The amount of technology kids are born into today is truly mind-boggling — for our generation, we didn’t get smartphones, flat screen TVs, and social media until well into adulthood. We had a leg up on our own parents when it came to early internet like AOL and portable CD players, but the gap wasn’t nearly as huge.

Gen Alpha, on the other hand, knew how to intuitively navigate smartphones when they were tiny. Because of this, parenting in a digital age can feel super overwhelming for parents! It can feel hard to catch up when your kid seems born with abilities it took you years to master. But fret not — we’ve got some proactive tips to help you understand technology so you can keep up with you child. 

Give Yourself a Little Grace

Being tech-savvy doesn’t automatically make you the world’s best parent. Some people simply have had more exposure to tech thanks to school, their job, or simply a natural affinity for it. And to be fair, tech has been changing at lightning speed for a while now — it’s hard for almost anyone to keep up! (Here at Bark, it’s our job to know about the latest devices and apps, and even we’re surprised by new, late-breaking developments sometimes!)

Get Curious

You’re already demonstrating your curiosity about your child’s digital world simply by reading this post, so good start! Now, we know you may not be personally invested in the latest skibidi toilet video or yet another Mario game for the Nintendo Switch, but your kid may be — and it’s important to know what they’re into. Because the more you understand what they’re doing and why, the more you can learn how to help protect them. 

We recommend shadowing your child for a day on their devices. Sit down with them when they play games and watch videos. Ask questions (though they may say you’re being “cringe”). Later on, you can google what they’re into and I guarantee there will be tons of content for you to read (or for the time-crunched) to watch.

Equip Yourself with Knowledge about Today’s Technology

This may sound daunting, but there’s a whole community of parents and organizations online that are constantly pumping out content to help educate families — including us! Here are some great places to start:

Parenting a Tech World

Our Facebook group is the go-to place for parents to ask questions, give support, and learn about all the issues facing kids today. You’ll find you’re definitely not alone. 

Protect Young Eyes 

Chris McKenna is a passionate and dedicated thought leader that provides parents with tons of resources to learn about digital safety for kids.

Our parent resources

Curious about an app or a TV show? We’ve got you covered with our parent-friendly reviews that will give you the quick low-down on the safety and appropriateness of everything from social media platforms and podcasts to books and movies. Common Sense Media also has great reviews for parents looking for media deep-dives.

Our slang guides

So much of how kids speak today comes from text messaging and popular trendy apps like TikTok. Stay on top of the latest words, phrases, acronyms, and emojis with our slang guides.

Our Overwhelmed to Empowered email list

Whenever our experts speak to parents at in-person events, they mention wanting to keep learning about all of the parenting-in-a-digital-age things out there. We listened! That’s why we now offer our email list that sends helpful tips straight to your inbox — no ads or spam, ever. Sign up for our free Overwhelmed to Empowered list if you want this kind of intel. 

Go Old-School With Screen Time Boundaries and Stick to Them

This one sounds like a catch-22 — how do you set screen time boundaries if you’re not sure where to start or if your kid is a whiz at getting around digital restrictions? (More on that later, but the Bark Phone is the absolute best option when it comes to managing all of your child’s phone activities.) Well, you can start with physical boundaries. This can look like creating tech-free zones (like the bedroom and bathroom, or the dinner table at supper time). You can also designate tech-free times, like overnight and during homework time. 

As you learn more about parental controls, you’ll discover options that will make screen time management easier — like apps that automatically block websites and games during pre-set hours so your kid can focus. Apple Screen Time and Google Family Link are free options that do this, but Bark’s screen time is more robust and way more granular.

Recognize the Benefits of Tech

Taking a growth mindset to tech can help you approach it more positively and understand all of the benefits it provides — both for you and your child. It may seem overwhelming right now, but you are capable of understanding new technology

And as you learn more about tech, you’ll see that it gives you a way to connect and grow closer with your child. This can be as simple as getting peace of mind from location tracking, which is something our generation definitely didn’t have. 

And as for your kid, they’re getting to do amazing things like FaceTime grandparents across the country, message you in emergencies, and access movies, music, and games any time they want. They’re also learning new things online, playing educational games, and more. 

Use Parental Controls

When it comes to parental controls, your best option will be Bark — we pioneered advanced content monitoring in 2015 and each and every year our technology gets better and better. We have an app that lets you not only get alerts for potential dangers, but also manage screen time, block websites, and track location.

But if you’re looking for something that really puts you in the driver’s seat, the Bark Phone is hands-down the best option because it’s got tamper-proof controls. It’s also completely customizable — you decide what your child can do at all times.

When you first get started, you can choose the starter plan, which is talk and text only with no internet or apps. As they start demonstrating responsibility, you can gradually add in features (and roll them back at any time). Helping to keep everything in check is Bark’s monitoring technology, which scans texts and online activities for signs of danger. This way you can check in and make sure everything’s okay. 

Parenting in a digital age isn’t easy, but we help make it a little less stressful for parents.

Every day, more and more schools and districts are announcing they’re banning cellphones in K–12 classrooms. For many parents and educators, this is a wished-for watershed moment years in the making, while other families and kids argue it’s an overstepping of boundaries. But no matter which side you’re on, it’s important to know what these bans are going to look like in practice, because they vary in implementation.

“Ban” isn’t even the most appropriate word — schools are seeking to limit access in various ways throughout the day, but an outright “ban” of devices is almost never what’s happening. In this post, we’ll discuss some of the different ways actual districts are limiting phone use in schools.

Why Cellphone Bans Are Happening

In the ‘80s and 90s, kids only had a few options if they didn’t want to pay attention: reading paperbacks under your desk, writing paper notes, staring at the window, and sleeping. Today, kids are distracted by the supercomputer in their pockets that can enable them to:

• Message friends
• Post on social media
• Watch Netflix
• Play video games
• Take discreet photos
• Listen to music with one earbud in
• Plan meetups in the bathroom
• Arrange illicit activities like fighting or vaping in bathrooms

Even if they’re not actively on their phone, kids are being inundated with notifications as frequently as every few minutes, leading to near-constant attention diversion. And this, in turn, affects learning, classroom behavior, and discipline. 

Different Ways Schools Handle Phone Bans, Ranked by Effectiveness

Honor code/acceptable use policy

Most schools have long forbidden the use of cellphones in class without permission, so technically there’s always been a ban on them in academic settings — it’s just nearly impossible to enforce. Requiring kids to keep phones neatly tucked away during instruction just doesn’t work. Teachers end up becoming phone police and instead of focusing on educating, they’re constantly telling students to put them away, threatening to confiscate them, or actually confiscating them. Every time this happens, both the teacher and the students get interrupted from the lesson. It’s a vicious cycle, and for educators it’s essentially a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. 

Phone lockers

Another option is a box placed in the front of a classroom that has slots for every child’s phone. In these schools, students enter and place their phones in before sitting down, and teachers will count the number of phones to make sure they match the number of kids in desks. The issue with phone lockers is that some kids may place “dummy” phones (fake phones or old ones they don’t use) into their slot so they can keep their actual phone on their person. Schools with phone lockers generally allow students to access their devices between classes and at lunch, since there’s not an easy way to block use during this time. 

Pouches

Lockers are clunky and some parents object on the basis that kids are losing access to their personal property and expensive digital devices. Enter pouches like Yondr, which attempt to solve this issue. Kids are issued a Yondr pouch and place their phone into it when they get to school. It magnetically locks, keeping the phone out of sight and out of mind. But instead of placing it at the front of the classroom, students keep it with them until they head home. At the end of the day (or between classes or at lunch, depending on the school’s policy), kids can unlock the pouch at special magnetic unlocking stations.

As for effectiveness, pouches have a good chance of working, although a quick Google search shows that kids are already sharing ways to order third-party unlocking magnets, damage the locks, and other ways to get to their phones.

Replacement phones

Starting this year at Eton, Britain’s most elite boarding schools, incoming 13-year-old students will be issued Nokia dumbphones that only call and text. Granted, this a prestigious private school and parents will have agreed to this strict policy, but it seems to be one of the strongest steps in the direction of an effective cellphone ban. Kids will still have the ability to communicate at any time — one of the biggest complaints from parents about bans — but they won’t have constant access to social media, addictive games, and a digital camera.

Reduce Distractions with Bark No Matter Your School’s Policy

At the end of the day, nearly everyone agrees that kids should be less distracted during the school day. That’s why the Bark Phone and the Bark app give parents the ability to lock down their child’s device for the hours they’re at school. 

For example, from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m., you can block everything but educational apps, or make it talk and text only to emergency contacts. This way, whether their phone is in a pouch or just in their bookbag, they won’t be tempted to try and get online or be pestered with a million notifications. 

All these new rules are a brave new world, but they’re a step in the right direction for our kids as we aim to reprioritize education and socialization during the school year.

Do you ever remember hearing older generations talk about a club in a college town called “The Library?” It was a common joke based on the fact that students could honestly state that they “were headed to the library” if asked. 

This is just one example of using language to subvert expectations and rules, and today’s younger generation is extremely good at it. Known as “algospeak,” teens are changing language in real-time to evade social media moderation, a practice that seeks to ban keywords around potentially inflammatory or dangerous content. In this blog post, we’ll teach you all about why this happens, how it works, and provide examples of current algospeak. 

What Is Social Media Moderation?

Social media companies rely on user-generated content (UGC) to fill their platforms with a never-ending stream of images, videos, and words. As you can probably imagine, people post a lot of different types of content, and some of it can be pretty scary. Moderation is a company’s way of trying to enforce some rules and manners on the content users create. Generally, this is done in line with published community guidelines, which is where a platform lays out exactly what they aim to allow or block. 

And while many social media platforms moderate their content, TikTok moderation is front and center because of how immensely popular the app is — more than 150 million Americans use it. Its community guidelines are robust, detailed, and known to be on the more aggressive side, which is partly how algospeak has become so omnipresent in the online world. TikTok states that “Everyone who joins TikTok has the ability to freely share content on the platform. However, we remove content — whether posted publicly or privately — when we find that it violates our rules.”

How Does TikTok Moderation Work?

Companies like TikTok use a combination of AI-generated moderation (programs scan content for keywords and flag potential infringements) and real-life human moderators who review flagged content. A lot of the time, they catch the bad stuff — videos promoting disordered eating, triggering posts about suicide or self-harm, dangerous physical viral challenges, and purposeful misinformation. 

Other times, though, it’s catching (and automatically removing) things that aren’t against the community guidelines. This could look like marking a historical, educational video about Martin Luther King’s assassination as “violent or graphic content.” Any mention of an LGBTQ person can get automatically flagged, even if it’s just used as an adjective. 

You can always appeal a video getting removed due to community guideline violations, but it’s not always successful, which makes it frustrating for many users.

Algospeak: A Modern Solution to a Modern Issue

Having TikTok take down your video doesn’t stop users, however — it’s just forcing them to get more creative to work around the algorithmic filters. Enter “algospeak,” a new and ever-evolving set of terms that people use to express themselves without triggering sensitive social media algorithms.

Like we mentioned earlier, both camps of people — folks trying to actively promote bad stuff and also regular people just trying to get around what is essentially censorship — are now using algospeak. But what exactly is algospeak? Here are the three main categories you’ll find.

Alternate spellings

Users on TikTok quickly figured out that slight adjustments to the way a flagged word is spelled can sneak it by the filters. One of the most common examples is using “seggs” instead of “sex.” This would eventually morph into “s🥚sy” with the egg emoji replacing “egg” in “seggsy.” Another example is using “le$bean” instead of “lesbian,” which eventually transformed into “le dollar bean” because of how the voice-to-text caption feature pronounced it. 

New words

Coming up with new words to replace existing terms is another way users get around social media moderation. During the COVID-19 pandemic, for example, TikTok was flagging nearly any mention of the word “pandemic” in an effort to curb the spread of misinformation. For users that just wanted to mention it in passing, they took to calling it the “panini” or the “pandemonium.”

Emojis

Parents are probably the most familiar with this version of algospeak, as the act of using emojis to represent explicit imagery — think the eggplant or peach emoji — have been around for years. But new emoji meanings are created constantly, and they can be relatively obscure for folks not in the know. A recent example is the 🍉 emoji, which means support for Palestine because the emoji’s colors match that of the country’s flag. 

Recent Examples of Algospeak

🌽, corn, corn star — used to refer to porn 

⬛️ 🟧 — also means porn (because popular porn site PornHub has these colors in its logo)

Sewer slide — suicide

Seggs, seggsy — used to refer to sex

Unalive, unalived — can mean dead, kill, or killed

Accountant — sex worker

🍉 — Palestine

Barcode — refers to self-harm scars, which can look like a series of sharp lines

Worried About Algospeak? Bark Can Help

Algospeak isn’t limited to just TikTok and social media. Eventually, these terms spill over into everyday communication, including text messages and other platforms. This is where Bark’s advanced content monitoring comes in. 

Our technology scans your child’s online activities looking for potential dangers, and it’s fluent in the latest iterations of algospeak. Context is crucial to our monitoring tool, and we’ve been training it for nearly a decade to learn and adapt to the ever-changing nuances and trends of digital language. This means you’ll get more insight into your child’s world and a better understanding of the potential dangers facing them. 

