Well, parents, if you are anything like me you probably have heard about TikTok a million times, but have little knowledge about what it truly is about. Hopefully this can provide a little insight.

TikTok is a popular social media app in which you can watch, share, and create short videos. It is believed that there are over 100 million active users of the app. Recently it was found that young people ages 4-15 spend an average of 80 minutes per day on the app.

So, now that you know a little bit about TikTok, what are the dangers?

-Viewing, creating, and sharing inappropriate content

-Online predators

-Privacy

-Dangerous challenges

So, how can you keep your children safe?

-Change the account setting from “Public” to “Private”. Only approved followers can then view videos, likes, and followers when the account is private.

-Turn on the “Restricted Mode” to hide videos that aren’t age appropriate. This may not guarantee that all mature content will be blocked, but it will help limit it.

-Try TikTok’s “Family Pairing”. This allows parents to link their own TikTok account to their child’s account. Parents then can limit who can comment on videos, set time limits on the app, and restrict the child from searching for videos, users, and hashtags.

I hope this helps!

You don’t always realize how much technology is a part of your daily life until you don’t have access to it! Especially since we are currently living in a mostly virtual world. Case in point, this week our ISD experienced a technical issue that caused all ISD districts to have very spotty and virtually no internet. With our testing platform, curriculum platforms, Google Classrooms, virtual meeting software, and even our printers requiring internet connectivity - an internet outage was a big problem! I was very proud of the patience and flexibility that our students showed when we were faced with these slowed connections and frustrating issues. They were very understanding and willing to try multiple solutions to finally get things up and running. We do have to extend the test window a bit in light of some of these issues, but for the most part, we were able to accomplish a lot of testing this week considering the circumstances. This also puts a delay in being able to look at the data and make some adjustments to seminar, but we will have all of that information soon, and we can start looking at making adjustments!

It is also hard to believe that it is already February and that next month is Reading Month! It also means that we are almost at the 1-year mark when this whole pandemic began. Last year we had so many great things happening and planned for reading month, and unfortunately we were not able to experience all of them due to the school closure on March 13th. It is exciting to start looking ahead to planning for Reading Month again and hopefully we will be able to bring some of those fun things back, even if they may look a little different this year. I am very excited to say that Reading Month activities will be happening K-12, and we already have a lot of great things in the works for all students here at Au Gres-Sims!

Anger Issues?

We all get mad and/or angry at one time or another, but sometimes these inside emotions/feelings come out in a way that hurts others. It could be intentional or it could be by accident, but if expressing anger is hurting somebody else, it is time to find a different way to manage that anger.

Let me be clear - it is OK to be angry. However, finding appropriate ways to express anger can be difficult. We have been fortunate this year at school to have fewer instances of inappropriately expressed anger, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that it isn’t happening elsewhere. It is not uncommon for anger to be expressed at school, but not at home, and vise-versa.

So what can be done to manage anger? Well, there isn’t a one size fits all solution, but I would like to share seven techniques that have proven effective:

1. Teach Your Child About Feelings

2. Create an Anger Thermometer

3. Develop a Calm-Down Plan

4. Teach Anger Management Techniques

5. Avoid Giving In to Tantrums

6. Follow Through With Consequences

7. Avoid Violent Media

To read more about these techniques, you can click here to read the full article from Very Well Family that explains the seven techniques in more detail. Remember, it is OK to be angry, but being angry is not a reason to hurt others.