Bark Kids Reviews

BarkKids is so stupid!!!!! I can’t even use half of the apps on my phone, let alone do anything about it, I encourage you to never download BarkKids for you or your kids because it defeats the whole purpose of BarkKids . It makes me afraid that is I do one tiny thing wrong, my parents will see it, yell at me, and then I just feel sad and depressed and alone. How would you like us to put an app onYour phone that monsters everything that you do. How would you like us to see every single text that you send and every single thing that you search that sounds like a great idea doesn’t it? A.k.a. sarcasm if you couldn’t tell
BarkKids is probably the worst thing that has ever happened to me and that makes me super annoyed. If you are a teenager then you know this chocolate because you try and go on a app like TikTok and it doesn’t even let you get on it says no Internet which is stupid because I have Internet and it makes no sense I really really hate BarkKids and encourage no one to get it because it makes no sense and it just makes you really sad and alone also your friends can make fun of you for not having a certain app and it’s just annoying encourage no one to get BarkKids ever.

This is a horrible app, I cant text anyone expect of my parents and I cant download anything and I cant do anything. What was the point of a phone then? I feel like I’m on a leash and I’m a dog. (One that is not treated appropriately) parents please please hear me out, your kids will hate you and will just make things even worse. Instead use apple family because Your kids can get some privacy and you will still have control plus it’s free. This stupid app id like 80$. Parents your relationship with your kids will be horrible after this, save your kids relationship with you. My parents said this will help me from not being hacked of course it won’t help. I might as well use my old iPad to have a life and freedom. Don’t get this it will interfere with your child’s life . If you want to make sure your kids don’t do anything inappropriate make sure to teach them not to. You parents going on Facebook all day are teaching your kids so might as well get this for your self. Smh what is wrong with people today. This is not gonna help with anything because at the beginning I never did anything wrong. I hate this and don’t get it.

Honestly I don’t think BarkKids should even get one star. It not only slows down EVERYTHING, but it’s also an invasion of privacy. If a friend were to say something personal and used inappropriate language or language that is medically related, it will alert them. I don’t want my friends to feel uncomfortable when they’re telling me something private. It slows down a lot of my apps; snapchat, tiktok, instagram, messages, facetime. It even slows down subway surfers. SUBWAY SURFERS! Like- come on. BarkKids is for parents that do not trust their kids to make the right decisions. They tell us that it’s to protect us but it’s really to make sure that they are in control. I want to be able to talk to people without worrying about what is going to alert my parents. If they took BarkKids off of my phone, I would probably be more open with them and actually tell them about things. Instead, they put this on my phone, and I’m more closed off than I was before. I haven’t expressed this to them, but they know how I feel about it just by the way I act when they bring it up. If you’re a parent reading this, keep in mind that this will only make your children angrier and it’ll only make them act out more.

I’m a teenager writing this review so please listen. My parents downloaded BarkKids on my phone so they could watch what I was doing. BarkKids completely takes away your child’s freedom to do anything. I remember I was listening to music and it started playing the next song. It started playing the song From Now On from the greatest showman. (I was listening to Disney music because why not) Well it started playing and my father came into the room and he said he got a notification on an inappropriate song I was listening to. I told him I was listening to the greatest showman. He was surprised because it said it was talking about drinking and bad language. The only line in that song is "I drink champagne with kings and queens". Like seriously you are going to report me listening to a Disney song. This is just one example of how much BarkKids overreacts to everything. I became isolated with my friends and I felt like I couldn’t talk to them about anything because of BarkKids. LISTEN PARENTS: if you want to get an app that watches what your child does I wouldn’t suggest this one. There are much better apps out there. Please take my words into consideration when you are thinking about getting your child BarkKids.

Dear Parents,

Hello, I’m a kid in 7th grade just trying to survive middle school. Some of my friends can be quite inappropriate over text (texting curse words, inappropriate messages etc.) and it’s not my fault. I’ve tried talking to my mom about this and she still doesn’t believe it’s their fault. Everything’s my fault. If you don’t want kids to spend too much time on your phone and you want to limit their screen time, turn on screen time on settings. They can ask for time on stuff and you control how much time they have… but don’t torture them with this. I understand parents want us to be safe, but if anything it’s making me feel so unsafe I delete messages my friends send me even if they have one curse word. As a kid with extreme ADHD and anxiety it’s too much for me to handle. Even breathing makes me feel self conscious and makes me feel like they are watching me. All of my freedom has been taken from me and, well it doesn’t feel great to be honest. BarkKids really works and does what it’s supposed to but sometimes it’s too much. I’ll see Bark notifications come up on my moms phone after my friend talked about getting her Covid-19 vaccine as drugs. It monitors it too much and makes me feel uncomfortable and it’s kinda trying me insane.

