The Rosie and Roula Show

144: Should Kids Be on TikTok? Roula and Many Parents Struggle

• Roula Abou Haidar and Rosie Burrows

Share episode

In this episode, Rosie sits down with Roula, a thoughtful parent navigating one of today’s biggest parenting dilemmas: Should kids be allowed on TikTok? 


From heartfelt conversations with her 10-year-old son to exploring parental controls, the risks of social media comparison, and the importance of balance, Roula opens up about her fears and hopes as a mother. Together, Rosie and Roula dive into: 


  • The challenges of setting boundaries around social media. 
  • YouTube vs TikTok: what’s safer for kids? 
  • The hidden influence of online “perfect lives” on children’s self-esteem. 
  • Why schools and parents need to work together on digital literacy. 
  • Strategies to teach balance without creating obsession. 

This episode is a must-listen for parents, educators, and anyone grappling with kids, social media, and the digital world. 


Keywords: parenting podcast, kids and TikTok, social media and children, parenting tips social media, parental controls TikTok, raising kids in digital age, kids mental health TikTok, parenting boundaries online, kids and YouTube vs TikTok, family digital safety 

--------------------

--------------------

--------------------

Hmm. Now this makes sense. So you've got some parental controls and parameters you can put in place with YouTube and I don't think TikTok has that. I actually don't know. Is that what makes you fear TikTok? What is it? Where is this fear coming from?

Roula (07:08)
Yeah.

Okay, my fear from TikTok is that he will be so... watching so much shorts

Rosie (07:19)
You know that YouTube has shorts as well though.

Roula (07:22)
Yes, but it's the YouTube kids, the shorts in it are educational, are happy, are learning. Yes, but the thing on TikTok is that I don't have control over the shorts. They will appear on his phone.

Rosie (07:30)
TikTok has that too.

Mmm.

Okay.

Yeah. No, this like it, it makes sense. So it doesn't sound like you're anti-social media at all, but you are, you're quite educated, I think in this space and you want to have safeguards in place. So Liam can both access social media, but be safe about it. He's 10. You know, as a 10 year old,

Roula (07:46)
And yes.

Rosie (08:07)
You can't possibly be aware of all the potential dangers or risks that are out there. So as a parent, you are helping keep him safe, which is what you would do in the real world. So I think that makes a lot of sense. ⁓ Has there been any other conversations with him after this one?

Roula (08:27)
yet. The conversation I have in my mind is that he already care a lot about what others think of him. And we're trying to coach him on this matter. And I'm afraid once he go into TikTok and see all the stuff.

Rosie (08:38)
Mm.

Hey, I just,

I know I'm cutting you off. I just Googled it. TikTok offers parental controls through a feature called family pairing. It allows parents to link their TikTok account to their child's, enabling them to manage settings related to screen time, privacy and content.

Roula (09:05)
Cool, cool. That's very useful.

Rosie (09:06)
Yeah, I wasn't aware of

that. So maybe that's worth you looking into, but let's go back. So he really cares about what other people think of him.

Roula (09:14)
Yes, and from my experience with one of my children, she got so influenced by the flashy life on TikTok that she feels her life is not good enough.

Rosie (09:28)
⁓ yeah.

Roula (09:31)
And I'm afraid that he will be exposed to all these fake life views and status that he will think he should belong to them and not to who he is.

Rosie (09:36)
Hmm.

So what

do you think we can do, parents can do, or even as adults, to help mitigate that? Because I think all of us have experiences of feeling left out or our self-esteem can be hurt through what we see on social media. can really suffer. So I don't think that's exclusive to TikTok. So what do you think your approach is going to be here?

Roula (10:12)
True, that is not exclusive to TikTok because this can happen at school with the kids around him. So all these issues don't come up only with social media. He doesn't have social media and he already cares about what others think of him. It's our built-in personality, built-in growth. Social media amplifies it, but it does not create it.

Rosie (10:16)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Right, right.

Mm.

Roula (10:40)
And I wish that schools have, and I know this is very sensible and it can go wrong, ⁓ some kind of parental control that parents agree that in this school, our kids will not have TikTok until they finish grade eight or whatever. I feel that the government is not regulating it. I know that in Australia, there's a law.

