How to Set Up Parental Control on TikTok?

Tik-Tok is the most popular social media application all around the globe. It's a video-sharing app on the internet to connect with different people and collaborate with your videos. It's also popular among children and youths to create and share their lip-synch, dance, and singing videos.

Features of TikTok

• Video Creation: You can create your video or can lip-synch in other music & videos. You can also edit your videos and post them online.
• Messaging: This application allows users to chat with other people in tik-tok.
• Live Streaming: Allow users to real-time streaming.
• Effects: You can also add special effects and filters to make the video more attractive.
• Video Viewing: You can view other's videos, and you can like, post comments & share users' videos.
• Profile Viewing: You can watch users' profiles if the profile is public. You can also follow them. You will also have your followers.

As a parent, you probably want your children to be more advanced and wiser. You also want to make sure that your kids safely and efficiently access the internet. You allow your kids to use the internet and different devices for learning, communication, and entertainment purposes.

However, you are concerned about the negative effects of technology on children's social skills. So, parental control applications are a must to keep your children secure on the internet.

The Internet and especially social media affect teen's self-esteem badly. Parental controls are software specially designed to monitor or track children's devices. To restrict your children's online and device activities, Parental Control is used.

Parental Control is necessary to protect your children from unsuitable content like the internet's undesirable content, violence, drug and alcohol abuse, gambling, bullying, racism content, etc.

How to Set up Parental Controls on TikTok?

It's the responsibility and duty of every parent to make their children safe & secure from the digital world i.e. social media like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, WhatsApp, etc. Tik-Tok is the best in terms of Parental Control.

Tik-Tok provides the parents with its unique feature, allowing parents to set time limits, filter or block unsuitable content, and disable children's account's direct messages.

Tik-Tok has built a unique feature," Digital Wellbeing," because most Tik-Tok users are children and youths. So, to let them use TikTok safely and enjoy it without any harm, it's been necessary to bring inbuilt parental control features on TikTok. So may have questions in mind like Is TikTok Safe for Kids?

Thus, we briefly elaborate on the best ways to set up parental Control on TikTok here. Below are the five main parental control settings in TikTok.

1. Family Pairing
2. Screen Time Management
3. Restricted Mode
4. Private Account
5. More Privacy Controls

1.Family Pairing

Family Pairing on TikTok can help you customize your child’s application for a more secure experience. With the help of this feature, you can set a limit on your team's watch time, limit inappropriate content, manage their privacy settings, and choose whether you want their account to be public or private.

You need to use both your phone and your child's phone to enable family pairing. The TikTok application has to be installed on both of the phones for you to utilize this feature.

Family pairing is a Tik-Tok parental setting where you(parent) can set controls on your child's TikTok account by pairing your children’s Tik-Tok account with your(parent) account.

Follow these steps to enable Family Pairing.

• First, you need to create a Tik-Tok account and if your child doesn't have an account, do the same procedure for children.
• Once your account is made, tap on the top-right button 'Setting and privacy' section.
• And then, click on the Family Paring button, where the system will show you the parents or teen option.
• You tap on the parent option, as you are using it for parental control.
• Then, the system will provide you with a QR (Quick Response) code and scan it with your children's device.
• At last, parents and children's Tik-Tok accounts will be paired with each other. If your children disable the setting, the system will notify you.

2. Screen Time Management

Screen Time Management is a feature of Digital Wellbeing on TikTok. You can set the time limit of the use of the TikTok application through this feature. It will help to manage the screen time of your kids.

With the help of this feature, you will be able to limit your kids' time from 40 minutes to 120 minutes a day. You can also set a passcode to keep using TikTok if your child is using your phone.

When the time limit is reached, you will have to use the passcode you have set to open TikTok for that day. It resets again for another day, and you will not require a passcode to open until the screen time limit is reached. Your children will require the passcode to disable the Screen Time Management function.

You can set the time limit for how long your children can use Tik-Tok. Here is the procedure to enable screen time management. It’s similar to the step we have discussed above.

• Firstly, go to your Tik-Tok profile,
• Click on the top-right corner button for privacy and setting.
• Click on the ‘Digital Wellbeing’ section.
• Click on ‘Screen Time Management’.
• Then, manage screen time for the linked account and set the passcode.
• When the time is finished, your children will not be able to re-access it because it requires a passcode.

3. Restricted Mode

You can even enable restrictions on TikTok. Restricted Mode can help in limiting the appearance of mature content to younger audiences. But even though the restricted mode is on, some inappropriate content can still appear on their feed.

For this, TikTok suggests users report any inappropriate content they see and appeals to parents to monitor their children. You can turn off the restricted mode by using your passcode.

Follows the significant step to enable the restricted mode on TikTok.

• First, go to your Tik-Tok account.
• Tap on the top-right corner for ‘Privacy and Settings’.
• Click on the ‘Digital Wellbeing’ to activate the restricted mode.
• And then, you can turn on the restricted mode to block age-limit content.
• You can also report the content if it’s harmful to your children.

You can also disable your children's search bar with the settings. In this way, your children will not search and automatically can't come across harmful content or profile.

4. Private Account

Private Account allows users to view their video or content only if the account holder accepts your request. Parents get notifications about the new follow request and can unfollow the unknown profile or inappropriate content.

Follow the following steps to make your child’s account private.

• Go to the Privacy and Security section.
• Then, you will see the private account bar.
• At last, tap on the button to make your account private.

