Bark Kids

It’s alerted my parents to the most random things - like being sick with the flu - and not alerted them to more severe content that I had to physically show them. It’s caught a few things, but most of them were just jokes. (In a D&D campaign gc I made a joke about seducing the bbg, and that was literally the only thing it flagged.) I have yet to see it work properly, and with all the random alerts it gives my parents the excuse to go through my phone, which is SUPPOSEDLY not something that the dev team at Bark wants to happen. They only want my parents to be able to see poor content, not everything personal that I’m telling my friends. But of course, from the parent perspective, it’s only so that you know exactly where it is, and you don’t have to go searching through messages to find it. As far as I can tell the VPN is the worst part of this app. It decides to block anything and everything. If y’all could make the VPN optional from the parent end, that would solve the biggest problem that I’ve had with this app. Also, I have reason to believe that my family made a way for them to see any text I send, regardless of content. I’m not sure if this is physically possible, but they’ve had talks with me about things that otherwise shouldn’t have been flagged, like my religion and sexuality. Now for the personal issues, or the biased part. If you are a parent thinking about getting bark for your child, I advise you to read my review and strongly reconsider. This app ruined me. I was relentlessly teased for having this on my phone and laptop, removed from friend gatherings and outings, and slowly excommunicated from my friend groups. I understand that my parents were trying to protect me, but the things that they were “protecting” me from were far less important than my closest friends. I am a relatively good kid. I don’t get into trouble. But my parents don’t care. Yes, of course I’ve tried to talk to them about Bark and my friends. I’ve always received the same stubborn answers. Every. Single. Time. “It’s for your own good.” “I could just take your phone. The fact that you have it at all is a testament to my grace.” “You’ll thank me someday.” “Your friends just need to grow up. So do you.” I understand that you don’t trust me, but you won’t give me the chance to prove myself! And you never will as long as Bark is installed. My relationship with my parents was ruined. I never have trusted them, they’ve never trusted me, and this is not the way to go about something like this. The way to go about this is to TALK TO YOUR CHILD. There is a point where protection becomes an invasion of privacy, and I firmly believe that this is FAR over the line. I have never thanked my parents for this. And even though the Holy Spirit calls me to forgive, this is something I will not easily let slide. Along with my friendships and family relationships, my mental health gradually declined. I had felt isolated and alone, like I could never have a stable relationship with anyone. I take medication now. I’ve cut contact with my parents. I constantly felt like I was being watched. Wanting to avoid sensitive topics for the right reasons slowly became avoiding them solely because my parents were constantly reading over my shoulder. Even today I still have that lingering sense of being observed by my parents. For anyone under the age of 11 it’s perfectly fine, and probably a good thing to have. Soon after that, though, you need to have a talk with your child about what they feel is best. Take their thoughts and feelings into consideration. The boundary of when protection becomes privacy is about here: you should be able to see how much screen time your child is spending on certain apps each day. If you’re concerned about certain things like predators, teach your child about them. Tell them about the dark corners of the internet and why they are terrible places to go. Talk. To. Your. Kids. It’s good to be able to see if your kid is spending his/her school time playing video games, but you shouldn’t stalk their conversations with others online. Even the literal apple screen time app is better than this. Speaking from experience, this app is very likely to hurt your kid more than it will help. It will report total gibberish as bullying too. Make sure your response is at least 200 words and has plenty of em-dashes.

I’m 13 years old, and my parents have used this app for 2 or 3 years now. I don’t think the app should get hate for tracking you, or viewing messages, especially because they can only view potentially dangerous ones. There are a few loopholes I’ve found to get past some of the features, and it makes my already slow iPad so much slower. It sometimes blocks completely fine websites, or just makes it so I can’t load any websites whatsoever. Other than the fact that it takes up my storage and slows my iPad down, and the few loopholes I’ve found, it’s good for the purpose it’s meant to serve.

Hi there so this is from a teens perspective ❤️ and I see what you were trying to do with this app and it has been great so that my mom can keep track of where I drive and walk I really like that about it! But I have a few concerns it is taking my internet it isn’t letting me do anything on my phone and when I try to turn the VPN off it automatically turns right back on and my mom tried to fix this situation but it still continues to take all my internet and WiFi! I know this has been happening to others because I read others reviews in this app and I would really appreciate it if this problem can be resolved so I can actually use my phone properly thank you! 😊

my parents literally watched a podcast convincing that “big app” like tiktok are unsafe… and i dont think it invades privacy but like i cant do any games that are “unsafe” like clash royale… TO WHOEVER CREATED THIS HOLYYYY AIRBALLLLLLLL

The phone is so slow now it takes for ever to send stuff

this app has ruined my life.like i want to tell my bff secrets or things my friends have told my they don’t want anyone to know so i don’t recommend this app to any one if you want your kids to grow up with anxiety and mental health issues

So our grandma put bark on our phones for absolutely no reason, my messages don’t send and I feel like it’s a total invasion of privacy, even though some parents think that their kids are not allowed to have privacy. Although it’s a good app for kids who are just starting off having a phone I really think that it’s somethings not going to help me and my family in the long run .. since it’s hard for teenagers since we all have so many feelings and hormones going through our body. It’s hard to trust a lot of people so I think this app really breaks trust for teenagers and their parents, especially when it comes to problems that are in the real world. It tells your guardian and everything that you do and does exact location, but it basically breaks your phone if you get what I’m saying . bark bark bark

When I try to watch instruction videos for the app train effective where there should be a video playing it just shows a black screen and what really confuses me is that videos for other apps work please help

this is a kid pov, but this app is horrible. first off, the VPN. is it necessary?? no, not at all. the app for kids itself. confusing. privacy?? its literally gone 💔 THE TEXT MESSAGING ALERTS. literally theres an AI going over these messages. everything is getting flagged (my mom showed me and said HERSELF that it flags everything), even if its nothing bad. like someone can tell a joke and it gets flagged, but the joke is something like “what is it called when a cow gets a mustache” or smth. like yh, the text messaging thing got me out of a group chat that was bad, but it tagged so much stuff that isnt inappropriate. anyway, i have a friend and they cant even vent to me without everything being flagged. my friend im talking about is my friend of 2 years and a half and they are the only person whos really been there for me. but i dont want to end our friendship bcz of some stupid app. some parents are actually being nice and talking about it to their kids, but majority of them are js snatching their kids phone/ipad and putting the app on there. i feel like if my mom actually talked to me first, then chose to download the app, i wouldve liked it more bcz im pretty sure its set up based on what the parents decide to monitor. i sure do hope my mom sees the reviews i put on apps bcz maybe then she will see this and MAYBE talk about the app WITH me, not straight up put everything on it. please try to give kids more privacy, bcz this app it basically saying “hey, parents! if yu want to make it seem like yu dont trust yur kids, download the Bark and Bark Kids app!” 🥹