Online personas crafted by parents can hinder a child’s identity development.

Key Points

1. Sharenting, even with the best intentions, can violate a child’s privacy and disclose personal information.
2. Social media providers have the right to use all content posted online to target ads and train algorithms.
3. Sharenting creates a public persona that may conflict with a teen’s sense of self and hinder identity development.
4. Clear guidelines about online photo sharing can prevent misunderstandings at holiday events.

The holiday season is in full swing. Parties and family gatherings mean lots of Instagram photo ops. It’s easy to get swept up in the fun, but here’s a reminder: put down the eggnog and take a moment to think before you post. It’s normal to want to share experiences with others. It bonds people together and increases the ability to savor and appreciate memories and special moments. If you’re a parent, a lot of those memories worth sharing include (or center on) your kids, especially during holiday family gatherings. While sharenting has become a social norm, is sharing family photos on social media a smart thing to do?

There’s a big difference between photo albums on the coffee table and broadcasting images on social media. Adults can judge their own risk. However, kids do not have the maturity to understand the longer-term ramifications of having their image shared publicly, and sharing violates your kids’ privacy, exposes them to safety risks, and can detrimentally impact their identity development.

“What’s the big deal?” you ask. “Sharenting is everywhere. Everybody posts pictures of their kids.”

You are not alone if you think posting your kids’ images on social media is a normal thing for parents to do. A frightening 73% of parents admit to sharing images of their kids on social media, and very few worry about potential implications. However, it is estimated that the average child has their picture shared 1,300 times by age 13. (!) Sharing without consent can do more than violate privacy, even for adults. It can have serious consequences personally, professionally, and socially. Many jobs have been lost, trust has been broken, and college applications have been denied due to unfortunate photos posted on social media. The potential fallout for young kids can be even greater.

Four Things to Know about Sharenting

1. Privacy Settings Do Not Ensure Privacy

Even if you think you are taking safety precautions by making your social media accounts private, pictures of your kids can still end up in the public domain. Aunt Florence shares your photos with her friends on her knitting club’s Facebook page. You text your sister a picture of your child opening the present from her. She loves it and uploads it to her Instagram account. Another parent from Daycare posts a picture on Facebook of their child with her new bestie—your child. What starts as an innocent post can, through the clicks and shares of others, become a piece of public content.

2. Your Images Belong to Mark Zuckerberg

When you signed up to use their platform or app, you gave Snap and Meta the nonexclusive right to use your data. This includes your child’s image and information. Instead of charging you hard money for the use of Facebook or Instagram, Meta makes money by monetizing your data and using it to develop programmed advertising and train the algorithms that fill your news feed as well as some down in R&D, like facial recognition.

3. You May Be Exposing Your Child to Bullies and Identity Theft

I really don’t mean Dr. Doom here, but posting your kids’ images online is not risk-free. Photos increase the chance of bullying, stalking, and other predatory behaviors. “Cute” pictures become ammunition for bullies in middle school. Without too much effort, a bad actor can connect a child to a parent’s account and determine your location. Pictures from school events, like sports, can reveal the name of the school (like on a team jersey), creating a geographic marker that can be used to track location. Innocent family pictures can signal when you are not home, increasing the risk of things like home robberies.

Identity theft, stealing personal identifying information to commit fraud, can happen to children. Javen Research estimated that 1.25 million children were victims of identity fraud in 2020 (Kitten, 2022), with the potential for significant emotional and financial burden on a family.

Images can be “kidnapped” and used in other contexts. Parents for Image Consent estimates that 1 in 5 Americans is a victim of image abuse. One mother was horrified to find out that several months’ worth of her family pictures had been posted on another account with whole new identities. AI makes it even easier to abuse a person’s image. Several teen girls were victimized by AI-generated nude images of them circulating their Seattle high school. Watch this chilling Deutsche Telekom video about image theft:

4. You May Be Stunting Your Child’s Identity Development

When we think of identity theft, we think of unauthorized credit card accounts or fake IDs. However, there is another kind of identity theft—the psychological kind. We all have a personal identity, a combination of our internal and external selves, made up of our self-esteem and social identity. Building an independent identity is the primary developmental adolescence. It is a combination of our sense of uniqueness and the ways in which we feel similar to others. The process of self-discovery contributes to self-esteem by affirming the sense of personal worth and competence. Social identity enables us to feel a sense of belonging. Positive self-esteem and a sense of belonging are critical to well-being.

