What Sets Bark Apart From the Rest 

If you’re a parent in the digital age, you’re probably aware of different parental control options that claim to protect your kid online. Whether they’re apps, routers, programs, or podcasts, they all claim to be what you need for your family. It goes without saying that at Bark, we’re confident in all that we offer to help parents raise protected and educated children online. But what exactly sets us apart from the rest? Here are just a few of the things parents have told us they love about Bark. 

Our Unique Approach to Monitoring  

At Bark, we have our hand in tons of different areas in the parental control space. But our pride and joy is the content monitoring technology we’ve spent years developing and perfecting. This is the part of Bark that you can’t find anywhere else because we hold it to the highest standard possible. 

We use AI-powered technology to scan a child’s device or social media account to look for concerning content. This can be things like cyberbullying, sexual content, predation, suicide/self-harm content, or any of the other 45+ categories the algorithm is trained to find. 

If something is detected, parents will be sent an alert straight to their phone. Monitoring like this is easy to underestimate until you’re a parent who’s received an alert crucial to your child’s safety. Sadly, it’s far too easy for kids to end up in tricky situations online, and tons of parents have learned that the extra set of eyes is an absolute game-changer. 

It’s important to note that other parental control apps may use the word monitoring, but they all mean something different. Parental controls like Google Family Link and Apple Screen Time can control when and how you’re child is using their technology, but they can’t give you any insight into what they’re actually interacting with. When most companies use “monitoring” they mean “keep an eye on” — like when you get a Screen Time report from Apple that says your kid spent 2 hours on Fortnite yesterday. 

We Offer Parental Controls to Cover All Bases 

But make no mistake, monitoring is certainly not the only thing we offer. Bark was built on the idea of providing a solution for all the obstacles parents may face while raising their kids in this tech era. So we aim to hear from real parents to know what they’re looking for and know exactly what to build. That’s how the Bark Phone was created — based on real feedback we had collected from parents over the years about what they were looking for in a kid’s smartphone. Even now, we’re constantly improving the Bark app and the Bark Phone to reflect the needs of parents in all areas, including monitoring, filtering, screen time management, GPS tracking, and more. 

We Value Healthy Parent-Child Relationships 

Behind everything we do at Bark is our heart to see healthy parent-child relationships. Ultimately, we believe that parental controls can only go so far in protecting your child and supporting them in all aspects of their life. The real impact comes from a trusting relationship between parents and their kids. This is why we only alert parents to potentially harmful content as opposed to showing parents all of their children’s messages and online interactions. The alerts create space for the parent to initiate important conversations with their children. 

We also make sure to provide parents with as many resources and tools as they need when those tough conversations come up. Parents who’ve received alerts from Bark know that when it’s something severe, such as predation or suicide/self-harm content, we make sure to send tips and resources from child experts about how best to approach the situation. 

We hear stories from parents daily about how Bark alerted them to a problematic situation in their child’s life and as a result, they were better able to understand and support their child in the process. This is why the Bark team works hard every day, to ensure that each family has the tools and knowledge they need to navigate anything the tech world throws their way. 

If Bark sounds like something you’d like to try for your family, we’d love to offer you a free, 7-day trial to get a taste of what Bark can do. You may also consider getting the Bark Phone, which is the whole package of all of our parental controls in a smartphone your child will love. If you’re interested in more resources and support in online safety, check out our resource center for more information.