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It’s not just social settings that are being invaded by these platforms, either. Need to chat to your bank? You could go into a branch, assuming it’s still open. But why would you, when you can just ping them a message on Facebook and they’ll get back to you! Pretty much every big company, brand, organisation… they’re available on socials.

If you’re an adult, capable of deciding what you share, with whom, and how, then it’s entirely within your control whether you do any of this – or not. Either way you can make a choice and stick to it, or change your mind every now and then about it.

When it comes to sharing content about our children, though, should we be a bit more thoughtful? Are we justified in unilaterally deciding whether to share our kids on social media, and to what extent? What’s the worst that could happen, really?

It’s got a name: “Sharenting”

Scroll through any social media feed and you’re bound to find plenty of proud parenting moments: first steps, silly faces, sporting highlights, and lots more. As heartwarming and relatable as this content is, it’s easy to forget that we’re also creating a permanent digital trail for our kids.

Are we simply documenting their childhood, the same way our parents did with physical photo albums to be shared with loved ones? Or are we inadvertently compromising our children’s privacy, or worse?

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Uncovering social media’s dangers

I’m sure that there’s plenty of parents out there who’d suggest that I’m being “overly negative” or “paranoid” in pointing out these risks, and they’re welcome to their opinion of course.

Ignoring a problem doesn’t make it go away, sadly, so I believe it pays to keep in mind the following examples of a few potential pitfalls when it comes to sharing your parenting:

Digital Identity Theft

Imagine you’re opening a bank account, or registering for a new online service. You’ve picked your username, chosen a pretty decent password, but now you have to choose security questions.

They’re always along the same lines, right? “What was your first pet’s name?”, “Where were you born?”, “What school did you first attend?”, things that not so long ago only people who knew you in person might know or be able to guess. Nowadays, with pets having their own Instagram accounts and people sharing high school milestones this information could be available to a much larger audience.

Deepfakes, Extortion, and Blackmail

Follow any celebrity online and I’m sure you’ll see them, now and again, warning their followers about someone pretending to be them to scam people.

With the increasing accessibility of AI, however, it’s not just the super-famous who are in the crosshairs. Thanks to AI systems which can create fake images in seconds, it’s increasingly being used by criminals to target young people.

The images may be fake but that makes the threat of sharing them with friends and family, unless you pay up, no less serious. It’s appalling, and is in some cases having truly heartbreaking consequences for youngsters who receive these threats (CBS News).

The Cringe Factor

Even as adults our tastes, our opinions, and our preferences can change over time. For young people running the gauntlet of school, socialising, and just growing up, they’re probably going to change their mind a lot as they figure out who they want to be.

Those photos that you find so adorable now may prove to be social kryptonite in a year or three.

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Safe Social Media – Cyber Tips

So does this mean that we should all just stop sharing online and throw out the socials? Of course not. There are ways to share smarter, and reduce the risks to you and your kids:

• Privacy Settings: Change your accounts from public to private, giving you control over who can follow and engage with your content. Keep your friends and loved ones in the loop and while shutting bad actors out.
• Snap Now, Post Later: Do you really need to share those photos from little Timmy’s birthday party minutes after taking them? Sharing them a day or two (or more) later won’t make them any less appreciated by your followers, but just might help protect your child’s privacy and information.
• Limit Identifying Info: Avoid sharing things publicly that people outside of your social circle have no need to know. Blur or cover up school crests and logos, don’t post birth dates or middle names, and think about how much of your routine you’re sharing.
• Don’t Rise to the Challenge: Those innocent seeming games where you can find your “whatever” name by combining your mother’s maiden name, birthplace, and pet’s name? Not so fun when you consider that you’ve just revealed three common online security questions for a laugh.

Check out our handy “Social Parenting Safety Checklist” for a quick-and-easy reference for safer social posting.

“Digital Natives” or “Digital Naivety”?

Children nowadays are growing up with unprecedented levels of access to ever more capable technology. Whilst they’re able to use it with ease, and more readily than their parents in some cases, it’s unwise to simply assume that youngsters will know how to use their tech safely.

Fortunately, there’s easy ways you can help them out even if they’re not quite old enough to understand everything about online privacy:

• Involve them in what you share: You can ask older kids whether they’re okay with what you’d like to post. Alternatively, try offering them a choice of which photo to share. Crucially, allow them to respectfully say no.
• Model responsible behaviour: We teach our children all the time, but not always intentionally. If they see us glued to our phones, sharing every minute detail of our lives with wild abandon, then that’s what they’ll imitate. But if we’re more mindful about our use of socials as adults, we can help our children to be too.

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Final Thoughts

Sharing on social media is becoming second nature in an always connected digital world. But be mindful that every post forms part of your child’s online footprint.

So next time you go to share that photo online, take a second to ask yourself: is this a treasured memory for us, or a risk for them?