Tiktok for 12yo DD - pls share your experience

[Anonymous]

There's are a lot worse things they can being doing than TikTok. My 13 year old has it. She gets bored of it easily and it's not something she spends all of her time doing. I don't love the songs on Tiktok (she wants to listen to the TikTok XM channel), but again, a lot worse stuff out there. She knows not to engage on there and would tell me if she felt uncomfortable with something she encountered on there. If she spent all of her time on TT and didn't participate in sports or never left her room to see her friends, I'd be concerned, but TikTok to this generation is what AOL chat rooms were to mine. There were people doing weird stuff in those chat rooms and there are people doing weird stuff on TT and you just have to know how to navigate it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our son (12) does not have a phone.

Many of his friends have phones and TikTok.

The friends vandalized the school bathroom because TikTok told them to. Then Fairfax County sent every parent an email about this TikTok craze, confirming its true.

Weigh this for your own child in deciding about TikTok:

Vandalism and porn vs. whatever “value” or enrichment you think TikTok offers to your child’s life.

We're in MoCo and my kid's principal mentioned this latest insanity about ripping off bathroom equipment and recording it on your phone in his weekly email.
WTF?

[Anonymous]

We let my daughter use it for a while in 2020 (she was 12.5) for the same reason, but she progressively kept spending more and more time on it at the expense of other activities. I was concerned about the content too but most of what she was watching was just dumb. She is only allowed to use her phone in public spaces in the house btw. After many discussion and fights over a six month period she came around to agreeing that TT was just a stupid time suck and volunteered to have it deleted so we would free up more screen time for her to do other things. Now, a year later she claims: Mom I always knew TT was awful, I never said it was healthy, I’m the one who asked to get rid of it. Revisionist history but I’m glad she feels this way now.

[Anonymous]

By the way my DD got sucked into the trans queer echo chamber while she was on TT and developed a very unappealing left wing foot soldier tone, but has gone back to normal since she stopped using it. (I am a leftie myself, but I was concerned with the ‘cancel everyone, down with gender’ brainwash she embraced while on TT.

[Anonymous]

I would give it under a few rules (45min in family room) so she can stay caught up on trends. Really stress talking about stuff she sees. She's going to see stuff all over life. You want her to learn to think about it and examine. FWIW I took it off dd 14s phone after she was breaking rules (staying up till 12-1am on it, watching really harmful stuff but taking it in as truth). But I think trying middle ground with a few rules helps, plus a few pre decided consequences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:There's are a lot worse things they can being doing than TikTok. My 13 year old has it. She gets bored of it easily and it's not something she spends all of her time doing. I don't love the songs on Tiktok (she wants to listen to the TikTok XM channel), but again, a lot worse stuff out there. She knows not to engage on there and would tell me if she felt uncomfortable with something she encountered on there. If she spent all of her time on TT and didn't participate in sports or never left her room to see her friends, I'd be concerned, but TikTok to this generation is what AOL chat rooms were to mine. There were people doing weird stuff in those chat rooms and there are people doing weird stuff on TT and you just have to know how to navigate it.

The bolded is a good point. I struggle with social media as well, but as of now, my DD has all of them, with overall screen time limits that are very generous. I will take her phone every few weeks and scroll through her pages to see what she is seeing.

I know it may be a bit defeatist, but the world is happening online and will increasingly get more so. My approach is to let my child live with that world and learn to navigate it early. We have conversations about racism and porn and body image arising from that content just as we would if it were coming from students at school, TV, or Seventeen magazine...

[Anonymous]

Call me a prude but the language is just so awful in so many videos. I saw a friend's very small girls dancing and lip syncing some highly inappropriate lyrics with no idea what it meant. She was horrified when she saw it, but by then it had been widely viewed.

[Anonymous]

No, just no.

[Anonymous]

Nope. I don’t understand most parents. They seem to be in a hurry to give kids access to every little thing or experience , but then helicopters over the things that are perfectly normal and age appropriate

[Anonymous]

Absolutely not. It's a cesspool of garbage. It's also just another way kids cause drama.

- Mom of twin 12 yo girls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:By the way my DD got sucked into the trans queer echo chamber while she was on TT and developed a very unappealing left wing foot soldier tone, but has gone back to normal since she stopped using it. (I am a leftie myself, but I was concerned with the ‘cancel everyone, down with gender’ brainwash she embraced while on TT.

Oh please stop it.

Grow up.

Troll.

[Anonymous]

It needs to be monitored.

It is a time suck waste of time

Most parents don't want their darling children to be left out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Google “devious lick.”

Tells you all you need to know about giving 12 year-olds TikTok.

It's "Devious Licks", mom. 🤣
PLEASE don't give TikTok advice... you clearly know nothing about the app.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The “n” word is all over TikTok in the song lyrics the kids dance to on TikTok.

The songs are made by black rappers.

Don't make it seem like the songs are being created by white racists. 🙄

[Anonymous]

My DD11 begged for TT for a while and also said she felt left out b/c she didn’t know dances and songs. Well, guess what? She doesn’t have TT or a phone or any social media and has picked up the dance moves simply from watching friends. Don’t let that be a reason to let your DD on TT.