- Via

BarkKids has made me want to cut my mother off. I am a 17 year old and my mom made me get it bc I didn’t always talk to her. She went through my phone when ever I was acting off. She said this would be better and I believed her. However this has turned everything worse. My mom gets alerts from fictional stories I write and things my friend says. She gets angry and assumes things and blames it on the fact that she doesn’t know the whole story. I was talking to my friend about bad things she’s done. Threaten to take me to a hospital saying it was a horrible place telling me I’m not suicidal etc. I told my friend I might cut her out of my life. Her way of trying to fix this is making me stay home instead of going to a friends house to calm down. She says that we need to fix our relationship yet doesn’t try to. BarkKids has not helped me at all and I’ve started self harming and having more mental problems and breakdown bc of it. I understand what you’re trying to do however this can be abused like it is with me. I am 17 i should have my freedom. At least make it so that 16 plus people can’t have BarkKids. It’s not thing to make sure a kid is safe it’s completely different when the parent punishes the child for having negative thoughts about said parent.

As a teen girl who didn’t want her privacy taken away I was not happy about getting BarkKids. But eventually my parents made me download it and enter my passwords. After that I never noticed it. I didn’t do anything that made the vpn alert my parents so things were going fine. After about 2 weeks my phone suddenly stopped working. I hasn’t done anything out of the ordinary so I was confused. The data and WiFi weren’t working so I could only make phone calls. My min and I spend about 3 HOURS on the phone with our service provider and he wasn’t sure what else to try. We swapped the SIM card, restarted the phone multiple times, yet the issue remained. While the guy on the phone was trying to come up with another solution I went to the vpn and tried to turn it off. It kept turning back on and notifying me that bark needs the vpn in order to monitor the phone. I figured out how to disable the vpn and miraculously my phone was working again! Before my parents asked me to download BarkKids I saw another person write that they had service troubles because of bark. I don’t know if it was a glitch with the vpn but I do not recommend BarkKids . I understand my parents reasoning for getting BarkKids , but the vpn problem completely stopped my service for no reason at all.

I am a 13 year old female just trying to have fun. I don’t have a problem with my parents looking to see if me or my friends do something bad but I have a huge problem with how they can block certain apps. I have had all social media behind my parents back because they don’t believe it is ok for kids to have it. The believe that any kid that has it and gets mentioned will cause self harm or off themselves. I play games online a lot so when they ask for my number I give them a special discord that I made for that. My parents have always been strict but once I got the phone I felt like I had a little bit of privacy. But no, I was told they were going to put bark on my phone to see if I do something I’m not supposed to. Again I don’t have a problem with that it’s just that they are over protective and I had to tell them that I had Twitter and my mom freaked out and told me I wasn’t allowed to have it or to use any social media. I’m just trying to enjoy my time and not go against my parents main rules but this was something I couldn’t deal with anymore. Some of my friends don’t use their phone number so I talk to them through discord but it got blocked with everything else and it’s starting to annoy me that my parents are trying to control every little thing in my life.

My mother is so overprotective of me. BarkKids makes it seem like I am on a leash. She actually thinks that downloading BarkKids will make me be better and actually save me from the dangers of the internet. Funny thing is I am not dumb. I know all the loopholes in everything and I always beat her. Regardless, She is monitoring everything I send. I am turning off my location services. BarkKids will forever ruin my relationship with my mother, which is devastating to her, I honestly don’t care because i am not even close with her anymore. But the damage has already been done. So thank you, for ruining the relationship that I have with my former best friend and the person I used to care about the most. If she reads this, I want her to know that I meant it. If you are a parent and you want your kid to get it, fine. If you don’t want your relationship to get ruined with your kid. Just tell your kid what to do and what not to do. I don’t think that I can ever make amends to the relationship thanks to my mom and BarkKids . Honestly, she is just another person in my house. I don’t think I can even call her my mom. Get BarkKids if you want your kids relationship with you to crumble, just like it did with my mom and I. We (teens) need privacy because we are just going out into the new world, and that’s not what we are getting with BarkKids.

