Three Bay Area high schools received grants from the National Parent-Teacher Association that were funded by the social media platform TikTok to help teenagers and their families discuss digital safety.
The PTA organizations at the three schools — American High School in Fremont, Abraham Lincoln High School in San Francisco and the Oakland School for the Arts — each received $3,000 to set up a program called “Create with Kindness.” It would allow students and their parents or guardians to come together to talk about their experiences on social media and what kind of support they need.
TikTok also compiled a comprehensive toolkit of the platform’s safety tools and resources. The company’s future in the United States is uncertain; a bill signed into law in April 2024 would ban the social-media service by Jan. 19 if it does not divest from its China-based parent company, but the Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments Friday on its constitutionality.
“This digital world is not going away, so we have to be proactive with our approaches to how we’re handling it,” said Yvonne Johnson, president of the National PTA. “This partnership with TikTok has us working with them to educate families, bring them together, have open conversations, listening to teens, listening to parents and coming up with something together.”
The grants can be used to by the PTA organizations to help set up events related to the program, like providing translation services, childcare or meals. TikTok provided a total of $300,000 for the grants, which were divided among 100 local and regional PTAs at high schools across the country.
Ronald Taylor, leader of Youth Safety Outreach and Partnerships at TikTok, said the program is meant to help bridge the knowledge gap between teenagers and their parents about social media. He said that parents wanted to know what safeguards were available to protect their children and how to use them. On the other hand, Taylor said he had heard teenagers say they wanted more transparency about what deems certain content “volatile” versus others.
Taylor said that one of the safety features they would like to promote is the “family pairing” function, allowing an adult to pair their TikTok account with their child’s account to monitor their use of the app, including their searches. Taylor emphasized TikTok’s efforts to promote safe use of their platform, like default safety features that would direct people who search for potentially harmful content to links to help centers to deter juveniles from viewing inappropriate content.
When asked if there was a concern of censorship regarding issues of race, gender and sexuality on the platform because of the parental oversight functions, Taylor said that TikTok was designed to “really facilitate that conversation between youth and the adults in their lives,” and the program is focused on modeling those conversations and provide support.
“Being in partnership with the National PTA and listening to the experience of teens and parents is critical to help build safe platforms,” Taylor said. “That’s really the biggest thing that I think is the major takeaway from the work that we’re doing; it’s really centering youth as experts in their own experiences.”
Johnson said the program is a proactive effort to give families the resources to have these conversations about digital safety and practice positive interactions online. She said that the guidelines taught at these workshops could help parents make sure their children aren’t bullied online and aren’t exposed to content that isn’t good for them. And although TikTok is the focus of these events, Johnson said this advice can be used on all social media platforms.
“We believe that if an individual family is going to allow their teens to be on an app or a platform, like TikTok, that it’s so important for everyone in the household to know how to safely navigate that platform,” Johnson said.
Nick Cawthon, PTA president at the Oakland School for the Arts, said they are hoping to achieve a balanced perspective of social media, especially considering the negative effects it can have on teenage girls. He said he hoped the program would also showcase how social media platforms can be used for good and illustrate the potential pitfalls from engaging with these platforms.
Mughda Ghole, PTA president at American High School, said their organization is planning on holding a “Create with Kindness” event during lunch sometime in February or March. She said they are planning on inviting psychologists to their event and providing refreshments to entice students and their families to attend.
“We feel that families need to work together on this and get help from experts, so that’s what we’re trying to do,” Ghole said. “We’re serving high school students, so this issue is becoming more of a problem in all families.”
Valerie Vitullo, PTA president of Abraham Lincoln High School, said she connects with her children by sharing videos on TikTok. And although she said her kids have never had to deal with more than an inappropriate direct message that could easily be blocked and ignored, she said she was looking forward to the program as a way to see how other parents interact with their children and social media.
“When parents know how these programs work, we’re able to be more equipped to deal with them,” Vitullo said.
All three PTA presidents said they were hoping to host their “Create with Kindness” events by March, but there have concerns from both TikTok creators and users over the possible ban. President-elect Donald Trump has signaled opposition to the measure.
Vitullo said she was concerned that a ban on TikTok would be an infringement on free speech.
“We need access to information. We’re seeing things on TikTok and Instagram that we don’t see on the mainstream media,” Vitullo said. “We’re going to be a lot more disconnected from each other with a ban of TikTok and we’re not going to be able to consciously share ideas and educate each other on what’s happening on anything, politically, socially, our health, our mental wellness.”
Nevertheless, Vitullo said that her PTA chapter is still planning their “Create with Kindness” event.
“I hope it’s a success. I hope that the parents and the students we present this to get a lot from this,” she said. “It’s important to have this sort of connection with your kids.”