When you engage in sharenting, you pick things that matter to you, not to your kids. Some parents begin posting right from the first ultrasound image. Encouraged by a supportive community, they often share personal information about their child, such as health issues or educational challenges. But while these parent-posted images are ostensibly about the child, they tend to reflect the parent’s experience and self-representation (Holiday et al., 2022). Growing up, the relationships have to change between parents and kids. It’s much harder for both when a parent is invested in how they appear “as a parent” online.

Enthusiastic sharenting creates the kids’ public selves but from the parents’ frame of reference. Excessively sharented kids can have a harder time building their internal sense of self because they feel trapped by the public persona that already exists, created without their help. This is problematic because online images are permanent and searchable. Teens can feel conflicted, not wanting to conform and yet not wanting to disappoint mom, or angry and frustrated when parents project an image of their child that doesn’t align with how they want to be seen online. Not only do the kids have little recourse to change it, but they can feel ‘unseen’ by their parents (Walrave et al., 2022).

The breadth of reach of sharing online is hard to visualize, even as adults. But it’s impossible for young kids who are still developing cognitive processing skills. They have no idea of how networks work, what “public” means, or what it means to have their image seen by strangers. Some kids may think it’s fun to see their picture online, but they also may become prematurely preoccupied with ‘Likes’ as a measure of their worth or a way to make mom happy. They will not know how to emotionally manage negative comments and criticism from strangers, which can undermine self-esteem and create shame.

How to Protect Your Privacy in a Family of Insta-Sharers

1. Set Some Ground Rules

Start by thinking through your own perspective so you, your partner, and other immediate family members are on the same page and have a united front at family gatherings. They are your kids; whatever you decide, it’s your choice. The important thing is to make the decision intentionally, considering the risks, not accidentally or on a whim.

At family gatherings, check in with the known shutterbugs. Many people have not thought about how their posts could impact you or your kids. Then tell them your concern. Own it, don’t explain it. “I’m not comfortable sharing pictures of my kids on social media. Please make sure you don’t share any photos that include my family online.” Be clear about what you’re asking so they don’t feel defensive and shut down. “Take all the pictures you want, but just make sure my kids aren’t in the ones you post online.”

People who are avid social media users may want to dismiss your concerns as silly or overprotective. Many people think that posting pictures of others online without permission is okay. It’s not. In some cases, it’s legally actionable, but more importantly, when you post someone else’s image without consent, you are taking the decision away from them. When it’s a child, you are increasing their online vulnerability.

2. Decide What’s Right For You

Social media adoption happened very quickly, and we all jumped into the deep end before anyone understood the potential downsides. Everyone has a different comfort level with sharing personal images online, including those of their family. Some people may be inclined to dismiss the potential downsides because they enjoy getting feedback from friends and strangers.

Kids’ worlds are a continuum from offline to online, and a lot of healthy identity development happens online. A couple of holiday photos may not be a problem. However, the popularity of sharenting means many kids are bumping up against pre-built identities. Being a tween or teen is hard enough without having to live down embarrassing photos. Take this holiday to review your sharenting policies. Not respecting kids’ privacy can seriously damage trust and break down parent-child relationships at a time when kids, despite what they say, most need the lines of communication to stay open.

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References

Holiday, S., Norman, M. S., & Densley, R. L. (2022). Sharenting and the extended self: Self-representation in parents’ instagram presentations of their children. Popular Communication, 20(1), 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/15405702.2020.1744610

Kitten, T. (2022). Child identity fraud: The perils of too many screens and social media. Javelin Strategy. https://javelinstrategy.com/whitepapers/child-identity-fraud-perils-too-many-screens-and-social-media

Walrave, M., Verswijvel, K., Ouvrein, G., Staes, L., Hallam, L., & Hardies, K. (2022). The limits of sharenting: Exploring parents’ and adolescents’ sharenting boundaries through the lens of communication privacy management theory [Original Research]. Frontiers in Education, 7. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2022.803393