yesterday my mom made me download BarkKids. and made me answer all the questions. now i feel like i’m a dog and a leash and have to beg for freedom again. like it shows the parent or guardian everything you do and it even shows them your messages which, i think is a violation in every way. with BarkKids there’s no way i should feel this way. and now i can’t act like i’m my age. im in 7th grade and now it feels like i’m in 3rd grade. my mom also put it in my little sisters phone which i can understand because she in kindergarten but i’m in 7th grade. i’d really rather go back to her checking my phone every so offen and that be it but BarkKids isn’t right. and now my mom feels the need to have it. if your a parent and your trying to rebuild your relationship with your child/children, this wouldn’t be the way to go because it’s only going to make it worse and there just going to feel terrible and odd so if you absolutely have to use this then use it but Life360 it’s much better in my opinion. it will make the child feel better too and can build a good relationship. with Life360, it’s always shows where they are, have been, where there going, when they turn it off and when they go off BarkKids . you send immediately messages to them and other things. but honestly BarkKids wouldn’t be the best resource or response.

I think the intial idea of BarkKids was clear, to give kids more privacy while parents could monitor and keep their child safe from threats online, but how does that work. If you show parents more information about more of our personal lives, text massages for example, leaves kids with no privacy and under the constant watch of their parents. As a teenager, I’m not the smartest and can’t give the best review, but I know if we one day got out into the real world for ourselves, wouldn’t have the slightest clue of what to do from online threats because parents kept us in the dark and protected us our entire lives from online threats, leaving us with no clue how to deal with them. It might not make much sense, but what I’m saying is that instead of the keeping us protected and hidden from the online world, won’t let us deal and learn from the mistakes we made in the past, to prepare for the future. Bark is good, but I feel that Bark shares to much with our parents instead of leaving it to children to learn what to do in a situation online. I though feel BarkKids is kind of insulting because some of us actually do know how not to share personal online information. Bark might have shown my mom this review, and if you are reading the review, hopefully the review has changed your mind about bark just a little.

:)❤️ (:

I believe my parents had a good reason for being concerned and wanting an app like this on my phone but it’s way too restrictive it alerted my dad because I watched a TikTok that had the word high in it and reported it as drugs and when I told my friends about BarkKids some of them told me they didn’t want me texting or calling them till I had BarkKids off my phone because they are worried that they might tell me something personal and BarkKids will alert my dad and say it’s inappropriate and then my dad would know their secrets this really annoys me because I’m glad to be there for my friends and be there to listen to them whenever they have problems but they are texting ME to tell me that stuff not my parents it’s only been a few days but I feel trapped and my friendships are suffering because of this so I strongly advise that if you are a parent and thinking about getting this for your kid please don’t you may think it’s helping your kid but its really not you can tell your kids that you doing this because you love them and you want them to be safe but trust me we don’t see it that way we see it as you watching our every move and not caring about how we feel about I would have much rather have like weekly phone checks than this so you should sit down with your kid at talk to them instead of forcing this and other apps like it onto them

BarkKids goes to far, it send parents everything even the little things that don’t matter. Like as pre-teens and teen, we sometimes will joke with our friends like call them dumb or an idiot, but at this age we know we’re joking and so do they. But it sends those messages to parents even tho there not a big deal. It will invade to much privacy even if it’s not something big. Also BarkKids has broken my friends phones including me. Mine would freeze and do random things and basically like broke it. It got so annoying. The weirdest part, is it would freeze and not let me get on the bark app. For my friend, she couldn’t do like anything it would always say she has no internet connection, and the reason her parents got it for her is because she’s never had social media before and she really wanted it. But it wouldn’t work when she got social media because there “was no internet connection” BarkKids is the worst thing ever. It goes to far, sends like EVERYTHING, and will break phones. Like I get it, if u gave BarkKids to like a young kid like 9 and under, that makes sense because parents should know what’s going on on a young kids phone/iPad. But when your a pree-teen or a teen, you need some privacy cause your older. And most of them aren't even doing anything bad, it’s the fact that is app invalids privacy that’s not even a big deal.