Bark’s monitoring comes with our app, and you can start a free, 7-day trial to see how it works. We also offer the Bark Phone, which comes with all of our parental controls built-in, including exclusive features like contact approvals and daily time limits. Millions of families trust Bark to help keep their kids safe online — come learn why our products are game-changers.

This week, Bark turned 9 years old — we’re almost to double-digits! It’s been an incredible journey that started way back in 2015 when our only product was a monitoring app. Fast-forward to today, and we have over 100 employees, multiple parental control offerings, and a safer kid’s smartphone that was named to TIME magazine’s best inventions of 2023.

In honor of this celebration, we interviewed nine team members about what makes our company special, and every answer is heartfelt, inspirational, and 100% a reflection of the wonderful and talented people who make Bark possible. We’re incredibly fortunate to have a team so dedicated to our mission, and it’s one of our greatest strengths. 

What do you think sets Bark apart from other places you’ve worked?

“Bark doesn't feel like "just a job" — we're a family. Many of us are parents ourselves, and we truly do care about our mission and helping to keep families safer online. We have an amazing team culture where we band together across departments and roles to communicate, innovate, and make great things happen. I always feel heard and valued. Things move fast here at Bark, as technology is always changing and evolving; there's never a dull moment for sure! We've got an amazing group of passionate humans and it's clear that we sincerely care about our mission and what we do. How great is it to wake up every day and do what you enjoy?! It's not a chore, it's not work, it's meaningful and important.”

—Jodie S., director of community

“I go to bed each night knowing that we protected and potentially saved lives. I never got that flipping burgers. If anything, it was the opposite. Thanks, cholesterol.”

—Whit H., vice president of data annotation & escalation

“We actively listen to and deliver on the requests and suggestions of parents. Their concerns are truly our concerns and we do everything we can to be a resource for parents looking for help guiding their kids through childhood in the digital world.”

—Uduak I., senior growth motion designer

“The thought, care, and consideration we put into everything we do are what make Bark special. We truly see our customers as individuals and understand that they are trusting us with what matters most to them — their child. As an employer, Bark embodies these same values. I have never felt so supported, heard, and understood by an employer before working here. We are a team of driven, smart, hilarious, and empathetic individuals, all 100% behind Bark's mission to help keep kids safer. Every day, I feel great knowing I'm working towards a common goal with my entire company.”

—Dara F., head of people and culture

“Bark is the only place I've worked where EVERYONE is aligned on a mission. We all do different jobs and tasks, but we all aim to help keep kids around the world safer online. It doesn't get better than that!”

—Carrie M., customer success manager

“Bark is a company with a mission that makes real change for the families we serve. It is very rewarding to see that your daily work has such an impact in our society.”

—Beto V., senior customer support manager

“I think Bark outshines any place I’ve worked for in tons of ways — but what comes to mind first is that our team genuinely cares for the families we serve. We know that what we do impacts real stories and lives, which fuels just how dedicated we are to producing stellar work!”

—Allison S., online community manager & content coordinator

“Everyone who works (or has worked) here has been an amazing person in one way or another. …or many. I don't know that I've ever been on a team that's as universally friendly, helpful, talented, and kind.”

—Christopher Y., staff engineer

“It's all about our mission and our team! Everyone genuinely cares about what we’re doing, so it feels like we’re all in this together, making the digital world safer for families.”

—Renee A., regional sales manager

What is your favorite project or task that you’ve worked on here, and why?

“This is more of an ongoing "task", but I genuinely enjoy communicating with our Bark families on social media and listening to their requests and needs, and then directly sending their feedback to our development team for product updates and new features. It's always a huge win and a very proud feeling when our development team then takes that customer feedback and directly implements new updates or product features, and I know that I played a role in making that happen — making Bark better for our families, from our families!”

—Jodie S., director of community

“Helping to create the alert process, then seeing it in action, has been very rewarding. Knowing that something you're a part of is protecting children? That's a pretty special project.”

—Whit H., vice president of data annotation & escalation

“My favorite project that I worked on would have to be the Bark Phone animated ad. From the visuals to the music choice and editing, I love the way it turned out!”

—Uduak I., senior growth motion designer

“Bark Week! I've been lucky enough to help plan this event every year since it started (we recently started planning the seventh Bark Week!), and it's always such a rewarding experience. I absolutely love coming up with fun ideas to foster connection and build our company culture in person. As a remote team, it's rare for us all to be in one place, so this week is really special.”

Employees often tell me that Bark Week is their favorite part of our culture. When the week finally arrives and I see everyone socializing, laughing, and working together, it fills my heart with pride. Knowing that we're building a strong culture and ensuring our employees feel connected and happy is so fulfilling and truly contributes to our mission.”

—Dara F., head of people and culture

“Now, it may sound corny, but really every project/task. I especially love getting to speak to customers over the phone — especially the ones who are going through difficult times and seem very frustrated. By the end of the call, they are loving Bark and look forward to using it more. I love being able to share my experiences with Bark and how our family has used it over the last 7 years.”

—Carrie M., customer success manager

“My favorite task is helping and guiding parents to achieve online safety goals for their children. The tech world is vast and often overwhelming. It is always an honor to have the opportunity to orient fellow parents on this journey, and it is very rewarding to see them feel empowered and confident after each tech support interaction.”

—Beto V., senior customer support manager

“One of my favorite projects is the content reviews I get to write! Everything from movies to TV shows, books, podcasts, YouTubers — it’s a lot of fun finding out what’s most popular with Gen Z/Gen Alpha right now and helping parents keep their kid’s media appropriate for their family.”

—Allison S., online community manager & content coordinator

“I love being able to build tools to make our team better, faster, and… something other than "stronger," lest this become a clichéd reference. Our team works super hard on so many things, and any time I get a chance to improve things for customers, I try my best to make it happen.”

—Christopher Y., staff engineer

“My favorite project for Bark has been Tech Nights. The opportunity to connect with parents and let them know they are not alone in their struggles with kids and tech has been incredibly fulfilling. Bark is here to help and I love spreading that message.”

—Renee A., regional sales manager

When is a specific time you felt proud to be a part of Bark?

“We often get teenagers and pre-teens reaching out in comments and messages to Bark on our social media. Many times they are usually upset, or express feeling sad or alone. It's always a proud moment when I thoughtfully sit with my words and respond to help them, and occasionally they will respond with grateful, positive feedback that they felt heard and helped. There was a specific young girl and I remember our detailed, lengthy conversation where I provided her tips and resources, and she was very kind and grateful. Teens are people too, so I always call it a win when I can help them out.”

—Jodie S., director of community

“Obviously, I'm always proud to be part of Bark, but there are certainly moments that take it up a notch. I can clearly remember every single meeting or call I've had with a parent or school official in which they've shared an averted crisis that Bark helped prevent. Those are powerful, humbling moments, and I am thankful to be part of them.”

—Whit H., vice president of data annotation & escalation

“When we launched the Bark Phone back in 2022. I was so proud of what the creative/marketing team and Bark overall was able to do in such a short time to get the first ever Bark Phones on the digital “shelf” for parents to purchase for their kids. It was an incredibly difficult task made all the better by everyone bringing their skills and determination together and knowing that in the end we created an amazing product that gives parents the power to protect their kids.”

—Uduak I., senior growth motion designer

“I can think of a million times I’ve felt proud to be part of Bark. We're part of an incredible mission, and every time I read a customer testimony or hear a story about how our product helped a child or family, my pride swells. Most recently, I was thrilled with our placement on the Time Best Inventions list. Seeing the Bark Phone evolve from an idea to reality has been incredible. I know the hard work our team put into making this happen. The product is brilliant and will have a major impact on society, but having it recognized by such a prestigious organization was truly amazing.”

—Dara F., head of people and culture

“My first week as a customer support manager, we had a mother reach out needing assistance with connecting her daughter's phone for monitoring. Her daughter was in the hospital, recovering from attempted suicide, and the mother desperately needed to get the phone connected for monitoring, so they would be aware if/when their daughter may attempt self-harm or suicide in the future. Brian (Bark’s CEO) asked me to call her personally and although I was used to calling customers, I felt intimidated and worried I would fail to help this desperate mother. Once I got on the call, the mother was crying and asking for help — I took a deep breath and with confidence, I was able to help her and her daughter. This was the most fulfilling moment for me. The daughter was able to leave the hospital a few days later, and the mom felt comfort knowing that Bark would help keep her kiddo safer even during this dark time.”

—Carrie M., customer success manager

“When I wear Bark swag outside and parents reach out to thank the company for our technology and feel comfortable sharing their stories on how Bark helped protect their children from life threatening situations.”

—Beto V., senior customer support manager

“I feel proud to be a part of Bark any time I meet someone in real life and get to explain to them what Bark is all about. Without fail, people are always amazed at our mission and I get to unashamedly plug the work we do.”

—Allison S., online community manager & content coordinator

“Our team is incredibly supportive of each other, especially in times when some have needed it the most. There have been some hardships over the years, and it's been comforting to see how everyone takes care of each other.”

—Christopher Y., staff engineer

“A school told us they found three confirmed cases of self-harm (on school accounts!) within the first week of using Bark. Without our alerts, the counselors said they would’ve had no way of knowing these students needed help.”

—Renee A., regional sales manager

For much of human history, raising kids meant teaching important life skills like reading, cooking, interacting in the world, and how to be a good person. Children learn a lot of these things by simply watching their parents day in and day out as they grow up. 

In the past decade though, a new task has been added to our digital generation: modeling healthy screen time habits. Phones and devices have quickly become an absolute necessity in our society, and though kids are usually eased into them, it’s important for young people to learn how to use them responsibly and in a healthy way. There’s no better way for parents to instill these values than by setting a good example to follow. 

 In this post, we’ll give you some ideas on how to model healthy screen time habits. 

How Much Screen Time Is Healthy?

The short answer for this one is that it totally depends. Your child’s age, your level of busyness, whether your traveling for vacation or it’s a regular school week — all these are factors that affect how much screen time your child may or may be getting. Less is better than more, of course, but one-off days are bound to happen and don’t mean the end of the world.

Here’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends by age to help you answer the question of how much screen time is healthy:

Toddlers 

Limit screen time to less than one hour per day. 

2 to 5 years

Limit screen time to one hour per day (three hours on weekends) of high-quality programming, and watch it together to help them understand what they are seeing. 

6 years and older

Make consistent limits on the amount of time spent on devices and watching screens, and ensure screen time doesn't interfere with adequate sleep, physical activity, and their social life. Screen time habits are super important as you head into the teenage years. The older kids get, the more they’ll need screens to communicate, do school work, get driving directions, and more. 

Ways Parents Can Model Screen Time Habits

Deprioritize your phone

We know — this one’s going to be easier said than done, especially if you’re a working parent with a demanding job. And sometimes you’re going to just need a phone break to decompress. It’s okay! We all do.

But there are small ways you can silently show your child that your life doesn’t completely revolve around checking work emails, scrolling Instagram, and shopping on Amazon. 

• Try not keep it in your hand all of the time
• Don’t always instantly reach for it whenever there’s a quiet moment (like during a commercial or standing in line at the bank)
• If you’re on your phone when your kid asks a question, set it down and look your child in the eye when you respond. (This applies to the first 5 questions — we know that kids can ask a lot of questions sometimes).
• Manage your notifications by turning off non-urgent alerts, like for social media.

Keep certain times sacred

This goes for yourself as well as your children — designate daily times when phones are to be left behind. Think dinner time, the hour before bed, or on the commute to school. When you create these tech-free periods, you’ll notice more opportunities for meaningful conversations and undistracted family bonding.

Demonstrate balance between real-life & digital activities

There’s no denying that screens are important to modern life and that they can be useful, informative, and entertaining. But there’s more to life than digital engagement, and you can set a good example for your kids by having non-screen-related hobbies and activities you enjoy. Make sure your family knows how important things like reading, exercise, gardening, sports, volunteering, and other pursuits (anything you love, really!) are to a healthy life.

Create tech-free zones in the house

One of the most important things we stress to parents here at Bark is that there are no good reasons for kids to have screens in bedrooms or bathrooms. You could even make up your own rules, too — like no devices in the family room on movie night. This just helps make the time you spend together more deliberate and distraction free as you build up healthy screen time habits.

Struggling with Screen Time Limits? Bark Is Here to Help

Talking about healthy screen time habits is one thing, but actually implementing them is a whole other beast. Fortunately, there’s technology that can help, and Bark is your best option! 

We have robust screen time controls that actually work (looking at you, buggy Apple Screen Time). After all, different times of day call for different rules, which is an important part of creating healthy screen time habits. A schedule that works for your family could look like “No YouTube during the school day” or “Only music apps after bedtime.” You can even make different schedules for each child and every device! 

Bark’s screen time scheduling is an important part of our product, but there’s so much more that comes with it. You can also track location and block websites and apps, but it’s Bark’s content monitoring that makes it an absolute game-changer when it comes to online safety.

Bark scans your kid’s social media accounts, texts, emails, and files for potential issues. If something concerning is found — like sexting, online predators, bullying, and depression — you’ll get an alert so you can check in and make sure everything’s okay. 

Start your free, 7-day trial today, or learn more about the Bark Phone, which is our phone designed specifically with parents in mind that comes with Bark built in, along with a host of cool features like contact approvals, daily time limits, and much more. Goodbye stress and hello healthy screen time habits!

