Bark is an Internet safety solution that proactively alerts parents to potential dangers, including cyberbullying, Internet predators, sexting, depression and suicidal thoughts.
Now more than ever, it is necessary to implement an internet safety program for kids. My husband and I have put off giving our teenage daughter a phone until recently. To be honest, it scares me to death giving her free access to the WORLD. That is why I’m going to share with you a solution that I have found – Bark.
About Bark
Bark was created to strike a balance between keeping your children safe online and maintaining trust. It alerts parents to activities that indicate potential issues and dangers but does not give parents full visibility into all of their children’s messages.
Bark was founded by a dad and tech industry veteran (his previous company was sold to Twitter) as a way to help keep children safe online that isn’t time-intensive or invasive. This internet safety technology uses data science and machine learning allowing it to be more accurate than simply searching keywords. Bark is based on the premise that online safety should be a collaborative, trust-building process between parents and their children.
If you’re like me, you don’t have hours to spend reading every text message, email, or list of videos my child writes, reads, or shares online. Bark’s technology does that for you. It monitors your child’s accounts 24/7. If there is any suspicious or dangerous activity, you will receive an email or text alert.
Set up is easy. First, sign up at www.bark.us to create your account. Next, set up each child and begin adding their accounts. You’ll need their passwords! Bark recommends doing this along with your child.
Although you can add approximately 15 social accounts, my 14 yr old daughter uses Instagram, Gmail, and YouTube. My son is 10 and although he doesn’t have his own phone yet, he uses one of our old phones with Wi-Fi to chat through FB messenger. I added both children in a matter of 5 minutes.
I was pleasantly surprised to get a welcome email from Bark asking me what my main safety concern is. Yours could be different from mine, however, YouTube is a biggie for me. Brian, the owner of Bark was more than willing to offer up assistance and answer any questions I had.
The Bark platform inside the app is very easy to navigate and requires little maintenance. You’ll receive weekly recap email updates to let you know how things are going. Here is a sample of what mine looked like:
As you can see we didn’t have any issues this week. If a problem does arise, Bark offers assistance by recommending actions to take, how to react to the potential issue, and how to talk to your child about it.
Get a free month. Afterward, it costs only $9 a month per family. Cancel anytime.
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