even my therapist knows about BarkKids that my parents forced me to download. i feel like i’m on a leash. if they get alerts from anything even my friends say that i don’t , it alerts them. it’s come to the point where it’s july and i haven’t hung out with ANYBODY all summer because i’m distancing myself from my friends since i don’t want my parents to argue with me about what they say. i feel so alone and my parents do not care. i’m begging you not to get this for your child. i understand wanting safety but this will make your kid feel anything but comfort. also, prents can set curfew limits on their child phone so it literally stops working. i didn’t know it was bark causing this so i spent hours on the phone with at&t trying to figure out the problem. HOURS. and when my parents told me it was bark they just laughed it off like it was funny that i felt so much stress. on top of that, i spent two weeks away from my family and traveled to a part of the country with a different time zone. i was two hours behind my family that stayed home. however, BarkKids does not adjust to time zones so i had to stop using my phone at like 8pm. i’m a teenager, why should i have such little freedom when i already cant do or say anything on this phone that’ll alert my parents? when i tried talking to my parents about readjusting my curfew while i was out of town my dad literally just laughed at me. i felt and still feel so powerless over MY life.

Thanks to my school counselor I had to download BarkKids. I think it’s an “ok” idea to put this on your child’s phone, but it’s the best way to ruin a relationship with your kid tho. Kids hide stuff all the time from their parents, and it might not even be bad. Now kids try to do that more then ever. Back to what I wanted to say, I like to edit things on my phone and now I can’t do that anymore because of bark. This has never happened before until I downloaded bark- now I can’t even open Pinterest! I get really mad over technology issues, it’s a big Pet Peeve of mine, and thanks to BarkKids my Pet Peeve is the only thing I can deal with. I can’t even get rid of this! I tried to power on and off my iPhone to get my many not working apps back to normal, but I can’t just get it to work. It’s always says I have no internet(I think it’s because of the VPN). But I only sort of thank BarkKids, I’ve stopped using my phone way less. But it does no good for a Child’s mental health, but otherwise it’s a great source to *trying* to keep your child safe, just not a good way to keep a steady relationship with your kid.

BarkKids is fine. I know that it doesn’t alert everything that you do on your phone. My mom tells me not to check in on BarkKids for whatever reason and what I don’t like is my phone is set to where apps I don’t use in awhile get offloaded and when the bark app is offloaded it shuts down my wifi and data. The first time this happened I was really confused. I also don’t know why I cant download apps- it started about a day ago and I think it’s because the bark app has to update but because of the issue it wont let me update. I know that there are individuals out there that would try and purposely shut off and delete the bark app so that’s when the little shutting down wifi tool is handy. But not everyone does that. At the same time I don’t use BarkKids the same way parents do so I don’t know if they can control those setting or not. I trust my mom when she says that it doesn’t see everything and I trust the bark app as well, but there always seems to be an issue with my phone wether or not it’s my wifi, apps, or sending messages on social media. Overall I think the bark app is okay. I’m also only a teenager and not an adult so I don’t really know how BarkKids works. :)

Ever since my mom installed BarkKids my social life has gone down hill she gets an alert every time some time of violence or cussing etc. And personal I can’t control what my friends send me that’s their time and energy spent on the email or text not mine so I shouldn’t be the one getting in trouble for what they send I’m just a kid who wants to have a life of their own not some kid who has their social life controlled by their parent having a app that monitors your child’s phone can break trust and you’re child will try to hide even more things on their devices then they already have been hiding these past few weeks I’ve been thinking about asking my mom if she can take the bark off but I already know what the answer is going to be. “No.” That’s what the answer is going to be because she has no trust in me this makes me sad and discouraged to Ask her in the future I don’t recommend BarkKids you destroy your trust with you’re children and I just wish my life went back to 2019 where Covid and I didn’t have these trust problems with my mom because I made a mistake.

