Should Your Child Be on TikTok?

Even though people of all ages are on TikTok, its short form media makes it particularly attractive to kids and teens. Of the over 138 million active users in the U.S., 32.5% of of them are aged 10 to 19. TikTok videos range from as short as 15 seconds to as long as ten minutes and popular genres include entertainment, pranks, stunts, dances, and jokes.

Though the official age of use is 13 years old, TikTok does have three types of accounts for kids with varying degrees of privacy and safety measures built in.

Children under 13 years old
For those under 13, they can only use the app section designated for your kids where there are extra privacy and safety features in place. They can only watch age-appropriate content and also cannot post, search, or comment on videos.

Children between 13 and 15 years old
These accounts default to private, and only their TikTok friends can interact with their videos. The TikTok feature that will suggest their accounts to other users is also turned off and notifications to this age group cannot be sent after 9 p.m.

Children 16 to 17 years old
This age group can use TikTok’s direct messaging (DM) and live streaming features. However, this group also cannot receive notifications after 10 p.m. Though they are close to 18, they cannot buy, send, or receive virtual gifts.

Of course, like the internet at large, TikTok is not really considered fully safe for children. Here are some of the main risks for kids on TikTok

Connecting with strangers
Like all social media sites, a lot of the fun is from connecting with new people — and that often means strangers. While not all strangers are predators, there are indeed people on TikTok who prey upon kids.

Despite TikTok setting safety guidelines preventing strangers from sending inappropriate messages to kids, as well as disabling sending and receiving private messages to children under 16 years old, it’s relatively simple for kids to go around this rule by using a fake birthdate.

Risky challenges
You may have heard of dangerous TikTok challenges like the Blackout, Penny, Fire, Milk Crate, or Nyquil Chicken challenges. Again, kids are not new to doing stupid stuff, but TikTok makes it super easy for risky challenges to go viral.

Inappropriate content
It’s relatively easy to skirt the age restrictions and mature content such as swearing and sex, as well as sensitive topics like racism, politics, disordered eating, and violence can still show up in their profiles.

Cyberbullying
Due to the social media aspect of TikTok, your kids may also be exposed to cyberbullying (or participating it)! There are also a myriad of ways children exposed to social media can have their self-esteem negatively affected in these artificial environments.

Given this information, many parents might react like Dre Siu, a mom of three (of whom two are teenagers). “Sorry, no TikTok here,” she told Mom.com. “The kids have no social media and I think it’s good for them.”

However, for other families, a total ban might not be feasible or desirable.

“The creativity of creating on TikTok is really great for kids,” play expert Jeff Harry explained to Mom.com. “The consuming part is where it gets dangerous and needs to be monitored. The reality of this is that this form of creation is just going to be normal going forward, so if kids aren’t learning this, then that’s another form of communication they’re losing out on.”

So what can you as a parent do?

Use the restricted mode or family pairing functions
Enabling restricted mode isn’t perfect, but it should limit mature content on your child’s profile. You can also report inappropriate content in this mode. You can also link your TikTok account with your child’s, which allows you to manage their privacy settings.

Set screen time limits
Just as you are likely to get caught up in doomscrolling, your kids can, too. Working mom Patti Chang told us that though her teenager doesn’t have a TikTok account, “she gets 5 minutes on the site so if a friend shares, she can see it but not enough to browse.”

Monitor your kids’ activity
“See what clips they are interested in watching. Notice what they comment on. Ask what they think about different information that is shared. Do this a few times,” behavior specialist Marcie Beigel, Ed.D. BCBA-D shared with Mom.com. “If your child is engaging with content that is age appropriate, learning new things, and questioning content that is questionable, then it may just be time for them to have access themselves. If not, you may want to wait a little longer and try again.”