As parents in a digital world it has become such a commonplace practice to post pictures of your kids online. Many parents may need to reconsider how they portray and display their own children on social media.
Law-enforcement officers and trauma advocates counsel parents to never post pictures online of their children naked, in swimsuits, bathing, going potty, or diapered only. You may also want to avoid any pictures of your children where they are posing in ways that mimic adults (i.e. flirtatious or sexy). Be sure that you never reveal your home address or the name of your child’s school online. Don’t post locations for where your kids are going for trips or competitions. This counsel applies to children of all ages; infants to 18-yr-olds.
In my social media use, I have seen that much of the parents today, especially the younger parents who have essentially used social media the majority or all of their lives, do not show much caution with how they post about their children.
Social media can teach users to become somewhat narcissistic—seeking attention and connection with others through likes and comments on their posts or photos. It creates a false feeling of importance or popularity when posts gain traction or garner attention. It feels like a type of accomplishment and creates a counterfeit sense of worth. This trap happens to all of us on social media, young and old. It feels good to be “liked”.
Unintentionally, many parents fall prey to using their own children online to get more likes and attention from the social media realm. This is a kind of exploitation. “Exploitation” may seem like a harsh word, but when you use that cute image of your toddler naked in the bath to “connect” with people online so that you can feel recognized and important for a moment is indeed a type of exploitation.
Most of us over the age of 35 grew up in a world before digital media and the internet. When our families took naked bath photos or snapped a picture of us in an embarrassing situation like potty training, the only people who saw that photo was the film developer and your family. It may have reared up when extended family came to visit or wound up on a cute wedding video when you got married. But in general, those images of yourself as a baby and child were private.
Today, instead of a few family members smiling and lovingly laughing at that cute naked baby picture, your children are exposed to 500 or more of your “closest” friends and all their friends when you post those images online.
Please consider this: undoubtably many of your friends/connections online privately struggle with sex addictions and a handful of those people legitimately struggle with pedophilia. Those people now have access, with your permission, to those images of your child. They can download and trade them with others and these images are not “illegal child sexual abuse images” so when the police find them among the collection of images of a pedophile, they can do nothing about them because the children weren’t being harmed when the photo was taken and they were downloaded legally online. Please consider the energetic harm for your child when people are using their images in such a terrible way and the challenge of prosecuting a predator if the images they have were legally obtained.
Also, consider that because of the increase and proliferation of pornography and child sexual abuse imagery in our culture, the demand for children to be used in sex trafficking is increasing. This means there are people out there ready and willing to coerce your teen into trafficking or to even kidnap your child to sell into that dark world. This warning isn’t to create overreactions or fear, but a reality check of what does indeed happen to some families.
As a part of the solution for the safety of all children, I hope that parents will post FAR less of their children online. Make sure your motivations and intentions are clear when you do choose to post about them. Are you at all seeking attention for yourself? If so, don’t post. If you genuinely want to share about your family to your network, pick and choose carefully what those updates show and express when they include pictures of your children. Also, consider their futures, will they one day be embarrassed by what you posted (or embarrassed today)? Will what you post follow them around into their adult lives, as digital footprints last a very long time? Are you protecting their privacy and their feelings?
What can you post?
Use wisdom. I might suggest only yearly family photos, occasional fun stories, or milestones and accomplishments of your child—like first steps, or awards. Make sure they are always fully clothed and no information on locations are revealed. And as your child ages, ask their permission first if you can post a picture of them to your network of friends. Don’t exploit them in order to feel good about yourself. Also, be cognizant of helping your child avoid the development of narcissistic attitudes by taking too many photos and videos of them, developing a need to be praised or valued through an image of themselves. Also, be sure your privacy settings on all your social accounts are as high as possible.