My parents found BarkKids to help with a personal situation involving inappropriate ads constantly showing up on my phone, and it was almost unavoidable with the pictures and words and everything that a younger teen shouldn’t be exposed to at that age. Many other incidents encouraged my parents to download this, and I’m very glad they did. The only problem is that bark is a little too sensitive without the right settings, and for a while I practically couldn’t do anything on my phone. I had it like this for 2 years, and I feel like even after I begged them to change it just a little bit for a long time, they still didnt, and again I’m happy they waited. It made me super careful about searching online. Now that I’m older it’s become just a tiny bit harder, but now that bark is practically non existent and only alerts my parents for super bad stuff now (after a good amount of research to figure it out, making the only reason I only put 4 stars is because of the complexity of the settings). I feel like the settings should start off strong but gradually become more relaxed as a child matures. BarkKids really helped me it my case, and I encourage parents to not look at the 1 star reviews by (cough cough) irresponsible kids (cough), but go by their gut, because even though a child can be right in some cases, a parent knows more about the safety of their child than the child themselves in some cases.

I am 13 years old and my dad installed BarkKids on my device so I can be safe online and I’m chill with it since it doesn’t really affect me. It blocks inappropriate sites and words. But it also reports various things regarding mental health and I think that that is overstepping mine and other peoples boundaries. If I or other people wanted to tell their parents about something they would. Please remove this feature. To clarify I am talking about the anxiety feature. I suffer from actual anxiety and bark doesn’t make me feel safe or secure and this is a HUGE overstepping of boundaries. Bark also blocks things quite randomly. I am looking for computer deals and when I tried to go to the official dell site for deals on new computers it was blocked and I had to ask my dad to whitelist it. BarkKids is great overall but has a few bugs and needs some fine tuning. It has really great customer support. Most of these reviews are just kids basically telling any parents looking at BarkKids how well it works! So any parents reading this I would absolutely recommend this!

I appreciate this whole set up. Kids now days do NOT understand that their parents are there to keep them safe. BarkKids helps the parents do EXACTLY that. My view is that parents don’t HAVE to let their kids have cell phones but they choose to anyway and therefore anything that is said or done on said phone is at the discretion of the parent- regardless of what the child/children say. The complaints on BarkKids’s reviews are just entitled kids who want to complain and aren’t appreciative of what their parents are doing for them… except they are complaining in the wrong direction.
This world is a very dangerous place and there are so many ways to reach young unsuspecting teens. BarkKids isn’t cheap and at first I was a little taken aback by the price but for everything BarkKids does- I’ll pay for it to keep my girls safe and if other parents are paying for the same thing- they have the same sentiment I do.
I have a background in law enforcement so I know that there are predators out there. I will be more relaxed knowing my kids are on their own with their friends and they have their phones with them and I can still know where the heck they are at and what is going on.

Great app. Keep up the GREAT work and thank you for creating an awesome app! Just wanted you to know that your work is NOT going unnoticed.

Honestly speaking, I am not a bad kid, I am young and I am responsible. My mom got BarkKids to keep me safe. BUT IT IS IN NO WAY KEEPING ME SAFE!!! IT IS AN INVASION OF PRIVACY AND IT IS TOO SENSITIVE. It stalks my texts and sends the ones where my friends use bad language and even when my father does! Ever since I got BarkKids I feel like I have no space and I feel like I can’t text without my mom seeing it. Before my mom got BarkKids for me I read the reviews and thought all the other young teens were just overreacting, but they were absolutely not. I am a firm believer in teen privacy, especially teen girls such as myself. I saw the older teens’ reviews and they said it wasn’t bad, but it truly is, it even stalks my social media’s like Snapchat and instagram. Which makes for an even smaller amount of privacy. And to further prove my point, it stalks my phone calls and FaceTime calls too! In all honesty this is an awful app to get for your children speaking to parents. Also it’s 15 bucks a month. THESE ARE ALL THE REASONS I HAVE CHOSEN TO GIVE BarkKids A NEGATIVE REVIEW.