Rosie (10:58)
Hmm.

Roula (11:08)
that kids are allowed to go on social media until the age of 16. But also I know from the research that I did, they don't say how are they going to prevent this. They don't say what the consequences are.

Rosie (11:19)
Exactly. It hasn't been implemented

yet and people are going to find a way to get on. There's already a restriction here that on most platforms you need to be 13 or above. People have broken that since the conception of social media. So I'm curious how the government here is going to implement that. I can't remember the date that it actually comes into effect. But it then comes a question of privacy. Are we going to have to up

Roula (11:26)
Yes!

Rosie (11:47)
load our legal identification? Like who do I want having that? And yes, I want to protect our children.

But where do you draw the line? And I understand what you're saying about schools having policy around it, but then is it the school's decision or is it the parents' decision? I really...

Roula (12:09)
think it's a work

together. Kids spend every day more than eight hours at school. I think parents and school should work together on finding a way. you know what? I don't agree that once they're 16, they can have social media because at 16, most of adolescents lose their mind. So if they didn't get trained to deal...

Rosie (12:35)
This is true, was hilarious, but yeah.

Roula (12:39)
If

they don't get trained at an early age how to cope with social media when they're 16 and they have social media, this is where things can go wrong. It's like another project X in crazy ways. Yes.

Rosie (12:48)
Yeah. And you could be an adult and have issues with it. I don't think it's you hit this

age and you're fine. Definitely not. But what the answer is, I don't know.

Roula (12:56)
I see it like candies.

If we don't give candies at home, once they find candies somewhere else, they will consume them with obsession. And I don't want to tell him and tell I don't have these answers. I'm coming up now with these answers.

Rosie (13:03)
Right.

⁓ Sorry, someone's at the door. One minute. One minute.

Roula (13:15)
Yes.

⁓

Is this your farting neighbor?

Rosie (13:18)
That was really inconvenient timing. That is my neighbour who likes to do smelly farts.

Roula (13:24)
Yes, that's

okay. What I was telling you is that I'm coming up with the answers in my mind a little bit in this talk and I don't want to ban it because I don't want him to consume it in an obsessive way somewhere else before he comes home. And this is just like when we were teenagers, if our parents told us something is not allowed, we would do it behind their back anyway.

Rosie (13:34)
Mmm.

Right.

Mm. Mm.

Right,

right, exactly.

Roula (13:52)
So I want to find

the balance. The thing is, this is also a taboo conversation. Parents from school don't talk about this stuff. We as parents do not talk about social media because every parent have an opinion and we don't want to get into conflict. And many parents from what I see, ⁓ don't find it harmful.

Rosie (14:01)
wow.

Shit.

Yeah. Ooh.

Really? This is fascinating. And I'm kind of surprised that parents don't talk about it, but now you say it, I guess it makes sense because it's something people are really passionate about. And I'm sure there's ⁓ a lot of extreme opinions and perhaps not many people who are willing to engage in a productive conversation.

Roula (14:20)
Yeah, it's

true.

If I find it crazy that there is the parent board at school and we don't receive any email for a parent evening about social media. I think there's something that needs to happen every single year. It's like a muscle that we need to train. And they can get, no, they can get experts. We as parents don't have to have this confrontation and discussion. I don't think schools are.

Rosie (14:53)
Wow.

Yeah, we can't just ignore it.

Roula (15:10)
involving parents in this in the way that is on the level of where we are today. But this is school education is not advancing with time. Yes, they have these talks in the class.

Rosie (15:20)
Mmm, you've raised a really good point.

They do, do they?

Roula (15:25)
They do, they do. But I think as long as they don't invite us as parents and make us involved in this topic, we will feel everyone is doing his thing and it's my business, not your business. It's my child, not your child.

Rosie (15:33)
Yeah, yeah.

⁓

this is so difficult. And something I think that makes a lot of sense is when it comes down to it, you're helping your kids, because obviously I'm not a parent, I'm speaking as an outsider, but I am a teacher. I do see this stuff. It's equipping our kids to have the life skills, the emotional intelligence to...

talk to their parents about it, talk to their friends, use their critical thinking skills. There are learning opportunities here. And I think you see that, you see that and I love that.