Drug dealers today don’t just peddle marijuana and cocaine — there’s an incredibly surging market for illegal prescription pills like Xanax, Adderall, and Oxycodone. But these pills aren’t just straight from the pharmacy in plastic orange bottles. Dealers looking to make a profit lace them with other substances, most frequently fentanyl. These laced drugs can cause deadly overdoses with just a minuscule amount of the opioid.

Because of this, fentanyl is one of the deadliest drugs in the U.S. right now, and the scariest part is that it’s 50 times more potent than heroin. In this post, you’ll learn about this dangerous practice, along with why kids should understand that no illegal drugs are safe from being laced with fentanyl.

Disturbing Facts About Fentanyl

The DEA recently published a public safety alert that features some truly eye-opening stats about the prevalence and anger of fentanyl-laced drugs. Here are just a few:

• Of the fentanyl-laced fake prescription pills analyzed in 2022, six out of ten now contain a potentially lethal dose of fentanyl.
• 107,622 Americans died of drug poisoning in 2021, with 66 percent of those deaths involving synthetic opioids like fentanyl.
• In 2021, the DEA seized more than 20.4 million fake prescription pills.

Why Are Drugs Laced, Anyway?

Dealers lace drugs for two main reasons, and they often go hand in hand. Firstly, they do it to stretch their supply as a cost-saving measure. Secondly, adding super addictive things like fentanyl also increases the potency, which can lead to quicker addiction. Fentanyl is both easy to obtain and cheap, which makes it the go-to choice for drug dealers looking to add it to their product.

It’s Impossible to Tell If a Pill Is Laced By Looking at It

Many people — kids included — think that a laced pill would be visibly obvious. This couldn’t be further from the truth, as a lethal amount of fentanyl can fit on the tip of a sharpened pencil, and drug dealers purposely mold counterfeit pills to look nearly identical to real ones. The DEA website One Pill Can Kill has a slideshow that lets you compare fake pills and actual ones — it’s shockingly difficult. Fentanyl especially is nearly impossible to detect, as it is odorless, colorless, and tasteless.

Kids Can Unknowingly Buy Fentanyl-Laced Drugs With the Tap of a Button

Apps like Snapchat aren’t just dangerous because of disappearing messages — they also are platforms that drug dealers use to solicit to children. In 2020, a drug dealer reached out to  16-year-old Sammy Chapman on Snapchat, and a fentanyl-laced pill was delivered to his house.

Sammy tragically died of an overdose from this encounter. Because of this unfortunate event, Sammy’s parents have been advocating for Sammy’s Law, a bill that would require social media companies to let third-party parental control apps like Bark work on their platforms. 

But Sammy’s story is far from an isolated event. Kids order drugs every day on Snapchat and Instagram — and while they’re not always laced, the chances are enormously high that they may be. No family deserves to be subject to that game of life-or-death chance.

How Bark Can Help Protect Your Child from Drug Dealers

Bark can help parents know what’s going on in their child’s world by monitoring for mentions of drugs, alcohol, and many other issues like bullying, online predators, and violence. If something concerning is found — like a text exchange talking about pills or photos of a baggy of drugs — parents will get an alert so they can check in and make sure everything is okay.

And for apps that are harder to monitor, like Snapchat we discussed above, Bark also lets you block them, helping to give you peace of mind that they’re staying off dangerous platforms. Start your free, 7-day trial to see how Bark can work for your family. 

When it comes to giving your kid a phone, many families — especially the hardcore and loyal Apple families — default to a hand-me-down iPhone. Parents already know how it works, it’s free, and it’s the path of least resistance. 

But it’s not the best way to introduce your child into the world of handheld technology. Why? Because iPhones are built for adults, not kids. Some folks may think all phones are created equal, but the best phones for kids are built especially for them, which is exactly how the Bark Phone was designed.

In this blog post, we’ll highlight all of the ways the Bark Phone vs iPhone debate comes out on the side of Bark — and peace of mind for parents.

Comparing the features: Bark Phone vs iPhone

Monitoring

iPhone

You’ll get a more hands-off experience with monitoring on iPhones. In fact, what Apple calls  “monitoring” is just getting stats about phone usage — time on apps, number of pickups, etc. This is helpful data to know, but there’s not much you can do with the information besides adjust screen time rules, and that’s only if you have another Apple device for remote management; otherwise, it must be managed directly on the child’s device. Also, Apple doesn’t alert you to potentially concerning texts or web browsing activity.

Bark

No one else monitors quite like Bark, and that’s because we use the term to mean advanced technology that scans your child’s device, apps, browsers, and social media platforms for potential dangers. You’ll get an alert for issues like bullying, predators, sexual content, and more. Monitoring is our secret sauce, and it’s what helps families keep their kids safe online. You’ll have a better idea what’s going on in your child's world, which is what makes the Bark Phone one of the best phones for kids. 

Alerts for nude photos

iPhone

Under “Communication Safety,” Apple will display a message to your child if they’re about to view a risky image in iMessage, along with a link to click for resources and the ability to text a grown-up. But the kid can still view the image with a tap of a button. Apple even relents and states in the copy “It’s your choice, but make sure you feel safe.” 

Bark

With child sexual abuse material (CSAM), Bark automatically removes images that are sent or received on your child’s Bark Phone.  It even prevents your child from saving a nude photo they take of themselves — it’s deleted instantly and parents are sent an alert.

For nude photos of adults, Bark automatically sends parents alerts that inappropriate content has been detected, along with the context of who sent it, when, and any contextual information. 

Disappearing texts

iPhone

One of the newest iPhone features is the ability to unsend a text within 2 minutes, which essentially turns iPhones into Snapchat with its disappearing messages. A notice appears stating that a message was unsent, but there’s no way for parents to view what image actually left their kid’s device. 

Bark

We received a ton of feedback on this issue, which is why parents have the ability to turn off text deletion altogether. This means that everything your child sends and receives in the text app stays there, if you choose. This helps in two key ways. First, there’s always a record of what happened so you can go back and see what’s going on. Second, knowing that there’s no deletion, kids will be less likely to exchange potentially dangerous messages.

Daily app limits

iPhone

Apple allows you to set daily total limits for various apps, as well as set different rules for “Downtime.” However, kids have gotten really good at circumventing Screen Time, and even Apple itself has admitted to the bugginess of the feature. A quick search in our Parenting in a Tech World Facebook group will reveal tons of posts from befuddled parents asking how their kids are spending hours a day on apps that have a one-minute limit. That’s right — you can’t set any app limit to “none.” It has to be one minute at the minimum. 

Bark

With the Bark Phone, you can set total daily time limits for apps across specific platforms (like YouTube) or entire categories (like social media), or a combination of both. You can also set customizable screen time schedules based on categories like bedtime, school time, free time, and your default rules. And because Bark’s software is baked into the phone with stringent safeguards (and not added as an afterthought like Apple’s Screen Time), it’s much more tamper-proof.

Website blocking

iPhone

With Apple Screen Time, you only have a few choices. When you want to block web content, you can choose “Limit adult websites” or manually add in always allowed or always blocked websites that your child can only visit. Both have flaws: if you choose “limit adult websites,” you’re still leaving your kid open to tons of other problematic sites. And if you choose to block everything and manually add in allowed sites, that will take a lot of time. 

Bark

We make it easy with an intuitive interface that gives you tons of options. You can block entire categories – like streaming sites, gaming sites, and dozens more — and quickly allow for exceptions within each (like allowing all streaming apps except for Max). Combining these rules into our screen time scheduling makes transitions seamless, too. You can block YouTube during the school day, then allow it for an hour after your kid gets home, then block it again at bedtime — and this all happens automatically.

Location tracking

iPhone

If your kid has an iPhone, you use Apple’s Find My to keep track of their location. From the app, you can see their current location as well as their distance from you. You can also set location alerts whenever they arrive at or leave specific locations, but your child has to approve this feature.

Bark

Bark’s robust location tracking is built for parental peace of mind, and it offers location alerts, check-ins, and real-time GPS tracking, along with the exact route they take. You can also get important travel information like whether they’re biking, driving, or walking, along with the top-speed summary of your child’s trips. And particularly for teen drivers, the Bark Phone has a "lock while driving" feature that will automatically pause the device when it detects it’s in a moving vehicle. The phone will remain locked until it’s no longer detected as moving at the speed of a car. 

Ready to order a Bark Phone?

Now that we’ve discussed the merits of the Bark Phone vs iPhone debate, it’s clear that the Bark Phone is the best choice for families. Privacy? That’s Apple. Safety? That’s Bark. 

No other phone comes close to giving the parents this level of control and peace of mind. Our plans start at just $39/month, and each order comes with a free Bark Phone! Order yours today. 

It’s Mental Health Awareness Month, and now is a good time for families to strike up conversations about emotional well-being, learn about common issues, and take proactive steps to support each other. 

Prioritizing mental health is a life-long journey, and it starts in childhood with open discussions and tons of parental support. Things look a lot different than they did even five or ten years ago  — let alone when we were growing up — when it comes to mental health. Here are five things to help shift your perspective regarding mental health in 2024. 

5 Things Parents Should Know During Mental Health Awareness Month

1. There's never been a better time for families to talk openly about mental health in human history.

Right now, it’s a pretty common belief that therapy can help nearly everyone, kids and adults alike. Speaking with a mental health professional gives you perspective, allows you to explore big feelings in a safe space, and prompts growth. In the past — and even as recently as the ‘90s — therapy was talked about in hushed whispers and seen as something only for serious problems. 

Things are so different today, and having open therapy discussions is just one example of how talking about mental health has lost much of the stigma that it used to. This, combined with the fact that we now know so much more about the root causes of psychological issues, means that parents now have the ability to explain what anxiety, depression, and other concerns are to their children. Mental health issues aren’t moral failings — they’re typically the result of chemical imbalances or situational problems. 

Even if these particular issues don’t come up, many modern families have gotten better at encouraging kids to really feel their emotions and speak up about what they’re going through, no matter how hard it might be. Make sure your child knows they can always come to you when they feel off or something isn’t right in their world. 

2. Kids actively seek out mental health content on platforms like TikTok.

Because mental health is now so actively discussed in our society, it makes sense that content creators on TikTok and YouTube would begin making videos about it. In fact, you can find therapists and counselors discussing issues like depression and ADHD everywhere online. You can also come across even more content made by everyday people sharing their personal struggles and experiences with mental health.

For kids who are feeling different or scared in their mental health journey, finding information from a community of similar people on social media can help them feel less alone. They can even discover resources like guided meditations and body scans. 

There’s a downside, though. It’s important to note that this type of content is not a substitute for professional mental health advice. There can be a tendency for people to incorrectly diagnose themselves based on a few short videos. Remember, many popular online content creators publish videos to drive clicks and sales, so they have a vested interest in making viewers believe what they’re saying. 

3. Suicide rates for young people have jumped almost 60% since 2007.

In this study by the CDC, researchers compared suicide rates from two different 3-year periods: 2007–2009 and 2018–2020, and noticed the incredibly eye-opening spike in prevalence.

This is a tragedy for our nation’s youth. Suicide is always a difficult subject to talk about, but it’s so important to understand what’s happening in America right now. Suicide is currently the second-leading cause of death for ages 10–14, a stat that was unthinkable thirty years ago.

We can’t overstate how crucial it is for parents to be mindful of their child’s mental health. Often kids struggle silently with the burden of suicidal ideation, giving no signs of depression and continuing to succeed in school, sports, and hobbies despite being in anguish.

Because of this, parents play a pivotal role in noticing changes in behavior. This way, they can provide support, and get professional help when needed.

4. It’s not just screen time that’s causing problems.

There’s no denying that overreliance on tech devices is an epidemic for families in the modern age. It’s still unclear, too, what’s happening: Is too much screen time causing mental health issues, or are mental health issues prompting more screen time?

While that question may be harder to answer, what we do know is that there are a ton of other factors affecting kids today like mounting academic pressures, changing social dynamics, and widespread societal changes. The pandemic was a global, first-of-its-kind event that upended life as we know it for years, and we’ll likely be feeling the effects of it for years to come. 

5. Earlier puberties may be contributing to mental health issues.

Studies have confirmed that puberty happens earlier for kids today than in years past. This means that some of the side effects that come with adolescence — like moodiness and anxiety — can affect kids as young as 9. 

But it’s not just hormones potentially affecting mental health. Earlier puberty means body changes that affect a child’s sense of self and outlook on the world. In the past, teenagers were the ones pushing boundaries and learning how to be young adults. With earlier puberty, kids and tweens are entering this era earlier, making parenting them more of a challenge.

Plus, as kids begin to mature quickly, they may also stand out from their peers by being taller or having more developed physical characteristics like facial hair or deeper voices. The physical and emotional changes associated with early puberty can be overwhelming for children. 

Understanding these biological shifts can help parents navigate puberty together with their kids, helping to keep an eye out for mental health changes.

How Bark Can Help

With Bark, parents can monitor their child's online activity and detect potential issues related to mental health. Our advanced AI technology analyzes and alerts you to potential concerns like depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation, and a whole host of other issues. 