I downloaded this for my son who has never done anything wrong I just wanted to make sure he was safe. Keep in mind he was 12 so about a teen. After I downloaded BarkKids I realized our relationship was getting worse and worse. I also watched his mental health decline very fast. I didn’t know what was causing it, so I asked him and he was hesitant because like I said before he could not trust me anymore. It took me awhile to get an answer out of him but when he finally told me he said “mom it’s that app it makes me feel like I did something wrong even though I didn’t. I have never done anything wrong and I feel awful about myself.” BarkKids made my son feel awful he later told me he “just wanted to die” and again he said that YOUR app was making him feel exposed and don’t even start with “oh we only alert if there is an issue” trust me I have read all the reviews and all your responses are the same. Just admit it already you don’t care about the kids, you care about money. Bye. 😒

BarkKids is honestly not worth it from a teen perspective. When my parents told me that we were getting it I hated the idea but when I got it it was not that bad. Now I don’t know but I just think BarkKids is dumb. I completely disabled BarkKids . Like I deleted it and no one knows, it was so easy. First the ability to get notifications on my dads side now the screen time. Slowly it just went away. Now I feel like I’m going to get in trouble so I put it back on. I just feel like if the creators want it to be the best it could be try to make it more secure so a 13 cannot break in lmaooooo.
Some more advice sexting mostly happens on Snapchat but I looked it up and they do not have it on their software. It’s sort of difficult to get random people’s # but so easy to get people you have not seen in 6 years in like 30 seconds.
That’s all I think the idea to keep kids safe is a good one but I just don’t think it works for our family. I was seriously able to delete the apps storage. If it that easy there might be something wrong :)

BarkKids Is horrible!!! It’s a huge invasion of privacy!!! Stop blaming the fact that you want to download BarkKids on pedophiles. If you can’t trust your kid because they’ve done something horrible on the Internet then it might be different but to any other kid and makes them feel like they’re not trusted and that they’ve done something wrong. If you want to put restrictions talk to your kids about it. If you are trying to trust them or wanting to set boundaries then talk to them but BarkKids is a terrible way two find out where your kids are going and what they are doing on every second. They should have freedom, Yes it’s OK to set rules but shutting off their Internet during a pandemic and taking away their phones is so unfair and makes them feel like you’re just doing it to be mean. Let your kids have a phone without screen time and 9 o’clock boundaries because when they can’t see their friends or in this tough depressing time it’s hard for them and you’re making it worse by taking away their one source of contact. So please do not download BarkKids!!!!

Okay I’m not gonna lie I’m kinda glad my mom downloaded BarkKids. I know she is just trying to protect me. The thing is, I don’t want my mom to try to take my privacy away from me. I’m a good kid and I don’t do drugs, alcohol, vaping, smoking, and I’m very against anything sexual at this age. I DONT EVEN BELEIVE IN HAVING A BOYFRIEND AT THIS AGE FOR GOODNESS SAKES!!! I feel like my mom has lost trust in me and that I now have to keep everything a secret from her. I’m very offended that my mom thought that I would need a monitor on my device I thought that maybe I would’ve built up enough trust in her to believe me but I guess not. I am very aware of child/teen pedophiles and I only accept friend requests of people that I KNOW! I definitely don’t think that it was necessary for my mom to get BarkKids for me. I mean what is she gonna do when I’m sixteen? She can’t put a monitor on my phone when I’m sixteen! I believe in monitoring your child’s phone but this is simply just sick and cruel. I see where she is coming from, but this is just frustrating and annoying. I do love BarkKids but This can destroy friendships with your parents.❤️👑

I sincerely dislike BarkKids. it has made me feel like such a failure as a child and that my mom doesn’t trust me or that my parents don’t trust me. It’s a complete invasion of privacy and has made my mental health which is already very low and very horrible hundred times worse. it has made my mental health got completely down the drain and make me feel like my parents don’t trust me and that they think that I’m lying and that they think that I have something to hide from them which I don’t. It makes me feel so horrible and like I’ve done something wrong for them to not trust me this much and to think that they need to install an app to track me and track what I’m doing 24/7 it makes me feel so horrible sometimes my friends will talk to me about personal things and that they don’t want people to know and it makes me really uncomfortable to know that my parents are seeing that. It’s never anything bad it’s just their personal information that they’re trusting me with and I don’t think my parents should have access to other people’s personal business. Please do not get BarkKids for your child.