Roula (16:19)
I see it.

What I also see Rosie, if the majority have TikTok and my son is from the minority.

then yes, he will be shut out, he will be left out, he will feel alone because these days more kids have phones and TikTok than not. I asked him how many kids in your class don't have phone. He said maybe three from the 25.

Rosie (16:45)
Yeah.

It's tough being a kid. You know what this makes me think of? When I was 13, MSN was a big thing, which is instant messaging. That was the big thing. I wasn't allowed it. And all my friends had their own computers. They were all on MSN. And I felt so left out. And I was just so angry. And credit to my parents. They went and spoke to other parents and also other teenagers of parents they knew.

And they came back to me and said, look, other people have said, yeah, we think it's okay. their kids are using it and this is their experience. And I wanted my own computer. Did I get that? No. Was I allowed? I was allowed to download MSN. We had a family computer that was in sort of the living area.

So it was, it was a public space and that was kind of their way of managing it. And it was great. Does it mean if they didn't let me have it, that that was the wrong decision? No, not necessarily, but the fact they educated themselves and spoke to others, I think speaks volumes and that's kind of what you're doing. Like when I Googled it and said, Hey, TikTok has controls. I saw you get your pen out and write something down.

You're open-minded and whatever you decide, I think you're doing a great job. And it's just keeping the dialogue open. There's no right or wrong here.

Roula (18:23)
Yeah, I said to Liam,

give me some time. and I, need to think about it, talk about it. And we will get back to you after the summer vacation.

Rosie (18:26)
Mm.

Mm.

That's beautiful. Yeah.

Roula (18:37)
And he said, okay, yesterday something happened. Very positive. We were watching something catch the sharks. It's program on Netflix. Something with the all sharks. it's ⁓ shark experts. They dive in Japan, Australia. It's a series documentary. Yes, it's competition. And they film sharks and they get points.

Rosie (18:39)
Mmm. ⁓

So it's like a documentary or something.

Okay, okay. ⁓

Roula (19:07)
while we're watching, every time some kind of sharks come up, Liam would pause it and give me information about the shark or there was a shark with fishes lying on him. He paused it. He explained to me what's happening. And I told him, see Liam, because you are watching scientific movies and you're reading books that educate you, you are telling me information that I did not.

Rosie (19:17)
Yeah? Wow!

Roula (19:35)
have. If you are on TikTok and only spending time watching shorts, you will not be educating yourself in this way. So what do you think? He said, mom, you are so right. I really love the scientific and knowledge stuff. And then he went on and on about the sharks. But you know, I gave him something that it's my fear that he's gonna lose it.

Rosie (19:35)
How cool is that?

Roula (20:01)
but it's my responsibility to make balance for him between TikTok time and the others.

Rosie (20:05)
I think you should go on TikTok.

I think you should go on TikTok and see what educational content you can find. That's my challenge to you. Maybe that won't be there. I haven't done the research, but I have a feeling there might be beneficial educational content on there. Is there a lot of garbage? Sure. Same on YouTube though.

Roula (20:25)
Okay, I have opened a TikTok account as you know. I didn't post anything. I didn't write anything. From my name and location, TikTok keeps sending me only one kind of shorts. People living in the Netherlands speaking Arabic, making Dutch about the Netherlands in Arabic.

Rosie (20:28)
Yes, I'm proud of you.

Mm-hmm.

Whoa, whoa, wow.

Roula (20:51)
That freaked me out because I don't speak

Arabic. I'm not looking for this kind of movies. I don't care about it. Be from my name and my location. These are the movies I'm getting. So I stopped going on TikTok.

Rosie (20:59)
What?

And that's clearly very unique

to you, isn't it? Like that's not, they've got that, yeah, from your name and they can see from your surname, ⁓ and your location. Wow. Yeah, I can understand why that was disconcerting. Wow.

Roula (21:20)
on this note I'm gonna wrap it up because this is one of the longest episodes we recorded but it's simple yeah please parents I need your help reach out to me tell me your story how do you manage tiktok with your kids give me some pieces of wisdom I need them thank you so much

Rosie (21:25)
It's an important conversation. Yeah.

Bye! ⁓

Roula (21:43)
Bye.