Bark can also help with setting screen time limits and blocking certain apps and websites that may be harmful to your teen's mental health. Start your free, seven-day trial of Bark to see how it can help your family.

Parents, do these next few phrases sound familiar? 

“Just five more minutes — let me finish this game!”

“I’m so BORED! I have to watch TV.”

“Why can’t I play Fortnite?! I’ve done all my homework and all my friends are online right now.”

Screen time is one of the constant battles families have in the digital age. Gone are the days of just cable TV — kids now have access to countless streaming platforms on TVs, tablets, and gaming consoles. There are apps and phones and all sorts of devices vying for their attention. 

Managing your kid’s screen time can feel like whack-a-mole, but it also comes in handy on long car trips or hard days after work. It’s a double-edged sword for modern parents, that’s for sure. But how much screen time is too much? Let's dive into this important topic and explore some practical tips for your family.

Understanding Screen Time Guidelines

How much screen time is too much will depend on your child's age and developmental stage, so it’s super important to be aware of the general guidelines as they get older. Here’s what the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recommends by age:

For children younger than 18 months

Avoid the use of screen media other than video chatting — think quick calls with grandparents or with a parent on a work trip. 

18 to 24 months

Introduce high-quality programming or apps with parents or caregivers, and limit time on screens to less than one hour per day. Fortunately, there are a ton of educational shows aimed at younger children, like CoCoMelon and Ms. Rachel.

2 to 5 years

Limit screen time to one hour per day (three hours on weekends) of high-quality programming, and watch it together to help them understand what they are seeing. Now’s a good time to get started with classics like Sesame Street and modern popular favorites like Bluey.

6 years and older

Set consistent limits on the amount of time spent on devices and watching screens, and ensure screen time doesn't interfere with adequate sleep, physical activity, and their social life. 

As kids mature, their taste in television and movies will change wildly. They’ll also become more interested in apps, games, and eventually social media platforms as they hit their teenage years. 

It’s okay to give them more screen time when they act responsibly, just as it’s equally important to reel them back in when things get out of hand. 

How Much Screen Time Is Too Much?

We’ve talked about the limits that pediatricians recommend, but life doesn’t make things easy. There will be days where everything is hard and your child will have more screen time than usual. And that’s okay! No family is perfect. 

But when excessive screen time starts to become a problem, you’ll notice things change both physically and emotionally. Here are some signs that your child may be spending too much time in front of screens:

Crankiness: If your child becomes cranky or irritable after screen time, it may be a sign that they need a break — no matter how long or short the time period seems.

Inability to transition: After taking away the device or turning off the TV, your child pouts, gets emotional, or refuses to do something else.

Difficulty sleeping: Screen time close to bedtime can interfere with sleep patterns, leading to difficulty falling or staying asleep.

Losing interest in other activities: When screen time becomes the primary source of entertainment, children may lose interest in outdoor play, reading, or other activities.

Physical health changes: If your child’s life starts revolving around indoor sedentary screen time, it can affect things like blood pressure, weight, eye strain, and more. 

Setting Screen Time Limits

Establishing screen time limits can help you strike a balance between digital entertainment and the real world. Here are some tips for getting started. 

Fill out a tech contract together

Sit down and create a plan that outlines specific screen time rules and schedules for the entire family. We’ve even got a free one you can download and print out!

Use parental controls 

Set up parental controls on devices to limit access to age-appropriate content and monitor screen time usage. Bark’s screen time feature lets you get super granular with daily limits — like blocking YouTube automatically after bedtime or restricting all apps during the school day. You can even pause everything on their device whenever they need a breather.

Encourage real-world activities

Make sure your child does other activities like reading, playing outside, or arts and crafts. Children have been just fine without screens for thousands of years — they’ll be okay without constant technology (despite what they may tell you).

Lead by example

Be a role model by demonstrating healthy screen time habits and engaging in screen-free activities with your child. We know, this is definitely a challenge sometimes when you have to make dinner, get younger kids ready for bed all while answering work emails. But try and set down your device during dinner when possible. 

Learn More About Bark

Bark’s screen time scheduling is an important part of our product, but there’s so much more that comes with it. You can also track location and block websites and apps, but it’s Bark’s content monitoring that makes it an absolute game-changer when it comes to online safety.

Bark scans your kid’s social media accounts, texts, emails, and files for potential issues. If something concerning is found — like sexting, online predators, bullying, and depression — you’ll get an alert so you can check in and make sure everything’s okay. Start your free, 7-day trial today, or learn more about the Bark Phone, which is our phone designed specifically with parents in mind that comes with Bark built in, along with a host of cool features like contact approvals, daily time limits, and much more.

If you're familiar with sextortion, you're probably aware of the emotional and psychological impact it can have on families, leaving lasting effects on a young person’s well-being. What’s even more disturbing is that scammers have made a racket out of sextortion scams by targeting young people who may not understand exactly what’s happening or who they’re actually talking to online. 

In this blog post, we’ll explain these scams and walk you through what to do if it happens, along with how to support your child, what to save, and how to report it to the relevant authorities.

Sextortion: A Quick Definition

Sextortion is a combination of the words “sex” and “extortion.” Extortion is using threats or force to coerce someone into doing something. In the case of sextortion, a person is threatened that their nude videos or photos will be released unless they:

• Provide valuables or money
• Release more sexual photos or videos
• Perform sexual acts
• Other acts that are against one’s will

Individuals can feel immense shame in cases of sextortion, afraid that their family will see the photos and judge them.

How Do Sextortion Scams Work?

Sextortion can happen between two people who are acquainted (as in the case of a relationship) or through a scam (someone pretends to be someone else in order to solicit photos). 

These scams are becoming more and more prevalent and are increasingly targeting young men. The offending party will pretend to be a girl around their age and then will encourage the young man to begin sending nude photos/videos. Once he does, the scammer will demand payment on pain of releasing the photos/videos to his family and community. 

Tragically, some of these cases have resulted in boys dying by suicide from the shame, fear, and guilt surrounding the issue. 

First, Comfort Your Child

Teens make mistakes! Remember that with sextortion, they’re still the victim of a serious crime.  No matter what happened, your child was being manipulated and taken advantage of — full stop. Tell your kid that you’re proud of them for being brave enough to come to you and tell you the truth. This way, you can help protect them. 

They’re likely going to be very upset and experiencing a range of emotions, from sadness and guilt to shame and embarrassment. As a parent, your unconditional support is invaluable during this challenging time. Together, you can take proactive steps towards addressing the situation, seeking help, and ensuring that your child feels supported and protected throughout the recovery process.

Save Everything

First, know that this may be a challenging first step, because your first instinct as a parent would be to delete these explicit images to protect your child. But keeping a record of everything that was communicated, you’ll have more to provide to law enforcement so they can potentially find these bad actors. In some cases, screenshots will be fine. But in the case of Snapchat, which alerts the other party to screen shots, it’s better to take a photo of the screen with another device. 

Proactive Steps for Reporting

The next few sections are different ways that you can report the sextortion scam to authorities, non-profits, NGOs, and tech companies. Depending on the organization, you can help provide information that can lead to arrests as well as get support in taking down any images that have been posted online without consent. 

Contact the Internet Crime Complaint Center

The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3), operated by the FBI, specializes in handling internet-related crime complaints, including sextortion. By contacting IC3, you can report the incident and provide them with the evidence you've collected. This step is super important as it connects you with law enforcement professionals who can investigate the case further.

Report It to the FBI

In addition to filing a complaint with IC3, consider directly reporting the incident to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They have specialized units dedicated to investigating sextortion cybercrimes. Your report can contribute to a broader effort to combat online predators and help protect other potential victims.

Make a CyberTip Report

CyberTip reports can be submitted through the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC). This organization works to combat child exploitation instances ranging from sextortion to sex trafficking. By making a CyberTip report, you're providing valuable information that can assist in identifying and stopping perpetrators.

Get Started with Take It Down

Take It Down uses technology to help remove online nude, partially nude, or sexually explicit photos and videos taken before a person was 18. To begin the process, however, you must still have the image or video on your device. Take It Down also goes beyond mere removal, offering guidance and support to help families navigate the complexities of dealing with online exploitation. 

How Bark Can Help

Being proactive about your child’s online safety is one of the important things you can do to help protect them. Bark scans online activities — including the texts and photos they send along with social media posting and commenting — for possible signs of sextortion along with other serious issues like suicidal ideation and bullying. 

If we find something concerning, you’ll get an alert so you can check in and make sure everything’s okay. In many cases of sextortion, parents probably had no clue their child was sexting at all, let alone with someone aggressive who is threatening them. Bark sends alerts whenever it detects a saved explicit image, as well as when one is sent or received, keeping you in the know when it comes to what’s happening in your child’s digital world. 

Gone are the days of loading up the whole family in the minivan on Friday nights to head to Blockbuster to pick out a VHS tape to watch. But on the plus side, we can now stream almost every movie ever made right from the comfort of our living rooms! 

To make family movie nights a little more interesting, we’ve come up with some fun ideas to keep them fresh and interactive. We hope it helps your family reinvigorate not only their love for films but also for spending quality time together!

Get pumped with at-home promo

Half the fun of almost any activity is anticipating it, and family movie night is no exception! There are a ton of ways to get excited for an upcoming feature. Here are just a few ideas to ramp up the feel-good vibes for the week:

• You can watch the trailer together on YouTube (bonus points if it’s an older movie and the trailer is delightfully old-fashioned)
• Print out a poster of it and stick it on the fridge. Or, if you’re like most of us and don’t have a printer, write it on the dry-erase or chalkboard (get the kids to help with illustrations).
• Have your children create custom movie tickets for entry.
• Listen to the movie’s soundtrack on Spotify ahead of time.

Go on a culinary adventure

One of the most fun things you can do with family movie night is to match a movie to food or snacks! You can use this opportunity to branch out and try something brand new (like actual French ratatouille for Ratatouille) or keep it easy and familiar (like ordering cheesy, gooey pizza for Ninja Turtles). Dinner and movie is always a winning combo, and kids will especially appreciate seeing their favorite characters indulge in what they’re eating in real life. Older kids will also be able to help out in the kitchen as they work on their burgeoning culinary skills. 

Take it someplace new

Sometimes you just need a slight change of scenery to make movie night a little more special. Whether it’s on the porch, in the backyard, or just in a different room, consider changing up the usual location. If moving around isn’t an option, mix up the room! Dim the lights, build a fort with tons of pillows and blankets, and change up the seating. 

Dress the part for family movies

Halloween may come only once a year, but the fun of dressing up can happen no matter the season! Here are just a few examples of how to make a movie night more fun with a change of clothes:

• Themed costumes: Choose a movie theme and encourage everyone to dress up like a character. For example, if you're watching a pirate movie, dress as pirates with eye patches, bandanas, and makeshift swords.
• Character cosplay: Assign each family member a character from the movie and see what they come up with! This could be superheroes, wizards, or even classic movie characters like Indiana Jones or Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.
• Pajama party: Keep it cozy and simple by having everyone wear their favorite pajamas or comfy loungewear.
• Decade-themed duds: Pick a specific decade that matches the era of the movie you're watching. For example, if you're watching a movie set in the 1950s, dress in '50s-style clothing with polka dots and slicked-back hair.

Read the book first

Get excited for family movie night by reading the book together before watching the movie version! For example, if you're planning to watch Charlotte's Web, reading the book beforehand (whether aloud together or separately) allows everyone to imagine the characters and scenes in their own unique way. As you read, discuss your favorite parts and predictions about how they might appear on screen. This shared experience will make the movie even more enjoyable and spark fun conversations about storytelling.

Institute a 10-minute intermission

It’s a good idea to give kids — and parents — a break for a few moments. One of the best things about at-home family movies is that you can press pause and give folks a rest. This way, no one misses key scenes when the inevitable bathroom break is needed. You can also refill snacks, shake out those legs, and look up who that movie star is on IMDB. (It goes without saying, of course, that the best family movie nights are screen-free for all involved.)

Start a movie journal for family movie night

Whether you use pen and paper, a spreadsheet, or even a movie-tracking app like Letterboxd, starting a journal can help you keep track of your favorite films! Each family member can jot down their thoughts, favorite quotes, or memorable moments from the movies you watch together. This creates a wonderful keepsake and fosters deeper connections as you share your hot takes on the films. Over time, you'll have a personalized collection of memories that reflect your family movie night adventures.

Are you feeling like a stressed-out project manager keeping track of your daughter’s piano and softball lessons, your son’s soccer and taekwondo, and your spouse’s work trips? We feel you! It feels like families are busier than ever, and wrangling people, places, and things gets harder and harder. 

Have no fear! We’ve researched some of the best family calendar apps *real* families used to stay on top of everything — including Bark team families! Let's explore some of the best family calendar apps available, each with features tailored to simplify your family's busy life.

The 5 Best Family Calendar Apps to Keep You on Track

Google Calendar

Cost: Free

The most popular choice among our team members was Google Calendar. This makes sense, as most people have Gmail accounts — not to mention it’s free and also incredibly intuitive. Gcal allows you to create multiple calendars, color-code events, and share schedules with family members. You can set reminders, receive notifications, and access your calendar across phones, tablets, computers, and more. Plus, the ability to overlay different calendars makes it easy to view personal, work, and family schedules simultaneously.

