Digital Safety and Social Media Usage

Parenting in the digital age is complex. PTA has been a partner to parents on digital parenting topics for over 5 years, exploring in-depth the issues that are on the minds of today’s families, and connecting parents with tools, research and supports to make the best decisions for our children.

In partnership with Norton, PTA has developed The Smart Talk, a free, fun online tool that helps adults and kids have these important conversations together. The Smart Talk allows kids ages 5-17 to actively participate in setting healthy limits around device use, digital safety, privacy, communication and media choices. The Smart Talk is set up to provide families with flexibility - walk through one topic at a time and save your work to have discussions at your own pace. At the end of your family’s conversation, a personalized family technology agreement is created based on individual responses.

We have also compiled some resources on digital safety and how parents can protect the safety and well-being of our children online.

Helpful Links

• A Supervised Experience on YouTube
• Set Up Parental Controls on Your Fire Tablet
• Safety Tools and Resources for TikTok
• Child Safety on Meta (Facebook)
• Family Link Parental Controls for Google
• Media Recommendations For Movies, Shows, Books, and Games
• Cybersecurity Quick Guide - en Espanol
• National PTA Presentation on Smart Digital Parenting