The role of parents nowadays is becoming more and more challenging due to the influence of social media which is becoming more widespread and may affect the children later. Therefore, TikTok as a giant social media company has held a forum to discuss the importance and challenges of parents in controlling the content taken by children.
This forum was attended by several panels namely Mediha Mahmood from the Malaysian Communication and Multimedia Content Forum (CMCF), Anuar Fadzil from the Public Policy of TikTok Malaysia, Isabelle Lai from the Family Resource Group and two TikTok influencers namely Sufina and Danish.
Through the forum several issues have been raised such as are parents really digitally literate? Anuar emphasized that parents need to at least have basic digital skills such as the ability to use a smartphone. In addition, the question of the need for a digital-related syllabus to be introduced at school or whether it only requires the parents' own initiative in implementing digital learning at home was also highlighted.
According to Isabelle, digital literacy education should be introduced into the syllabus because schools can play a role in educating children on how to use social media and the internet better and ethically. In fact, Mediha emphasizes the importance of educating children about digital literacy from a young age and this does not need to start from learning at school.
In other words, parents should play an important role in fostering digital literacy in children. This includes important topics such as consent between two parties before sharing information, privacy and understanding the difference between what is right and wrong online.
Sufina also gave emphasis to parents on the importance of fostering positive relationships with children. According to him, instead of rejecting children's excitement about new platforms like TikTok, parents can also explore the application together. For him, this kind of approach is able to create valuable experiences for children in addition to fostering open communication between family members.
In addition, they also highlighted the issue of the time of smartphone use among children at home. According to Mediha's view as a mother, she is aware of online dangers such as scams that target children until they share confidential information such as home addresses and so on.
With that, Mediha suggests that setting usage time limits is most effective. In fact, most importantly, parents should also set an example by reducing their own usage time in front of their children.
Through this forum, the question arose about how to educate parents about digital literacy? Sufina suggests that social media platforms themselves can play a role in educating parents about digital literacy. Parents can join platforms like TikTok and use it to connect with other parents and share about digital safety.
This forum is one of the initiatives from TikTok Malaysia in an effort to provide exposure to parents about the importance of digital literacy nowadays and monitor children's activities on social media. This effort also gives parents the opportunity to give each other opinions from various aspects. According to TikTok, the age limit of 13 years is one of TikTok's efforts to create a safe space for children to use the TikTok application.