to boundaries we’ve set (eg screen limits and type of groups on what’s app etc) and treating friends with kindness. She knows the deal is that we can look at his phone to see what she’s doing / saying anytime.

We’d expected it, but can see immediately that people have very different (often no) boundaries for their kids online. No judgment my side as we said to DD that everyone sets their own boundaries and there will be people who can do more and people can do less than her.

However, I’ve seen that some of her friends are engaged in a way that seems really worrying for their age. A couple of examples include bullying on one of the chats, credit to the “admin” for removing the bully, and quite prolific tik tok use which includes not having their accounts set as private, posting videos with friends who aren’t online and don’t know about it, and following people who post some really shady content eg scenes of car crashes, sexual content.

Here’s my question. I don’t know if their parents know about this at all, or if they know about it and don’t mind. If it were my DD, I’d want someone to tell me if I wasn’t checking myself. However, I don’t want to risk my DD being seen as a grass or excluded because people find out her mum reads her phone. If I say nothing then it allows many of these behaviours to continue and progress.

I don’t think many parents are on TikTok themselves which is why they won’t have much of an idea quite how visible everything is, particularly given it’s not like YouTubeKids. There are no age filters for content.

I talk about it all with DD so she can set her own boundaries and work out what she’s comfortable with, so I just leave everyone else to it? Is there a “parent code” so to speak around how to handle things like this?

Those parents have either made a conscious choice on phone use for their DC, or not. If they’ve made a choice (around giving children digital privacy, freedom to learn etc) they will resent anything you say. If they’ve just left it due to inertia or ignorance they’ll feel defensive. There’s no way to have this conversation that ends well.

I think the only way in is by asking school to send out some guidance / set up a parent talk on internet safety. Some people may respond to that.

I have seen enough safeguarding issues to be very, very cautious with internet use for DC. In some ways I envy other parents who don’t know about this stuff, and I do really understand the implicate to try and I dorm
them. But I just can’t see it working.

Agree, nothing good will come of it.

Yes, agree with asking the school to give guidance on internet safety and state your concerns.

You could also try speaking to other parents in a generic way - “I heard about a child who saw porn on TikTok” etc.

Re your own child, you can set TikTok to Restricted Mode and set their account to Private, followers only.

Advise your child never to take pictures of others without their consent and not to allow others to photograph or video her without her consent. Don’t allow phones in bedrooms on sleepovers.

Restrict her phone use to weekends or to a limited time per day, and never in her bedroom at night or within a hour or so of bedtime. Go through her phone regularly (as you are doing).

If they wanted to know they'd be checking their DC's phones. No point saying anything

I'd just stick to monitoring your own children, unless these other children are showing your child the tik toks?

Then I'd have a word with the parent.

You can report accounts to TikTok and they will be automatically banned as it's an over 13 age limit here I believe

Thanks all, going to the school sounds like a good approach. The school is very engaged on these things, it’s quite a big primary and I guess they have seen it all before. Several of the issues that a few of you have raised above have happened, my worry is that at such a young age, they’re seen as the norm and even expected amongst peers. DD already feels there’s an expectation for her to do what others are doing. Much appreciated.