As a young teen bark is an invasion of privacy and is a total waste don’t downlod this for your child please! All it does is make your child feel like you have no trust in them i would only consider dowloading BarkKids if your child has been severely bullied or has done something severely wrong on the internet if not pleas don’t download this your teen will feel even worse and it invades privacy all we ask for as a teen is privacy and bark totally invades that my parents say it’s for “my protection” but if you don’t let your child make decessions a and trust them to be responsible online than that’s your fault not theirs they deserve to have that chance so leave them alone as a teen talking I love to be alone and have things private and bark invades that the best way to let your teen mature and grow is to let them have there space to figure things out and not be barbarded with one of the last things they have to themselves bark is a horrible app please don’t download it and I know the creators will respond with “ it’s just for your protection “ but please don’t you don’t know what it’s like to be a teen in the 21st centurie so leave us alone

I’m looking at the parents reviews of BarkKids and they’re talking about scenarios where they found their kid talking to someone but that kid should’ve went to them. If u can’t trust ur kid to come to u in need then u need a better relationship with them. BarkKids isn’t it. My dad downloaded BarkKids a couple of months ago and me and him used to be inseparable. But now we r growing apart and getting more tense. BarkKids is incredibly annoying. He uses BarkKids and invades my privacy and this screen time junk is a waste. If u can’t sit down and have a conversation with your kid then there’s a problem. BarkKids just makes you and ur kid more distant. You might think that you’re kid is more respectful but maybe your kid is dying on the inside. Nobody likes their privacy invaded, ESPECIALLY AS A TEENAGER. BarkKids makes me feel untrusted and paranoid. I can’t even text my friends without my dad reading it. So it might not alert him for everything but it shouldn’t be alerting him at all. If your kid has something they need to share with you, you should give them the option to share it themselves instead of reading their info.

This is coming from a kid’s perspective.
I hate BarkKids with a burning passion, and I have read barks responses. They just don’t get the idea that this is destroying trust and relationships. Don’t say that you *understand* that we need privacy, because THIS IS NOT WHAT THIS IS ABOUT. Also, don’t say that you are *growing* relationships, BECAUSE YOU ARE DOING THE COMPLETE AND UTTER OPPOSITE. Why don’t you actually READ the kids reviews, and stop shunning us from doing the things we love. This is why parents are hated, because they ruin the kids’ life
I bet you guys didn’t have apps like this when you were younger. I bet that you guys were perfectly fine without this stuff. Kids are kids, and we learn from things that we do wrong. We also learn to hide, sneak, and eventually find loopholes because of things like this. It’s destroying childhood itself. BarkKids has ruined the shaky relationship I had with my parents, and it’s all because of the one dumb person who thought it would be a good day to crush millions of child’s lives. Good job to you, it’s working. Why don’t you stop and think for a moment about kids minds. We do bad stuff, yes, but then we learn not to do it. Some things are just better left alone, and you need to understand that. So take a look at this, think about it, and don’t write some bone-headed response.

I think that BarkKids is terrible, I read a lot of these other reviews and they were all 1 Star. To be honest I do t want to give BarkKids a 1 Star, I want to give it a zero. I mean honestly I just got my phone and It was great, my parents started putting limits on my phone and they were all fine, but one day I was not thinking while i was texting and I said a bad word and I was calling my friend names ( he was calling me names back) and I didn’t mean any of it and then my parents put BarkKids on my phone. It sees everything that I do and I feel like my parents don’t trust me at all. Do NOT get BarkKids it is terrible. I am a good kid and all I don’t do anything bad like graffiti or steal, but my parents are pretty much stalking me and I hate it. PLEASE don’t get BarkKids for your kids. Oh yeah and the little VPN In the left hand corner that makes everything slow and makes a bunch of stuff not work. Yeah see all that those are the reasons you should not get BarkKids.

Hi! I am a pre-teen and my parents downloaded BarkKids to protect me, I respect that. I am not having any issues, I feel like not only does it protect me, but notifying my mom really helps. I feel like most teens are saying that it separates relationships. Honestly, talking to my mom about issues some friends and I are helping makes us bond more. I like how you guys respect privacy and only alert when something bad happens. In my opinion, I would want an app that controls bad stuff, rather than having my parents always taking my phone and looking at texts to protect me. I think that this is a good app, and teens like us aren’t developed enough yet to deal with some problems our friends tell us. My mom is a therapist, sometimes it really stinks, but she also informs me that having any social media is a privilege, not a right. The only thing that I would say about BarkKids is that there is some issues with getting on some apps. When my time isn’t up I’m not aloud to go on apps such as Pinterest and Bitmoji. Whenever I open BarkKids , it keeps loading and saying that my network is down, even though all my other apps are working. Pinterest and Bitmoji is safe. So the only reason why I put only 4 stars instead of 5 is because of not letting me go on some of the apps. Other then that, I say good job for bringing my connection with my mom and I closer! 😊😁

