Parenting in the Digital Age: Inside Bark’s Approach to Online Safety

Bark is helping parents navigate the challenges of raising children in an increasingly digital world. Parenting can be challenging, and one of the most important responsibilities a parent has is protecting their child and keeping them safe. With the internet being so vast and accessible, children can easily encounter information they may not yet be ready to understand. Social media can have a big impact on children, shaping their confidence, changing their self-image, thats why Bark aims to help families create healthier boundaries around technology while keeping children safe online.

Founded in Atlanta in 2015, Bark is a digital child safety company that develops monitoring tools, alerts and web filters for families and schools. Its product lineup includes the Bark Phone, Bark Phone Pro and Bark Watch, which offer different ways for parents to manage their children’s access to technology. The Bark Phone, a customizable Samsung Galaxy smartphone, features parental controls and AI-powered content monitoring designed to help parents identify potentially concerning activity.

“When we were growing up, we could leave the bullies and they didn’t follow us home. But now you open up your phone, there they are.” Said Tatiana, Bark’s chief marketing officer.

As children spend more time connected to their devices, bullying can extend beyond the classroom and into their homes. Cyberbullying can follow children through their phones and social media, making it difficult to find a place where they can feel safe. Bark aims to help parents recognize these situations early by alerting them to potentially harmful conversations and providing guidance on how to respond. Depending on the circumstances, that may include helping a child block someone, communicating with the other child’s parents or contacting school officials or law enforcement when necessary.

Bark has also expanded beyond the individual households through partnerships with schools and educational outreach. Tatiana states, the company began piloting its school safety program around 2018, as concerns grew about threats made through digital platforms. Bark’s school application can also alert school administrators to potentially concerning activity within connected school technology systems.

“So it’s trying to strike a balance between being, you know, intrusive helicopter parenting spyware, and like just giving kids free rein to everything,” said Tatiana, Bark’s chief marketing officer.

For families looking to establish healthier boundaries with technology, Bark offers several tools designed to accommodate different ages and needs. The Bark Phone gives parents control over which apps and features their children can access, allowing them to adjust restrictions as their children grow. The Bark watch also offers a way for children to communicate with their parents and share their location without needing a full smartphone, while bark home helps parents manage internet access for connected devices throughout the household. Together with Bark’s monitoring app, these tools give families different ways to approach online safety based on their children’s needs. 

As technology continues to evolve, Bark hopes to help families become more aware of the risks children may encounter online and help them find healthy ways to navigate them. For Tatiana, that means not only developing new safer tools but also educating parents and children about responsible technology use. The company’s broader goal is to make online safety a norm not an exception.