Welcome to Parent Pixels, a parenting newsletter filled with practical advice, news, and resources to support you and your kids in the digital age. This week:
📢 Advocates call for child online safety legislation: Last week’s Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on children’s online safety renewed important discussions about how tech companies have failed to protect young users. Hearings such as these are meant to help committee members gather information that can inform future policy discussions. Experts and advocates emphasized the need for a fundamental shift in how parental controls are designed and implemented, as opposed to outright bans. Stephen Balkam, founder and CEO of the Family Online Safety Institute, argued that parental controls should be “easy to find and easy to use” while also being "standardized, interoperable, and unified across apps, devices, and brands."
Currently, parents have to juggle different settings across multiple platforms, making it difficult to manage their children’s online safety effectively. (And that all depends on whether they can find those parental controls in the first place.) In recent years, lawmakers have pushed for stronger social media regulation — but efforts like the Kids Online Safety Act have consistently come up short. Meanwhile, families are left navigating digital spaces on their own. Parents, stay informed and monitor the apps and websites your child consistently uses. Child safety apps like BrightCanary are designed to help you supervise your child’s online activity, without the headache. Learn how to start monitoring social media today.
⚠️ Parents alarmed by the return of a deadly social media challenge: Nnamdi Ohaeri, Jr., known by family and friends as “Deuce,” was only 13 when his parents found him unresponsive in his room earlier this month. Deuce’s parents suspect the Southern California teen took part in a social media challenge that involved kids deliberately making themselves pass out. Although Deuce didn’t have social media on his phone and his device was secured with strict parental controls, his parents believe he learned about the challenge from other students at school.
Similar challenges have circulated on social media in recent years, including TikTok’s “Blackout Challenge.” Deuce’s tragic story underscores an unexpected concern for parents: negative influences from a child’s peer group and exposure to harmful content shared by classmates.
The family hopes that sharing Deuce’s story will serve as a warning to other parents to stay alert to what their children might encounter both on social media and through friends.
Ohaeri, Sr. said he’s always been “mindful of influences and talking about, ‘Don’t do drugs and make good decisions,’” to his children. “But we don’t talk about not following social media trends or playing social media games and maybe we need to,” he added. Parents, here’s a rundown of dangerous social media challenges and tips on how to discuss them with your children — even if they don’t have social media on their own device.
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Let’s talk about social media challenges. They’re appealing to kids because they can increase their social clout. Some are harmless, but others are dangerous — and kids don’t always think ahead. Here’s how to start a conversation with your kid about safety and the challenges they see online.
🧠 What is “brain rot” content, and how is it actually altering our children’s brains? Find out why it’s damaging and how to help your child watch less of it.
🫠 Quitting social media can make us feel less stressed … but it can also make us feel lonelier. You can mitigate those effects (for yourself and your family) by boosting offline social ties, experimenting with social media detoxes, and finding other ways to stay current. (Like following newsletters!)
🫣 What is incognito mode, and what should you do if your child is browsing on private browsers? We break down what parents should know.
