Dangers of Sharing Children’s Pictures on Social Media

 Dangers of Sharing Children’s Pictures on Social Media

 

-Kehinde Ayeotan 

Social media offers various privacy settings that can be tweaked, there is no way to guarantee that your photos will not be seen by people you didn’t intend to share them with.

Posting photos of your children on social medias like Facebook and Instagram also set a bad example to them about privacy and open them up to other dangers, such as identity theft.

Such photos on Facebook or Instagram could bring them to the attention of sexual predators, even if you set the privacy settings so that only friends and family are able to see the photos. Well-meaning relatives can republish the photos, with less stringent privacy settings. This practice can be dangerous if there are easily recognizable landmarks or information that can pinpoint the location of the child in the photo.

Many Facebook games and apps encourage you to increase the size of your friend list, but doing so can expose your personal information to unwanted strangers. This information, in conjunction with status updates revealing your whereabouts and photos of your children, can make it all too easy for someone to stalk your family.

Young children should be taught from an early age about the dangers of revealing too much information to strangers. With smartphones and other electronic devices making it easy to post photos online, it is important that children understand the dangers of uploading the wrong kind of pictures.

If you upload lots of photos of your children to Facebook and insagram, they may draw the conclusion that there is nothing wrong with sharing images online. For example, many parents post photos of their children in the bath or in their swimwear. Unless children are taught boundaries about sharing personal photos such as these, it can have a negative effect on them later in the future.

After you post photos of your children online on sites such as Facebook and instagram,  you no longer have any control over what the images are used for. Even with stringent privacy settings these photos can be viewed, downloaded, modified, photoshopoing and uploaded them elsewhere by other people if they are determined enough.

Photos of your child could be used for advertising, as many unscrupulous website owners use photos they find on the Internet to promote their sites. Someone could even use photos of your child to create a fake profile on a teen site with the intention of getting close to other teens.

While posting embarrassing photos of your children on social media might seem like harmless fun, it can expose them to bullying and intimidation. If someone distributes these photos to online forums and websites as a joke it can cause a lot of emotional trauma for your child. In some severe cases, teens have committed suicide after threats and bullying online.

These 9 pictures of children are not to be posted on social media.

1. Bath time
Any photo of your child partially or completely naked, like while he is bathing, is not for public consumption. Because it might  fall into the wrong hands, such as those of child pornographers. they can even use such pictures as Photoshop.

2. When they’re sick or injured
As parents, your duty is  to protect your  kids, not to take advantage of them. Ask yourself this question: Would you want someone posting pictures of you while you’re feeling lousy? Probably not. Apply that standard when you consider what to post and what not to.

3. Shaming photos of children

Shaming online seems to be all the rage, but this practice can have devastating effects on kids in the short and long term. Not only does shaming violate trust between parents and children, it may cause post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety later in the future of  children

Child shaming online seems to be all the rage, but this practice can have devastating effects on kids in the short and long term. Not only does shaming violate trust between parents and children, it may cause post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety later in the future of  children

4. On the potty
Photos of your children doing their business are best kept private when you think of potential future consequences. Remember, anything you share online lasts forever; do you really think your children want to see their picture on social media sitting on potty when they grow up. Such pictures can be use as bulling pictures on social media.

5. Private details
Keep children safe by never sharing their full names, addresses, where they go to school, if they are babysitting alone somewhere, etc. online. You don’t know who might use this information for purposes other than what was intended.

6. Group pictures
If you decided to share photos of your kids online, great. But it’s not okay to make this decision for other parents, who may not feel comfortable having their children’s faces plastered all over social media. Make sure you have clearance to post any group picture of your child posing or playing with others.

7. Bullying fodder
Consider how posting certain pictures online may impact your child at school. For instance, a picture exposing a weakness, fear or maybe a silly nickname could humiliate your child and have repercussions on his social life.

8. Unsafe activities
You let your child palm a beer bottle for a second and snap a picture. Or you hold a wee one in your lap to move the car from the garage to the driveway, pausing to get a shot on your smartphone. Photos of these seemingly harmless moments were taken in good fun, but sharing them online opens you up for criticism and potential problems, since all the surrounding details may not be immediately evident upon first glance.

9. Pictures of kids in school uniform: posting the pictures of your children wearing their school uniform can expose them to kidnappers. The uniform can be used to trace such children.

 

Let be carefull when posting pictures of our children on social media. We live in a world where snapping photos of your kids and posting them to social media is about as natural to parents as kissing a husband.  But while sharing shots of little ones at birthday parties, wearing new outfits, or exploring the zoo is cute, some moments should remain private. Otherwise, you may put kids at risk for embarrassment, or even worse, make them a potential target for child predators .