Apple Calendar

Cost: Free

For families in the Apple ecosystem, Apple Calendar (formerly known as iCal) is a great option. It syncs effortlessly across Apple devices, including iPhones, iPads, and Macs, making it ideal for iOS households (which is a lot of folks). With features like shared calendars, event invitations, and natural language input, Apple Calendar simplifies scheduling and ensures no one misses an event or notification across their iOS devices. 

Cozi

Cost: Free plus premium option ($19.99/year)

Cozi is designed specifically with families in mind, offering a comprehensive set of tools for coordinating schedules and activities. It goes beyond basic calendar functions and includes features like shopping lists, to-do lists, meal planning, and even a family journal. This all-in-one app is a good option for busy households looking to centralize their organization and communication. You can sign up for free, but if you want to add extra features, there’s Cozi Gold, which also removes ads.

Family Wall

Cost: Free with premium option ($4.99/month)

Family Wall goes beyond just calendar planning — it syncs with your existing Google Calendar — and provides easily accessible family planning in a shared space. It’s kind of like social media but just with your family, letting you share to-do lists, messages, and photos on a communal digital wall, fostering better communication and coordination among family members. You can even track location and manage your budget with it, if you want to do everything in one app. 

Trello

Cost: Free with addition pricing tiers

Remember how we said running a family is like being a project manager? Some families actually use project management software! Trello is a card-based system that allows you to create visual schedules, assign tasks, and track progress on various family activities. Trello's flexibility makes it suitable for families seeking a super customizable organization tool, but there is a bit more of a learning curve for it than with native calendar apps like Apple Cal or Gcal. 

How Bark Can Help

Keeping up with your family’s activities is just one small part of raising kids in the digital age. If you’re looking to help keep them safe when they’re on their devices, Bark can help! Our app, which works on both iOS and Android, lets you monitor content, block websites & apps, and track location in real time. Get started today with your free, 7-day trial!

Netflix is still one of the most popular streaming platforms, and kids and teens especially enjoy all of its different programming options. Many shows are marketed towards young people, featuring tales of high school, first love, and the challenges of growing up. 

Despite these universal themes, not every show is squeaky clean, though — depending on your family’s values, some may definitely be a must-skip. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through some of the most popular Netflix teen shows, along with what they’re rated, what they’re about, and if there’s anything important you need to know before you let your kid watch.

What Parents Need to Know About Popular Netflix Shows for Teens

All American

Rated: TV-14

Summary: Originally appearing on the CW network, All American focuses on young Spencer James, a talented football player from south Los Angeles who gets recruited to play for prestigious Beverly Hills High. Spencer and his family must adapt to his new school, a different social environment, and the pressures of high school football. The show also touches on themes of identity, race, class, family dynamics, and just how important having a serious dream can be. 

Surviving Summer

Rated: TV-PG

Summary: This teen drama is a slightly different take on the usual fish-out-of-water plot, as it showcases an American teen who falls in with a clique of competitive surfers when she’s sent to live in Australia. It’s got the usual friendship pitfalls and young love plotlines, but the incredible high-octane ocean scenes and surfing competitions make it stand out from the usual teen dramas on Netflix. 

Outer Banks

Rated: TV-MA

Summary: 

Outer Banks follows a tight-knit group of friends who live and work in coastal North Carolina. Led by John B, the teens embark on an adventurous treasure hunt to uncover $400 million in gold, which they believe is connected to his missing father. Along the way, they face rival groups, summer flings, and clashes with the richer kids in town, known as the Kooks. Drug use and adult themes contribute to the show’s TV-MA rating. 

Never Have I Ever 

Rated: TV-14

Summary: Created by Mindy Kaling, Never Have I Ever is a coming-of-age comedy-drama series loosely based on Kaling’s childhood. Set in the San Fernando valley of California, the show follows main character Devi, a 15-year-old Indian-American dealing with the death of her father and her struggles to fit in at school. Bonus: Many episodes are narrated by tennis legend John McEnroe.

Stranger Things

Rated: TV-14

Summary: The Netflix teen series that started them all! Stranger Things debuted in 2016, featuring the supernatural exploits of a group of kids in 1980s Hawkins, Indiana. Together with their mysterious and powerful friend Eleven, the crew battle government conspiracies and a parallel dimension called the Upside Down. The show can be scary at times, but the themes of friendship, loyalty, and perseverance make it a worth-while viewing event for families.

Riverdale

Rated: TV-14

Summary: Remember the Archie comics? Riverdale is a modern (and dark!) update featuring classic characters like Betty, Veronica, and Archie. The characters navigate high school, dating and friendships all while uncovering the truth behind murders, conspiracies, and sinister plots that somehow become very prevalent in their small town.

13 Reasons Why

Rated: TV-MA with a content warning for suicide

Summary: Of all the shows on this list, 13 Reasons Why is the most potentially harmful to kids. The show is told in retrospect about a girl who died by suicide and left cassette tapes recounting the reasons that led to her death and who she feels is responible.The show is incredibly intense, and it prompted Netflix to even add a content warning for suicide. There are also graphic depictions of sexual assault, bullying, and rape.

Ginny & Georgia

Rated: TV-14

Summary: Often described as The Gilmore Girls for the Gen Z set, Ginny & Georgia follows the lives of a young mother, Georgia, and her teenage daughter, Ginny. After moving to a new town in Massachusetts for a fresh start, Georgia faces the challenges of raising her daughter while concealing her troubled past. Ginny, meanwhile, navigates the complexities of high school, friendships, and first love. There’s a ton of inappropriate content in this show, including raunchy jokes, drug use, self-harm, and toxic relationships.

Wednesday

Rated: TV-14

Summary: Wednesday Addams, of the classic Addams Family, gets a modern revamp in this popular new spin-off show. After being expelled from a “normal” high school, Gomez and Morticia ship Wednesday off to Nevermore Academy, a school for otherworld kids. She’s a bit of an outcast, but her keen intelligence and straight-forward and dead-pan personality shine through, enabling her to solve a murder mystery at her new school. Bonus: Four episodes are directed by the master of creepy filmmaking — the one and only Tim Burton. 

Need Help With Screen Time?

Watching streaming platforms doesn’t just happen on the family TV — kids can download apps on their phones, tablets, and even watch on laptops. If you’d like to manage how often your kid can access streaming content — or block it altogether! — Bark can help. Check out the Bark app for phone & tablet blocking, and our Bark Home device for in-house devices like TVs and computers.

One of the most common questions we hear about from parents in our Facebook group is “How do I keep screen time in check for my kid?” Many families are concerned that their children may be developing unhealthy addictions to online gaming, social media, and even streaming sites like Netflix. What exactly is digital addiction, though? And how you can recognize the signs? In this blog post, we’ll take a deep dive into everything you as a parent need to know. 

Is Addiction Even the Right Word?

When we hear "addiction," we usually think of substances like alcohol or dangerous behaviors like gambling. The issue with internet use is that it’s got so many positive parts, from keeping families in touch to learning remotely. And unlike substances like alcohol or tobacco, the internet doesn’t create a dangerous physical dependence (though psychological dependence can definitely be developed).

So, what’s a better term, then? When it comes to dealing with someone who’s on the internet more than is probably goodl, professionals often prefer the term “problematic internet media use.” It’s more encompassing of the different ways that people can get drawn into the digital world in potentially harmful ways.

Recognizing the Signs

As a parent, how do you recognize the signs of problematic internet media use? You know your child best, so pay attention to any serious changes in their day-to-day world. If they’re spending way more time creating Minecraft worlds than doing homework or hanging out with the family, that’s a sign that it may be time to reel in their screen time. Here are some other signs that may show a growing preoccupation with the digital world: 

• Increased irritability or anxiety when unable to use devices
• Excessive time spent online, impacting schoolwork or sleep
• Withdrawal from other activities or hobbies
• Changes in mood or behavior, like becoming more secretive or defensive about device use
• Physical symptoms like headaches or eye strain from prolonged screen time
• Deceiving family members or others about the amount of time spent on gaming
• The use of screen time to relieve negative moods

An important thing to look out for is using digital tech as a coping mechanism. Like relying on food, substances, or other behaviors, using screen time consistently as an escape from emotional ups and downs can be a red flag. 

Common Examples

Online gaming

This is probably the most recognizable form of problematic internet media use in kids, since video games are played by 90% of kids over the age of 2, and 75% of U.S. households own at least one gaming console. The average time spent playing per day? On average about 2 hours!
Video games are so consuming and addictive that there’s even an entry about it in the DSM-5 (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) — it’s called Internet Gaming Disorder. It can be hard to tell where the line is drawn between a gaming enthusiast and someone who’s prone to this disorder, but it usually comes down to how it impacts one’s real-life relationships and interactions. 

Social media

Kids especially can get hooked to social media because it's like a never-ending game that's hard to put down. The social media companies purposely design their apps to be addictive and to keep users scrolling endlessly. This gamification of attention (like constantly getting notifications, likes, and followers) can lead to an unhealthy obsession with social media and difficulty focusing on other activities. 

Streaming

Kids love YouTube. They love it so much that it’s the number one most-used streaming app among young people. From Shorts to live-streamers and videos of every length in between, YouTube’s algorithm purposefully keeps kids hooked into the next video, and the next. But it’s not just YouTube that sucks kids down video rabbit holes — it’s also Disney+, Netflix, Hulu, and countless other streaming platforms that are vying for attention. There’s even an option for watching video games when you’re not currently playing them — platforms like Twitch let kids view other people settling in for a session of Fortnite or Call of Duty. It’s like screen-time inception as kids layer screen upon screen for consumption. For little developing brains, the siren call of infinite content can be impossible to resist. 

How Bark Can Help You Manage Screen Time

Managing your child’s screen time can feel like an uphill battle sometimes, but Bark is here to help! Many families use Apple Screen Time or Google Family Link, but these free options only go so far — and kids are great at figuring out workarounds to turn them off. 

Bark is light years better than those options, and our screen time tool even allows you to get super granular. You can block content according to different times of the day. This may look like “no YouTube during the school day” or “only meditation apps after bedtime.” The possibilities are endless, and every family does it a little bit differently. 

When your child is online, though, you can also count on Bark’s monitoring to scan for potential dangers in texts, apps, and social media. You’ll get alerted to issues like bullying, sexting, online predators, and more. Interested? Start your free, 7-day trial today!

Ask any Gen Xer or elder Millenial and you’ll learn that the 1990s truly were a golden age for teen movies. This was the last decade to feature high school kids navigating life without the internet and smartphones, so of course it feels extra special. 

Fast forward 25+ years and many of us now have adolescents of our own. The movies we loved growing up in the '90s have stuck with us, though. When you settle in for a rewatch of some of your favorites, the life lessons they teach can also apply to parenting and raising kids now that we’re older. Let’s dive in!

8 Parenting Lessons from Our Favorite '90s Teen Movies

Clueless: Communication is key

Beverly Hills teen Cher Horowitz may be clueless when it comes to love, but when it comes to communicating with her dad, she’s a pro. It goes both ways, too — father and daughter take time to eat meals together, discuss serious topics, and feel comfortable enough around each other to freely speak their minds. It’s a good lesson to remember, and even though you may not always agree with your kid, it’s essential to speak your truth and listen to theirs. A lot. 

Romeo + Juliet: Being a teenager is a very emotional time

Even before Baz Luhrman directed the 1995 modern-day version of Shakespeare’s popular play with a young Leonardo Decaprio, parents throughout the ages have recognized the very timeless truth at the heart of the play — teenagers have a lot of feelings. Every strong emotion feels like it’s the first time a human’s ever felt an emotion. Adulthood tempers our feelings over time, so it can be hard to relate. But remember: You were a young and hot-headed kid once too, so try and empathize occasionally when your child is feeling upset, smitten, or excited. And like all emotions — no feeling lasts forever.

She’s All That: Encourage your child to always be themselves

Quirky and artistic Laney Boggs is made over into a traditional “popular” girl in this classic coming-of-age movie, and the lesson we learned as teenagers is that it’s not what’s on the outside that matters — it’s what’s on the inside. As parents, it can be hard to see your child struggling if they’re not fitting in or meeting goals you necessarily had as a teen. But it’s more important to let your child create their own version of themselves. In the movie, that’s seen in letting not only Laney be her creative, artistic self, but also in the popular jock character Zach, who is more thoughtful and intellectual than he lets on for fear of being teased. Encourage your child to be themselves in every possible way. 

10 Things I Hate About You: Kids have to learn independence

Angsty Kat and picture-perfect Bianca and their romantic adventures may be at the heart of this movie, but underlying the main conflict is their relationship with their single father. He loves them dearly, but he’s a tad overbearing. He pressures Kat to skip her admission to Sarah Lawrence College and attend his nearby alma mater. The father also limits Bianca’s dating life by decreeing that she can only be asked out if her sister does, too. It’s natural to want to keep your kids close and safe, but as they grow up, they need to be able to stretch their wings a bit — it’s the only way they’ll be able to learn things on their own. You can always be a soft place for your kids to land if you’re worried about too much independence.

