Dear Elite Families ,

Today we wanted to write about something so important! Tiktok is so prevalent in todays society amongst our children and teens, and although it is wonderful to see them using their creativity and expression in such new ways there are many many things to be aware of to keep kids safe online!

1 – Set your Childs account to private! A private account means that only followers who have been accepted by the user can see their videos and posts! This prevents anyone who your child doesn’t know accessing their content. Sitting down with your child and addressing the dangers of accepting followers from people they don’t know can create a much safer environment for children to use the app more freely.

2 – Enable Digital wellbeing on the app – digital wellbeing allows you to set a time limit for the app. Although so creatively beneficial for children to express themselves through, the app can become addictive to children (and adults alike!). Setting a clear boundary allows children to know when enough is enough and to expect a certain limit of content during that day. find more information on digital wellbeing here – https://www.tiktok.com/safety/resources/digital-wellbeing?lang=en

3 – Be aware of explicit content on the App – Tiktok follows the use of sounds, which is a clip that users can then create videos over the top of. Although many of these are harmless and innocent, some trends include explicit language or suggestive content. Reviewing these sounds and trends before allowing your child to interact with them allows a clear removal of any suggestive or explicit content to draw in difficult conversations with your child!

4 – Monitor who your child follows – by monitoring and approving who your child follows and interacts with you remove a lot of the issues described above in (3). Certain accounts may explore and promote content that you don’t want your child to interact with! So blocking these accounts removes an element of exposure that your child can be victim to.

5 – Make sure your child is share aware – sit with you child and discuss the image they want to portray of themselves. Help them to think more carefully about what they post and who it may be seen by so that they protect themselves. Children think so narrowly about their actions and one open conversation about the way in which sharing content works will allow an introduction to a different way of thinking for children!

As much as the above helps to protect whilst using Tiktok, there are many benefits to the use of the App, children creativity and performance skills are enhanced and developed through the creation of the small clips and the hard work and dedication it can take to create these snippets teaches children many transferable skills they can use later in life!

Stay safe!

The Elite Dance Team xx