My brother did something horrible on his phone and my mom installed a bunch of apps to keep me and my brother safe but she knows I do not do anything bad on my phone. I see how she would do that but I have never got an alert before and my brother has gotten 10 alerts and we have had BarkKids for 1 month!! I do see from her perspective why she would do that and why any other bark parent would do. I just hate the limited time on the phone! I only get until 10 to go on my stuff. Before I would not get a limited time. I do not really mind it that much but the free time is crazy! I have to wait until 5:00 to do my games because my mom is on phone calls for work all the time. I have 1 question. Do you see us on camera? If you do please change that. And can you access our cameras even if we are not on it? I use my phone in the bathroom a lot and do not want you to see me. Thank you and have a great day. *Please respond to this*

I see kids bashing the Bark Kids’ App and understand their frustrations. They want privacy. They want to be trusted. The Bark App is ALL about trust and only alerting messages that are concerning. (You wouldn’t want your parents reading every message would you?) ***and, also, my daughter told me if kids can get BarkKids to only a 1-star, it will be deleted from BarkKids Store***
But as a parent who discovered HUNDREDS of alerted messages upon installation, I see the need for the monitoring. My husband and I discovered how negatively a certain friend of our daughter was influencing her. This friend was instilling hate into our daughter so we had to make changes in our lives and set boundaries to protect her. Since installing the Bark App, our daughter has shown more respect towards us and watches what she says.
We have told our daughter that if she talks negatively about us (or others) and allows others to talk negatively, her mind will go where her mouth goes. And you become those you associate with. So choose your friends wisely and only say things you would want repeated.

I think that teens leaving bad reviews are overreacting. Honestly I’m fine with my mom putting BarkKids on my phone because she wants to make sure that I’m not spending too much time destroying my brain. BarkKids layout is really nice and to all the teens out there, having social media honestly is a big mistake you made. It makes you think about things like how pretty you are, body image, how popular you are, how good you are at things, and etc. Deleting social media was the best choice I have ever made for myself. So I don’t understand what the fuss is about. if you are a teen or a child then just know that you’re parent is probably just putting BarkKids on you’re device because they want you to savor your imagination and not be so involved with you’re device. If you disagree that’s completely fine, everybody has opinions and this is mine... - teen girl

As a young teen, looking at these reviews bothers me. It seems your forgetting how BIG the internet is! Literally everything known to man kind is on your tiny device, all your parents are doing is trying to keep you safe, out of trouble, and maintain your childhood! Next thing you know you click link the wrong link, go on the wrong website and boom. You see or did something that you will regret. I for one did that before, and I regret it a lot 😌✋🏼 obviously my parents restricted me and I was upset about it. But I learned that it was not to make me upset or steal my trust. But to keep me safe! and depending on your age, yes there should be boundaries, but I personally think the age of 13 and lower still has a lot to learn whether you think you know it or not yet, somethings are better to learn in real life then some info you could find of the internet. Also tracking. A teens worst nightmare 🙄 you won't be upset of your parents actually knew where you were going would they? If your getting upset it's for a reason, maybe because you know where your going is wrong, or somewhere your parents wouldn't approve. But maybe they actually don't approve it for a reason?? If you get kidnapped or taken or hurt how will they know how to find you? That's the main reason. All of this is to keep you safe and you need to realize that.

this is a horrible app. coming from the perspective of a 13 year old boy, it's a massive invasion of privacy. for example, I was texting my friend and they put one bad word in the text (and it really wasn't even bad, it was just cr-p) and it alerted for that and i had a two hour long lecture over something that that my parents never cared about before. honestly, it has no point. were kids. we learn by making mistakes, and with this I feel like i'm being crucified for every little thing. honesty, it's probably going to send an alert for me saying crucified. Just don't download the app. It will destroy trust and make your kid feel horrible.