Pleasantville: Embrace imperfections — they’re what make us human

"Pleasantville" takes us on a journey into a 1950s-era, black-and-white world where perfection reigns supreme. In this too-perfect town, change is feared, and anything outside the norm is met with resistance. Throughout the movie, the characters start to experience emotions and desires beyond what they've known, and they learn that true fulfillment comes from embracing their authentic selves, flaws, and all. As parents, it's important to teach our children that it's okay to make mistakes and that imperfections are 100% okay. 

Rudy: Teach your kid to be doggedly determined in pursuit of dreams

Who among us hasn’t chanted “Rudy! Rudy! Rudy!” in support of someone trying their hardest? Despite being repeatedly told he doesn't have what it takes to play college football, Rudy's determination and unwavering commitment drive him to achieve the near-impossible — joining the famous Notre Dame football team. As parents, we can learn from Rudy's resilience and teach our children the value of perseverance. Encourage them to chase their dreams with passion and dedication, even when the odds seem stacked against them, because you never know when a breakthrough is right around the corner.

Now & Then: Friendships are one of the most important things in life 

Four friends, bonded since middle school, meet up as adults to support each other and reminisce about growing up in the late 1960s. Seeing these women’s bond is powerful, both in the nostalgic flashbacks and in the present-day setting. As adults, we identify more with the older characters, but for kids, the real draw is the friendships of the children. Encourage your own kids to cultivate meaningful relationships and cherish the moments shared with their friends. Whether it's through laughter, support, or shared experiences, friendships offer invaluable lessons and support that can last a lifetime. Loyalty, empathy, and acceptance in friendships lay the foundation for strong, lasting connections that endure through the years.

Sister Act 2: Support your child’s passions

Everyone’s favorite honorary nun Sister Mary Clarence inspires her students to embrace their musical talents and pursue their dreams of entering the all-state choir championship. As a parent, learn from her example and encourage your child to explore their interests and develop their skills. It can be anything, from tennis and swimming to e-sports and quiz bowl. Nurturing your child's passions fosters confidence, creativity, and a sense of purpose. Encourage their talents, teach them follow their hearts, and above all, always be in their corner shouting the loudest. 

Bark: The Parenting App Our Generation Loves

Moms and dads didn’t have to deal with the same issues our generation does — cyberbullying, online predators, and tons of other issues just didn’t exist yet. Fortunately, Bark is here to help with parenting in the digital age. Bark’s monitoring technology — which comes with our downloadable app for children’s iOS and Android devices as well as our kid-focused Bark Phone — scans online activities like texts and social media for signs of potential dangers and sends parents important alerts. With Bark, you can also manage screen time, block websites & apps, and even track location. Perhaps most importantly, however, is how Bark can help you grow closer to your kid with important conversations about the serious stuff in life.

In today’s age of airbrushed influencers and celebrities with perfect bodies crafted by personal trainers, teens may feel pressured to live up to a certain body type. Namely, one that's usually thin and toned. But these unrealistic standards can make it hard for teens to feel good about themselves and their bodies, especially during the teenage years when self-consciousness is usually at an all-time high.

With all the pressure out there, it's crucial for parents to be extra aware of how their teens are feeling about food, eating, and their body image. In this blog post, we're going to talk about some signs that might show your teen is struggling with their eating habits, and how Bark’s monitoring can help you support them if they need help. 

The Difference Between Disordered Eating and Eating Disorders

Before we get started, let’s briefly discuss the difference between disordered eating and an eating disorder. An eating disorder is an official diagnosis from a healthcare professional, and the symptoms are generally more numerous and more severe. Eating disorders include anorexia and bulimia, for example. 

Disordered eating, on the other hand, is an activity that affects food intake and can lead to discomfort. Not everyone who shows signs of disordered eating will develop an eating disorder, but some do. Disordered eating can look like following a very strict paleo diet or setting up iron-clad rules around calories — but we’ll get into the details next. 

Recognizing the Signs of Disordered Eating in Teens

Here are some of the symptoms of disordered eating, according to the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. 

• Frequent dieting with anxiety associated with specific foods
• Weight changes, either up or down, that happen often
• Rigid rituals and routines around exercise and food
• Feelings of shame and guilt when it comes to eating
• An intense preoccupation with food, weight, and body image that’s ever-present
• Loss of control around food, including compulsive eating habits
• Excessive exercise and food restriction, like fasting or purging

You know your child best, though — if you’ve noticed a change in behavior, eating habits, or weight, talk to them. This website also has more information about disordered eating. 

Boys Can Also Be Affected

Despite what some people may assume, boys can also grapple with disordered eating. Teen boys often feel the pressure to fit a certain body type seen in movies and magazines, especially in the age of 6-pack abs and muscled superheroes. Some boys even go to extremes like strict diets or excessive exercise to try and achieve an ideal body, which can harm their physical and mental health. That’s why it’s important for families to create an environment where every child feels comfortable seeking help and accepting their bodies, regardless of societal standards.

How Bark Can Help

In 2023, Bark’s annual report found that signs of disordered eating are more common than you might think, with 9% of tweens and an eye-opening 21% of teens engaging with or encountering content about disordered eating.

Sometimes, though, parents have no idea that their child may be struggling. This is where Bark comes in and can assist. We alert parents to potential body image or eating disorder concerns in a child’s online activities so they can check in and make sure everything is okay. 

Bark also monitors for other dangers, too — like bullying, suicidal ideation, online predators, and more. If you want to try Bark risk-free, you can start with our app, which has a free 7-day trial. We also offer the Bark Phone, which comes with our software built-in and a ton of other parental control features like app and contact approvals.  

 If you or someone you care about is struggling with an eating disorder, call the National Eating Disorders Association hotline at 800-931-2237. You can also text 800-931-2237 or chat with a trained volunteer online. For more information use these helpful resources.

If you’ve ever watched a movie featuring a character that throws away a cheap cell phone after using it — maybe a spy or bad guy — you’ve seen a burner phone. It’s a slang term that’s been around for a while, and many attribute its first use to an early 2000s show called The Wire. 

Burner phones, which are cheap, pre-paid mobile devices, have become a common fixture in modern life, and not just for criminal activities. They offer flexibility, a low price, no contract, and even minimal features on some models. 

But one of their most alluring features is that there is increased privacy with them, as they can be bought with cash and kept secret. This is why some kids buy burner phones even if they already have an iPhone or Android that was given to them by their parents. As you can probably guess, this presents a pretty big danger for teens and tweens.

In this post, we’ll dive into everything you need to know about these devices, and how you can tell if your kid may have one. 

What Is a Burner Phone?

A burner phone is any sort of prepaid, non-contract mobile device that’s easily acquired. You can buy them cheaply online or at stores like Best Buy and Walmart. Unlike going to a Verizon or T-Mobile store and spending hours signing up for a device and a plan, you can get a burner phone in a matter of seconds without having to register anything in your name. Kids can get them easily with a gift card or cash.

Types of Burner Phones

Many people may think that burner phones are only the $30 flip-phone, limited-internet type, but in reality, there are lots of different types. Searching online, a quick search for “prepaid phones” results in a wide variety of devices, including:

• Kids’s phones
• Flip phones (like a Nokia Tracfone)
• Androids (both high and low-end models)
• Recent iPhones

For many of these phones, you can pay month-by-month, or set an auto-renewal if you’re going to keep it for a while. Some have limited features (like talk and text only), while others operate exactly like a normal smartphone. 

The Dangers of a Second Phone

While we like to give kids the benefit of the doubt in a lot of cases, there really aren’t many above-board reasons for a child to have a burner phone (barring examples like situations of abuse or if a child feels they’re in danger). Here are just a few of the dangers a burner phone may pose.

Unmonitored access to nearly everything 

There’s a reason why a kid may want to buy a burner phone and secretly use it: because their parents will have absolutely no say in what they do on it. This could include unfiltered access to dangerous apps like Snapchat and Kik, as well as porn websites. 

Online predators

Burner phones can make kids feel like they can talk without their parents knowing, giving them a sense of privacy.  However, burner phones can become extremely dangerous tools if a child is being manipulated by an online predator. These devices encourage secrecy and prevent parents from finding out what’s really going on. Some predators may purchase a burner phone for a child for this very reason. 

Phone addiction

A burner device will also be free from set time limits, which could lead to all-night scrolling sessions — something many parents are super concerned about. When a kid is on their phone 24/7, it can affect their sleep and make it hard to focus during the day. Excess screen time can also contribute to mental health issues, especially when too much time is spent specifically on social media. 

How to Tell If Your Kid May Have a Burner Phone

If your child is using a burner phone privately, you may be wondering how you can tell if it’s happening. The most important thing to do is to keep an eye on their original phone’s usage. A dramatic decrease in data consumption may be a tell-tale sign that another device is being used instead. 

Also, look for specific dips in screen time — if they were using Instagram 2 hours a day and all of a sudden it goes down to zero or just a few minutes, the app may be being accessed on a burner phone. 

Bark can also help you figure out if your child is using a secret device! The Bark Home is an in-home filtering device that plugs into your router. When you set it up, you can tell what devices are connected to your Wi-Fi network. If you see a phone that you’ve never seen before, it could be a burner phone.

Beyond keeping an eye out for burner phones, Bark also helps with general online safety for your family. Bark’s monitoring technology — which comes with our downloadable app for children’s iOS and Android devices as well as our kid-focused Bark Phone — scans online activities like texts and social media for signs of potential dangers and sends parents important alerts. 

Deepfakes — or computer-generated videos of humans with real or partly real features — are a growing concern for people around the world. Some are getting so good that they can fool a casual video watcher who’s just scrolling through social media. Even well-informed adults can struggle with this deceptive technology, so it’s important for families to start explaining what deepfakes are to their children.  

As parents have learned to teach digital citizenship concepts to kids (like understanding how to spot a trusted website or news source), imparting knowledge about how to spot potentially fake videos will become simply another part of growing up in the digital age. In this blog post, we’ll discuss the dangers that deepfakes pose as well as provide some conversation starters so you can start talking about this important topic. 

Recent News Brings Attention to Deepfakes

In January, a viral AI filter on TikTok allowed users to turn themselves into Taylor Swift, similar to how you can use a puppy dog face or angel filter. This digitally created face would allow you to move your head, talk, and make facial expressions like the popular pop singer.

Most TikTok users just had a laugh, but on 4chan, a challenge started to see who could create a Taylor Swift deepfake in order to make porn. These NSFW videos were shared widely, and it brought the issue to the attention of mainstream news outlets. Taylor Swift’s celebrity and the problem of “non-consensual intimate images” introduced the concept to a wider audience, but this violation has been happening to many people all over the world for a while. Law enforcement and legal action have been slow to catch up to this technology, though.

What Exactly Are Deepfakes?

So, what do people mean when they use the term “deepfakes” ? This new-ish technology uses artificial intelligence techniques to create fake, computer-generated images and videos of real people. It goes far beyond airbrushing, photoshopping, or traditional video editing software. Using real subjects allows deepfakes to simulate real human movements and facial expressions. The technology is getting better every day, and it’s already to the point where it can be hard to tell the difference between an authentic video and a deepfake. 

If you’ve never seen a deepfake (though you probably have unwittingly!), check out this popular TikTok deepfake account of Tom Cruise. It’s not perfect, but you’ll be surprised by how realistic it looks. The actor is using a filter to recreate Tom’s face, but he’s doing a vocal impression to imitate his voice and speaking cadence. 

The Dangers of Deepfakes

Deepfakes aren’t just fun TikTok filters — they can have devastating real-life consequences for adults, children, and even society at large. 

Fraud

Just this month, a company suffered a serious financial fraud after a deepfake heist enabled a scammer to walk away with millions of dollars. The scammer posed as the company’s chief financial officer and asked employees to transfer company funds to a bank account, and the workers followed the fake directions. This is a large-scale version of fraud, of course, but it shows how trust and relationships can be used against people when dealing with deepfakes. 

An example of a smaller-scale — but still deeply concerning — version of deepfake fraud is fake voice scams. Scammers will use a small snippet of a victim's voice (usually easily found on social media) to create an AI-generated audio of them saying they've been "kidnapped" or that they're "stranded somewhere" and need money to get back home. Then, scammers call the victim's loved ones with this script and convince them to send money to save the victim.

Reputation destruction

The Taylor Swift fiasco we mentioned earlier is another big example of the potential for reputation destruction by deepfake technology. A recent study found that 90-95% of deepfake videos are now nonconsensual pornographic videos and, of those videos, 90% target women—mostly underage. So it's not just celebrities, average teens are having their likenesses used for fake nudes — sometimes by their own classmates — and suffering severe backlash that comes when these images or videos are shared online.

But it doesn't have to be revenge porn, either — a deepfake video of someone could simply show a person saying anything that goes against their values or their community, harming how they’re perceived by others. 

Opinion manipulation 

This is one of the scariest dangers deepfakes pose, though it may not affect kids as much because it often belongs to the world of politics and adults. Imagine a deepfake of the president or a prominent politician saying something false, misleading, or against their values. These types of videos, when widely shared, could affect how people vote, trust elected leaders, and more. 

Conversation Starters for Families

We’ve gathered a few ways to talk about deepfakes with your child so they can learn about them and understand some of the dangers they pose. For these questions, we recommend talking to kids 12 and above, as the issue can be a little complex. 

Ask, “Can you tell me some ways to spot if a video is fake?”

