May 27, 2020

Should You Be Posting About Your Child on Social Media?

Sharenting is an evolution of modern parenting: the art of sharing your parenting with the digital world. By speaking openly about your family on social media, you are shaping your child’s digital identity potentially before they’ve even created their first email account. Blogging and social media have vastly changed the landscape of the issues that children and young adults will encounter and how they will deal with them. How will what we share about our children now affect them later on in life? 

For example, it’s your child’s birthday. You post a sweet photo of them blowing out their candles, tag a few family members and friends, and call it good. When a close friend or family member shares that photo with their friends, it opens your life to a broader audience—sometimes without your consent. This doesn’t seem like a big deal, but in reality, it has the potential to give strangers a unique inside look at your family and your child’s life. 

Now more than ever, children are growing up while being watched. With social media, their personal lives are broadcast to family and friends. While parents are sharing on social media, children are working to develop their own identities. When is it time to give your child a say in what is posted or shared about them? At what point do we give our children autonomy to develop their personality? 

Does this mean we need to all give up social media? Not at all. It can be used as a positive outlet for families to share, but make sure you’re aware of the privacy laws surrounding the social platforms you may use. It may be worth it to sit down as a family and establish boundaries on sharing information with the public. 

Currently, the United Nations is reviewing its Convention on the Rights of the Child. This agreement is being expanded further to protect the privacy and privacy rights of children. A study by the Herald Sun showed that the majority of young adults over the age of thirteen would like to have control over what is posted about them. Sharing is fun and can be very special, but for the sake of your family’s health and your child’s privacy, it’s always good to create a plan with your family the information to which people have access.