Resources for parents to monitor their child’s social media presence.

We continue to be reassured by our community’s collective response to keeping our students safe.  Students and parents have contacted us with concerns and our teams and community agencies have been able to act swiftly to keep everyone safe.  However, it has been regularly communicated that parents do not feel that they have the necessary resources to fully understand and monitor their child’s presence on social media. Over the last few years, several schools in Holland have worked with Protect Young Eyes for training and support around this specific topic.  One resource highly recommended from Protect Young Eyes is Bark.  

Bark can assist parents in the following areas: 

• Social Media Monitoring -Bark tracks conversations and content on Snapchat, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, GroupMe, and more.
• Text & Email Monitoring - Bark works with iOS and Android to monitor texts, photos, and videos for concerning interactions.
• Screen Time & Web Filtering - Manage when your kids can access the internet and which sites are appropriate for them to visit.
• 24/7 Detection - Bark service looks for activity that may indicate online predators, adult content, sexting, cyberbullying, drug use, suicidal thoughts, and more.
• Parental Alerts - Get automatic alerts when Bark detects potential issues, along with expert recommendations from child psychologists for addressing them.
• Save Time, Build Trust - Bark saves you from manually monitoring your child's activities, respecting your time and your child's privacy by only surfacing potential concerns.

We encourage you to visit Protect Young Eyes to learn more about how can keep your child safe and help them navigate a very challenging digital world.