By: Marc and Heidi D'Amelio 

Hi TikTok family! Marc and Heidi D'Amelio here. You likely know our daughters, Dixie and Charli from TikTok. Over the past seven months, we have witnessed our girls go from dancing in their rooms to dancing on the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon. We have seen both our daughters go from typical school girls to reaching millions of you on TikTok. It happened because they were being themselves, doing something fun that they loved that was authentic and people liked seeing their enthusiasm and creativity.

As parents, there's nothing better than seeing your children doing something that makes them happy - and being successful at it. Watching our girls create content that resonates with people across the world has been amazing. We also realize that what happened with our teens is unusual, but the concerns we have as parents are the same as all of yours. 

We know that there is a flipside to the creative expression that our kids engage with on social media. We all know that the internet can be an unforgiving place, especially for teens. Every parent wants their children to pursue their passions, but at the end of the day, the most important thing is to teach them how to be safe so they are equipped to make good decisions. And that we as parents understand what our children are doing.

That’s why we are pleased to learn that TikTok is continuing to take concrete actions to prioritize safety for all of us: users and creators alike. 

We encourage every parent to learn about their age-based features, code of conduct outlined in the Community Guidelines, and access the tools and controls that are available both in app, and on the TikTok website. The fact is that platforms like TikTok are going to play a big part in our kids’ lives and ours too.

Family Pairing will allow parents/guardians to access the safety and privacy settings of their children's TikTok account and set controls for Direct Message access, Screen Time Management, and Restricted Mode.

We hope that TikTok continues building these types of tools and controls – and that across the internet we see more companies provide thoughtful resources for families. At the end of the day we want to say, parents we are all in this together and we hope you take this opportunity with us to continue to educate ourselves on internet safety.