5. More Privacy Controls

There are more privacy controls allowed by TikTok. You can prevent your child from getting direct messages from unknown people, getting spam and mature language comments in your teens videos, stop from creating duet videos with your child and lastly blocked accounts of unknown or offensive people.

To set these privacy controls, follow below steps:

i) To prevent people from creating duet videos with your child:

• Click on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the profile page.
• Go to the ‘Privacy section.
• Scroll down and click on Duet.
• Select either Friend (mutual followers), or Only Me.

ii) To prevent Direct Messages:

You can control who can only send direct messages to your child by:

• Click on the 3 dots at the top right corner of the profile page.
• Go to the Privacy section.
• Scroll down and click on Direct messages and select friends or no one.

iii) To Blocked Accounts:

You can even block accounts of unknown people or people who irritate your child by:

• Click on the 3 dots at the top righthand corner of the profile page.
• Go to the Privacy section.
• Scroll down and click on blocked accounts and there you manage and filter comments.

iv) To manage Comments:

You can manage and filter all the comments on your child videos. You can filter out spam and offensive comments and choose to comment on your teens' videos by:

• Click on the 3 dots at the top righthand corner of the profile page.
• Go to the Privacy section.
• Scroll down and click on comments and there you manage and filter comments.

However, TikTok is not safe for kids but, following the above steps and managing TikTok safety settings, you can let your kids use TikTok safely.

Tips on Parental Controls on Children’s Devices and Internet use

Children are busier on devices, they have no limit on screen time, they keep on using phones all day long. This will not only affect their physical health, it will also affect their mental health since they are more prone to be victims of cyberbullying, online predators and many more.

So, parental control is necessary to keep your child safe from the online world.

Following tips can help you somehow to protect your kids from virtual world:

Time Restriction

There is software that allows parents to set the time limit on the kid's device. Parents don't have to be physically present to restrict their child's device usage. Parents can set the time limits of internet activities and allow them to use the internet for a specific duration of time whenever they want remotely.

Control Inappropriate Content

Nowadays, Children are excessively using the internet. Children can also find inappropriate content like gambling, drug-abusing, cyberbullying, images, and much other harmful content that makes parents anxious on the internet. Through different parental control software, parents can filter and block inappropriate content.

Monitoring Children Activity

Parents can monitor their children's devices and online activities. With the help of different monitoring software, parents can know which application they use, what they do on social media, what they do on the internet, etc.

If some of the children's activities are doing wrong on the internet, parents will be fully aware of it and can take some measures to control it. Parents can restrict them over gaming activities, limit their social media use, and control their child's online activities.

There are many third-party applications for monitoring their children's device activities. Here we discussed some of the best software that makes it easy for parents to track remotely.

fenced.ai

fenced.ai is one of the best parental solutions to prevent your kids from the bad impact of the online world. You can monitor your kid's application, which app they are using, how long they are using, which website or content they are accessing and many more. You can even control or restrict their screen time.

• Features
  • Geolocation and Geo-fencing
  • Monitor Phone Activities
  • Social Media Monitor like Facebook, Whatsapp, Skype, Instagram, Tiktok, etc.
  • Application Screen Time
  • Alert Systems

Learn about these features of fenced.ai in detail.

• Compatibility
  • Android
  • iOS

Familytime.io

This is one of the best and user-friendly applications. Familytime.io is a smart app to maintain a secure digital life. This is a paid software where you can choose your favourable subscription and enjoy its best features.

• Features
  • Geolocation and Geo-fencing
  • App blocker
  • Internet filter
  • Manage Social Media
  • SOS alert

• Compatibility
  • Android
  • iOS

Pros

• Tracking Application

There are a lot of malicious applications to scam the users on your computer. You can track your children what they are downloading and ensure they are not the victims of scams. In general, while gaming or using an app, a pop-up or advertisement will appear. Your children might be one click away from being victims.

• Internet Monitoring

For children with phones, proximity to unsafe sites is a major issue. Your children might access inappropriate content that is not acceptable for parents. With the help of parental control on the iPhone or iPad, you can block all pages that your children shouldn't be using.

You might need a different app best fitted for android. With these applications, you can also monitor all the internet activity and track browser history records.

Cons

• Impact on Your Relation with Child

If your children somehow know that they are being tracked or spied on, it can greatly affect your connection with your children, the main drawback to monitoring software on your child's devices.

Many children will often feel like their privacy is being violated and unjustified, and that will profoundly affect your relationship with them. If you feel you don't trust and value them, you won't give them the same faith and respect in return.

• High Cost

All the third-party's software comes with a subscription, and for each feature, you have to pay the pricing. Some of the parents can't afford the expensive subscription. The app only provides you with a 3-day free version trial; afterwards, you have to pay the price to enjoy its features.

Conclusion

Therefore, Parental Control is essential for their underaged children to keep them safe from digital threats. Many youths and children use Tik-Tok for their entertainment purposes. On Tik-Tok, parents can find much harmful and unsuitable content which their underaged children are unaware of.

So, Parental control apps or methods come into play where a parent can monitor their children's online activity. And, no worry TikTok has provided inbuilt parental control features, you can follow the above steps to enable safety settings on child TikTok account and allow them from accessing only appropriate content.

Parents must be careful while using Parental Control on kids' devices as sometimes, your kid might bypass parental controls like OpenDNS. As a parent, it is your primary responsibility to protect your child from cyber hazards.

Naturally, any parent tries hard to defend their children from possible threats both physically and online. You don't need any third-party's app to monitor your children, but third- party's apps will give you an extra dimension to protect your children from digital threats.