Kids today are generally more tech-savvy than we are, so odds are your child is going to be a whiz at figuring out a video is fake — even if they can’t articulate exactly why. That’s where you come in though. Here are just a few of the things you can point out to explain why a video may not be real:

• Blurred or fuzzy borders of the person
• Strange or misplaced shadows
• Uneven or inconsistent skin tones
• Abnormal blinking patterns
• Robotic or non-human vocal patterns

This website has a super useful checklist and practice videos to help you better understand all of the potential gives and tells of deepfakes. 

Ask, “What do you think about that Taylor Swift filter that went viral on TikTok?”

This is an age-appropriate question to talk about the issue (not the porn filter, but the face-only filter from TikTok). No matter what your child answers, follow up with questions like “Do you think there are any potential issues with someone pretending to be someone else online” and “What if someone believed it was actually Taylor Swift?” In true kid fashion, some may try to minimize the negative effects of a filter. But follow the line of questioning to see where it goes. 

Ask, “Why do you think someone would share a fake video as someone else?”

There are positive answers to this question, as sometimes people just want to have fun with filters or be creative with technology. It’s important to talk about the fact that deepfakes aren’t all bad. But remember to bring up the negative reasons, too. Talk about the potential for fraud, the spreading of fake information, just plain bad intentions, and the desire to hurt someone’s reputation.

Ask, “Would you watch this video with me and help me point out why it’s not a real video of Tom Cruise?”

Using a harmless fake video of this popular action star (even if kids may think he’s uncool) can allow you to sit down with your kid and examine, discuss, and point out the flaws in a deepfake. Even though eventually deepfakes will be almost impossible to spot, right now there are still glaring tells, like blurry edges, stranger colorings, and a general sense that something’s not right. Teach your child to rely on their gut when it comes to videos like these — if they think something’s not right, it’s probably because it isn’t. 

How Bark Can Help

Bark’s monitoring technology — which comes with our downloadable app for children’s iOS and Android devices as well as our kid-focused Bark Phone — scans online activities like texts and social media for signs of potential dangers and send parents important alerts. 

Some of the potential dangers Bark can detect include sexual images & videos, bullying content, signs of suicidal ideation and more. Whether your kid’s exposed to real or fake images online, Bark can help you keep them safe online and in real life. 

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, our choices for skin care products were pretty limited — stinging Stridex pads, Clearasil pimple cream (mainly used as a very obvious coverup), and mom’s blue tub of Noxzema face wash. And even these didn’t become a staple until late middle school, generally. 

Fast-forward to today and 11-year-olds are shopping at Sephora and throwing around terms like retinol and hyaluronic acid. Kids of this generation — Gen Alpha, which has a start date of around 2010 — have access to unlimited information about skin care thanks to the internet, as they follow the advice of TiKTok influencers and watch videos from viral dermatologists on YouTube. 

All this information, when combined with the insecurity and bodily changes that are part and parcel of being a tween, means that kids are especially vulnerable to promises of instant beauty, glowing skin, and all of the social benefits that come with them.

But this new skin care routine obsession that some Gen Alpha kids are developing is a drastic change from what children traditionally have worried about. Zits are one thing, but a fear of wrinkles before puberty even really kicks in is entirely different.  

In this blog post, we’ll explain why skin care routines for tweens have risen to new levels of interest among tweens, how social media has helped fuel it, and what parents need to know about potential dangers and complications from it.

What Is a Skin Care Routine for Kids?

Most folks are familiar with skin care routines — it’s the combination of products you use to take care of your face. They’re popular among adults because the effects of age can lead to changes in skin condition like wrinkles and dark spots. But with kids, this need is less acute because, by and large, a child’s skin is usually in good shape. This isn’t to say that some kids don't have dermatological issues, and teens of course have always struggled with acne and oily skin.

And to be fair, the skin care routines we had as teens weren’t exactly the healthiest. Rubbing harsh and acidic Stridex pads probably wasn’t the best way to treat acne, but back then we didn’t have a ton of information.

Today, there are more gentle and effective skin care routines for kids that clean your face and prevent blemishes, along with billions of gigabytes of data online about which is best. And it’s more than just cleaning and moisturizing; there are all sorts of serums, tonics, and salves that promise to do wonders. But tweens may be overdoing it, according to some dermatologists.

Some of the Popular Products

Want to stay in the know of what kids are researching and using? Here are some of the most popular ones. Keep in mind that cosmetic products don’t have to have FDA approval, and there are different opinions on whether they work and to what extent. Different products can also have different levels of ingredients and efficacy.

• Face masks: There are tons of masks out there — from sheet masks to goopy ones made of clay — that seek to address a number of different issues like reducing oil, moisturizing, and even promoting relaxation.
• Pimple patches: Ironically, kids are wearing these tiny stickers proudly to school. They cover up zits and may contain salicylic acid (the same ingredient in Stridex pads!) or hydrocolloids to help heal blemishes.
• Vitamin C: The same chemical found in a juicy orange is used to help slow aging in the skin and reduce dark spots and discoloration.
• Retinols: These serums are used to slow the aging process and may fight acne.
• Hyaluronic acid: Used to plump up the skin and make it look more hydrated.

Social Media’s Effect on this Trend

There’s more than just word of mouth that’s fueling this interest in middle schools across the U.S., and it's — you guessed it — social media. Mainly TikTok, though Instagram also contributes. 

Exposure

Viral videos about skin care have enabled this obsession to reach millions of kids, both organically (when kids specifically search for advice) and passively, as when TikTok’s algorithm just shows it to a child who’s casually scrolling. If you watch one Get Ready With Me (GRWM) video, you’ll be shown more and more, leading to a feed filled with skin care content and eventually ads for youth-oriented products like Drunk Elephant.

Filters and the quest for flawless perfection

This younger generation has been exposed to AI-generated filters since they were using iPads to make puppy-dog face videos. As they’ve grown up, they’ve experimented with beauty filters that smooth skin and remove any imperfection. Now, learning about how complicated beauty routines may help slow the process of aging (a wild thought for an 11-year-old!), they’re seeking to replicate what older people are doing.

Skin care as a status symbol

Being able to afford all of these products isn’t something in reach of every young person, which makes a $40 moisturizer or $80 vitamin C serum a status symbol. Having a collection of these products — and making videos with them on social media — is a way to strut one’s financial status, like carrying the recently coveted Stanley tumbler.

Potential Dangers and Body Image Concerns

Too much focus on one’s appearance can have negative effects on a child’s well-being and body image. The quest for achieving "perfect" skin may lead tweens to develop unrealistic beauty standards and expectations, which can make them feel inadequate when it comes to their appearance. Additionally, constantly comparing themselves to idealized images promoted by skin care brands and influencers may erode their self-esteem and confidence.

As for physical dangers, overuse of skin care products, particularly ones that contain harsh chemicals or fragrances, can irritate the skin and lead to redness, inflammation, and allergic reactions. A tween’s skin is often more sensitive than an adult's, making young people more susceptible to adverse reactions. Too many products can disrupt the skin barrier and also increase sun sensitivity.

Make sure you’re teaching your children about safe skin care practices. Encourage moderated and balanced skin care routines for tweens, and consult with healthcare professionals if they have concerns about their child's skin health or the safety of skin care products. And your child should be taking advice from a dermatologist about any skin concerns — not internet strangers.

The Actual Skin Care Kids Need

Kids do need some skin care products, like any other human. Faces need to be washed and moisturized, if dry. And if your child is out in the sun, sunscreen is always a necessity. It's all about giving their delicate skin the care and protection it deserves, keeping them feeling fresh, hydrated, and shielded from harmful UV rays. But worrying about wrinkles or dark spots (which don’t even exist yet for most children) may be a step too far.

How Bark Can Help

If you’re worried about the apps your child has access to, Bark’s screen time tools and web blocking features can help you limit or restrict access so they’re not constantly scrolling and consuming potentially harmful videos. 

Our monitoring feature — both in our downloadable app and our groundbreaking Bark Phone — can also scan texts, DMs, searches, and more for potential signs of body image issues (as well as other dangers like bullying and depression). You’ll get an alert if something concerning is found so you can check in and make sure everything is okay. Alerts also come with recommended conversation starters and advice for addressing hard topics like this one. Raising kids in the digital age isn’t easy, which is why we’re dedicated to supporting parents all over. 

Every year, we analyze how often kids encounter or engage in concerning conversations. Last year, we processed an astounding 5.6 billion activities on family accounts across texts, email, YouTube, and 30+ apps and social media platforms.

The digital worlds that kids occupy are complex, and these scanned activities represent late-night direct messages, urgent texts with best friends, and comments on countless apps — places where children communicate the most frequently. 

In this blog post, we’re going to go over some of the more eye-opening stats and discuss what this new information means for families and children. You can check out the full report here.

Bark sent 12,115 high-severity suicide alerts per week in 2023

This stat reflects the concerning stat from the CDC that many people may not know about: Suicide is the second-leading cause of death in kids ages 10–14. This is a silent epidemic of our time, and it’s incredibly important for parents to be aware of their child’s mental health. Suicide, especially among young people, is a very difficult subject to broach — no one wants to think their child could be hurting so bad that they’d choose to end their own life. This stat in particular underscores the importance of frequent check-ins with your child, open and honest discussions of emotional well-being, and monitoring for potential warning signs. Check out these resources if you’re concerned about your child.

42.4% of 12-year-old females have 1+ risky contacts flagged

One of the biggest dangers that the internet poses is the near-instant exposure to millions of strangers across the world. If an app or platform has a messaging or chat function, there is 100% going to be the possibility for predation. At Bark, we see this all the time, and not just on risky apps like Snapchat. Even seemingly innocent apps like FitBit, Roblox, or religious apps can have bad actors waiting in the wings to manipulate children. And while both boys and girls are targeted by predators, this stat reveals just how common it is for females to be in a position where someone they’re talking to may not be who they say they are.

The top 5 most popular apps are YouTube, Spotify, Snapchat, Discord, Instagram

These are the apps that are most frequently used by children with Bark — and what do they have in common? None of them have proprietary parental controls that a parent can lock with a passcode. Kids can also turn off these parental supervisions at any time, rendering them effectively useless. Big Tech and social media companies know that their apps present significant risks to children — as shown by their continual additions to their parental controls — but they never present any real options that could provide parents with actual controls or peace of mind. 

Suicide, depression, and anxiety alerts all peak at ages 15 –16

We know that growing up is hard, but this stat shows that that time right before the onset of adulthood is especially stressful for children. They’re bridging the gap between being a child and getting ready to go out into the world as a new young adult, and expectations of them are at an all-time high.

This is also the time when kids may feel the most distant from their parents, which can only increase the isolation and frustration they’re feeling. Make sure your child knows that you’re their parent forever and only want to help them through whatever they’re feeling. Hard conversations can be stressful, but they’re so important.

KIK, X, and Reddit are the top 3 apps for severe sexual content

Most parents may know that sites like PornHub and OnlyFans have porn and extreme sexual content, but these three apps may fly under the radar. X, formerly known as Twitter, is especially notorious for the sheer amount of porn that can be found on it. You don’t even have to have an X account to find it, either. KIK is a messaging app that seems primarily for strangers to sext each other, and Reddit — while it can have positive subreddits like r/puppies or r/PokemonGo — also has truly mind-boggling amounts of porn. 

58% of tweens engaged in conversations surrounding drugs/alcohol

Here we have a stat that you may gloss over — this concerns tweens aged 10–12, not teens (teens, as to be expected, hover around 77%). What this means is that parents should be talking to their children about their family’s values surrounding these subjects earlier than they may think it necessary. Brushing up on the latest slang for common drugs can help with recognition, too.

36% of teens used language or were exposed to language about anxiety

Anxiety is a part of life, and being a teenager comes with familiar territory like stressful exams, dating, and figuring out who you are. As parents, we play a crucial role in creating a safe and nurturing environment where our teens feel comfortable discussing their emotions and seeking help when needed. Whether the anxiety is situational (like worrying about the SATs) or more complex (like having generalized anxiety disorder), make sure to be there for your child when they’re feeling out of control.

Female tweens and teens are 44% more likely than males to be flagged for body image/disordered eating content

The prevalence of social media, the rise of influencers, and the invention of body-warping filters have made it harder than ever to be a young woman on the internet. Whether girls are talking to friends about diets or just being exposed to #thinspo (content that encourages disordered eating), they make up an extremely vulnerable population when it comes to body image issues. 

Parents can encourage healthy body image in young girls by emphasizing health over appearance, fostering open communication, and celebrating body diversity. Encouraging nurturing self-care practices and seeking professional support when needed can also help promote resilience and well-being.

Why Monitoring is So Important

When Bark finds issues like the ones above, an alert is sent to parents so they can check in with their kid and make sure everything is okay. Some parents use the Bark app to help them monitor, and others have opted to give their children a Bark Phone that comes with built-in monitoring. 

Kids may not always know when they’re in over their head, so alerts can help trigger conversations that need to happen. Bark alerts also come with helpful guidance so you can figure out how best to support your child through a hard time. Growing up in the digital age isn’t easy, but Bark can help families tackle all of the challenges that come with childhood together.

In a world dominated by smartphones, the choice between iPhone and Android has become a significant decision for families. But whether you’re a hardcore Apple family or just looking for a more cost-effective and safer choice for your kids, we’ve got you covered with all the details you need to make a seamless switch from iPhone to Android. From transferring photos to talking to your kid about adjusting to the green bubbles, here are five things parents will find helpful when switching from iPhone to Android.

1. Here’s how to transfer all those photos

Switching from iPhone to Android may seem like a daunting process when you have to move everything over onto a new device, but it happens all the time, every day — so both Apple and Android have made the process a breeze. First, you can simply connect your child’s old device to the new device using the charging cord and follow the on-screen instructions. If you don’t have a cord, you’ll also be prompted with a wireless transfer option. 

If you want to use an app, simply download Google Photos on your child’s iPhone and back everything up. When you log in to the app on the new device, all the photos will be waiting for you. (Google Photos are part of Google One, which we’ll get into more below.)

Finally, you can log in to privacy.apple.com to request a copy of your child’s photos and videos that are saved in iCloud so you can move them over. There are also many other ways to transfer photos — some with increasing levels of complexity for the more tech-minded — if you just google “transfer iPhone photos to Android.”

2. Monitoring is so much easier

Apple makes it hard for parents who choose to use parental control apps like Bark. iPhones were built with adult privacy in mind, which is why they’re not the best choice for parents looking to help protect their kids. Androids are the preferred choice for parents seeking to actively participate in shaping their children's digital experiences, ensuring a safer and more controlled environment. There’s a reason, after all, why the Bark Phone — the safest phone out there for kids — is an Android and not an iPhone. 

3. Yes, there will be green bubbles. No, it’s not the end of the world. 

We have a whole other blog post about this debate if you need more support, but here’s the gist: iPhones have “blue bubbles” when texting because of iMessage. Androids don’t have it, so when they text iPhones, their messages appear green. Because iPhones are expensive status symbols, kids have latched on to needing those coveted blue bubbles to fit in. But not everybody has an iPhone, and at the end of the day, Androids and iPhones are the biggest smartphones on the market, and everyone will have one or the other. 

If a child is being teased for having a green bubble, odds are those kids aren’t close friends. This of course doesn’t make it any easier on a kid that already feels bad, but it’s worth discussing how their real friends will want to text them no matter what color their bubble is.

4. Google One is the equivalent of Apple iCloud 

Used to keeping everything up in the cloud? You can do the same exact thing with an Android! Google One can replace iCloud for families by providing expanded cloud storage and family sharing. With a Google One subscription, you can purchase additional cloud storage beyond what comes for free, ensuring that everyone in your family has ample space for photos, videos, documents, and more. 

5. So much is exactly the same — just with different platforms

At the end of the day, 99% of the most sought-after features for any smartphone are going to be the same — texting, calling, playing games, and taking great photos. Androids are just as capable. And some, like Google Pixels or the newest Samsungs, are just as fancy (if not more so!) than iPhones.

Used to FaceTiming? That’s okay! You can use Google Meet, Zoom or any other video chat app. Androids can also receive FaceTime call links and use the app — you just can’t initiate them. 

Only ever used iMessage to text? Google Messages is how you’ll text going forward. In some cases, you’ll need to deregister iMessage — here’s how to do it. 

Looking for the Best Android for Kids?

We hope this guide was helpful in your switch from iPhone to Android, but while any Android is going to be safer than any iPhone for a child, the hands-down safest option is the Bark Phone. The Bark Phone stands out from other phones because of our advanced content monitoring that comes built-in that automatically scans texts, photos, videos, apps & social media for dangers. You’ll get an alert if anything concerning is found. 

On top of monitoring, the Bark Phone also gives you unprecedented control over your child’s digital experience — from approving every contact they add to managing when they can use YouTube throughout the day. It’s the premier choice for families looking for peace of mind while their child is online. 

Human trafficking, sex trafficking, child trafficking — these are all terms that can refer to the different ways that human beings can be manipulated into labor or sex work. It can be a really scary subject to talk about, but it’s important to understand this very real danger so you can recognize its potential signs. This, in turn, can help you protect your family and bring awareness to your community. January is National Human Trafficking Awareness Month, and we’re bringing to light some of the common myths about human trafficking — and realities — surrounding this crime.

Human Trafficking Myths: Kidnapping is how most trafficking begins

Fact: Trafficking doesn’t usually begin with a violent act like kidnapping. Many people know their traffickers or are recruited online. Like many victims of abuse, victims of trafficking are often identified, targeted, and manipulated because of their family situation, emotional vulnerability, or financial need. Common schemes involve convincing young people that they can become models, only to be tricked into trafficking. 

Human Trafficking Myths: The vast majority of trafficked individuals are girls or women

Fact: Boys and men are also trafficked as much as girls and women. According to Polaris, young men and LGBTQ+ individuals are especially vulnerable. When young people are forced to leave their homes – for example, when queer teens are kicked out by unsupporting parents – they can be desperate for necessities and shelter and as such, extremely vulnerable to manipulation.

Human Trafficking Myths: All traffickers are complete strangers to their victims

Fact: It’s a sad truth that trafficking can also happen to people by their parents, their romantic partners, and their extended family. This violation of trust makes it all the more traumatic — but also harder to identify from the outside. 

Human Trafficking Myths: Trafficking victims are usually physically unable to leave where they’re being held

Fact: While this may be true in some cases, many traffickers use different forms of manipulation to keep their victims in place. Fear of homelessness, lack of money, trauma, drug addiction, and threats of retaliation may keep someone from leaving a trafficking situation even though they’re desperate to escape. 

Human Trafficking Myths: Trafficking occurs only in developing countries

Fact: Trafficking occurs in the U.S. at very high rates, and major cities with international airports are often hubs. This crime isn’t limited to cities, however; it can also occur in rural areas with American citizens who have never left the country. Trafficking can sometimes be confused with human smuggling, which is entirely different and involves moving people across borders. Trafficking, on the other hand, can occur in one’s own home — even by a family member. 

How you can help spread awareness

If you suspect that someone you know might be at risk of human trafficking, you can call 888-373-7888 to reach the National Human Trafficking Hotline, which is available 24 hours a day in more than 200 languages. You can also report an incident to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s CyberTipline. 

Donating or providing volunteer support to organizations like Polaris or END IT Movement can also help remove kids from trafficking situations.

Finally, simply talking about this serious issue and bringing it into the open can help others understand it and learn to recognize just how dangerous and real the threat is even here in America.

How Bark can help

Bark’s advanced technology monitors your child’s online activities and sends alerts for conversations that may indicate grooming, which can be used to initiate one-on-one molestation, but it’s also regularly used to lure minors into child trafficking.

Bark can also help you by enabling you to block potentially dangerous apps like Discord or Snapchat. Start your free trial to see how the Bark app can help protect your family from trafficking and other dangers, including bullying, suicidal ideation, sexual content, and more. 

We also have a more comprehensive option with the Bark Phone, which goes beyond monitoring and adds exclusive features like contact and app approvals, remote alarms, and daily screen time limits. 

2023 was a wild ride here at Bark, and as we close out the year, we’re so glad you’re on this journey with us. Bark celebrated its 8th birthday this summer, along with a ton of other important, fascinating, and just plain fun milestones!

1: Inclusion in TIME’s Best Invention of 2023 list

This fall we had the honor of being named to TIME’s Best Inventions of 2023, joining a select group of devices, apps, and innovations that are changing the way we live today. The Bark Phone isn’t just a device for calling and texting  — it’s paving the way for parents to teach their kids about technology in a safer way, something that hasn’t been done before.  

430,000: Members of Parenting in a Tech World

In 2018, our Facebook group had just a few thousand people asking questions and giving advice. Fast forward to 2023, and nearly half a million parents have joined to support each other and provide guidance. From queries about the latest teen slang to unpacking thorny situations involving school and friends, Parenting in a Tech World is creating the village that we all need when it comes to raising kids in the digital age. 

4: Musicians in Bason & the Barkettes

Every year, full-time Bark team members are invited to Atlanta for Bark Week, which is kind of like our own internal conference. We eat, we gather, we attend team-building events — it’s a blast. But this year the Bark team was treated to an extra-special surprise: Our CEO, our CTO, our COO, and our CEO’s son (also the reason why Bark was created!) joined forces for one night only to play live on stage in front of everyone at Bark Week. We all rocked out to a glorious cover of “Everlong” by the Foo Fighters. Let’s just say it brought the house down!

3: Whoopee cushion sounds unlocked in the Bark Phone

Product updates for our app and phone usually revolve around parent-requested features or new technical features that improve functionality. So imagine our surprise when the engineering team rolled out a purely fun — and funny! — new feature for the Bark Phone. When it’s enabled, all your child has to do is just shake their device to ahem, break wind — digitally, of course.

24: Bark employees in the #music Slack channel

As a remote company, we don’t have a physical water cooler to gather around in between meetings or a lunchroom to chat in while waiting to use the microwave. Instead, we have a variety of just-for-fun Slack channels — think chatrooms, but with topics. One of the most fun this year was our music channel, which enabled us to share playlists, discuss our favorite concerts, that new digital sphere venue in Las Vegas, and of course, all of our year-end Spotify Wrapped lists. 

221: Number of times we said rizz (ironically & unironically)

Keeping up with the latest teen slang is part of what we do here at Bark, and our experts are constantly scouring the web, perusing social media, and getting reports from actual kids about what the hottest new words are. Topping the list this year was “rizz”, which means swag or charisma when it comes to romantic pursuits. 

6: Bark babies born

The Bark team is a team full of parents, and this year we welcomed six new babies into the world. Congrats, future class of 2041!

1: Plaque on Atlanta Tech Village’s startup graduate wall

Bark’s office from the beginning was at Atlanta Tech Village, a startup incubator and co-working space in Atlanta. Once a company grows enough, raises enough money, and scales the team, they’re officially recognized as a “graduate” and receive a coveted plaque on the wall in the lobby. We’re so grateful for ATV’s support through the years — and all those delicious snacks!

29: Number of updates to our app & phone

Nothing is ever “done” at Bark — we’re constantly innovating and evolving. This year, we added incredible new features for our products, things like two-minute screen time warnings, alerts for 911 dials, and more. 

451: Number of emails where people confused us with a dog toy company

Did you know that we're called Bark because our technology is like a family watchdog? That explains the dog logo and name! But that doesn't stop some folks from messaging us thinking that we're a different company altogether. Now we're wondering how many people chat with Chewy about parental controls!

∞: Gif reactions

Sure, Bark is compatible with English, Spanish, and Afrikaans, but did you know that when it comes to how our team communicates in Slack, Asana, Cooleaf, and email, gifs rule the day? From expressions of joy to hilarious animations of sarcasm, gifs express feelings the way words can’t always match. 

Here’s to 2024…

We’ve got more incredible things in store for the upcoming year, so stay tuned for exciting news!  In the meantime, join our Facebook group, check out our app reviews, and follow us on social media to join in on the ride.

The language experts over at Oxford recently declared “rizz” their word of the year for 2023. We’re inclined to agree! “Rizz”, which is a shortened version of “charisma” has taken the world by storm. But the very fact that a website run by adults recognized it means that’s officially not hip or cool anymore. 

Instead of looking backward, we’ve decided to look forward into the next year to give parents an idea of what teen slang words will dominate in 2024. Of course, these words have already been in use for a while — kids will know them already — but these are the ones that parents will finally start hearing on a more regular basis. 

5 Teen Slang Words to Look Out For in 2024

Preppy 

Remember the preppy look of the 90s? Boat shoes, sweaters, and pearls, that sort of thing. This new “preppy” is different, but kind of similar. Preppy these days refers to lots of girly pink, LuLuLemon accessories, Stanley water bottles, and the like. It’s a type of style, and it contrasts with the darker “emo”, which is more black clothes and sad music. 

Example: “Sophia’s gotten so preppy these days with her leggings and pink puffy coats.”

Opp

This one’s short for “opposition” or “opponent.” Used when referring to someone or some group of people you’re not on good terms with.

Example: “I got a 65 on my math test even though I studied all night. Mr. Jones is such an opp.”

Eats

Out of the current teenage slang terms, this one’s more common in the past tense, as in “She ate.” Used to say someone succeeded or did something well. If it’s extra good? You add, “…and left no crumbs.”

Example: “Did you see Bella’s homecoming outfit? She ate and left no crumbs.”

Let him cook

This phrase is used to mean “don’t interfere” in a joking kind of way. It doesn’t literally mean let someone make food. 

Example: A friend is drawing a pencil-and-paper masterpiece in study hall when his teacher tells him to stop. It would be funny if you were to interject “No, Ms. Jackson, let him cook!”

GYATT

A shortened term for "godd**n" that’s used to express approval or excitement, particularly when one notices a large bottom.

Example: When someone’s history teacher bends down in class, it wouldn’t be out of the ordinary for a kid to yell “GYATT!”

Need Help with Teen Slang?

Teen slang constantly changes, but here at Bark, we stay up to date on everything parents need to know! We have tons of slang guides, including ones for general terms, video games, dating, and even illegal drugs. 

Bark also uses advanced technology to scan your child’s online activities for potential danger — even if they’re using slang! This way, you can get an alert and check in to make sure everything’s okay. Sign up today for your free, 1-week trial.