to think that if you don't want people taking photos of your child in the school play don't let them be in it!

[2anddone]

Hi I am sure this has been done a hundred times before but I am so pissed off. DS had his school nativity play today and at the start we were told no photos or videoing was allowed. Typically enough it was the first school production where he hasn't cried. They are not filming the play or offering us any other ways to get a 'memory' of the play and the reason given was that 2 parents had requested no photos were allowed. This is not due to religious beliefs it was simply they didn't want other people taking photos of their dc. I know IAPBU but I don't care IMO if you don't want your child photographed in the play collect them early and don't let them be in it! Rant over

KateFrothers

You suggested that you were somewhat handicapped by the odds that were against you.
Perhaps you could share so we can all have a laugh be empathetic on your behalf?
Considering you like calling other posters stupid.

not being unreasonable, for this reason only, today several hundred parents, family and friend turned up at our DS school, Dh started talking to a chap, I thought he was being polite, which he was, but chap was a "friend" of a childs Mum at the school. but went to school with my hubby in Scotland, no great shakes but DH is 45, pal, 43 and ...we are in Kent! so to take this subject to the logical end, no parents or anyone to the play, if I was that frightened about links I would refuse to let my children to take part. (also who the F! puts names of kids on face book?? etc? I don't even know most of them.
the other random factor is our next door neighbour of a month ago, is a teacher at DS school their DD in one DT's class on talking to Dad, his wife the School teacher is from EK Scotland!...OH and she only knows DH's DU and DA who are primary teacher there. oh and his brother!.
thankfully our DS school allows parent to take pictures, so we can send them to family in scotland who reasonably couldn't see it in the flesh as it where.
(

....and if ever we doubted what vile specimans of humanity were to be found on the internet....the troll sockpuppet does a splendid job of removing that doubt once and for all.

Agreed, Bucharest. Perhaps those who think that everyone can be trusted to do the right thing and that those who are concerned with internet safety are overeacting might want to look at the breathtakingly offensive and stupid spewings of this complete twat this recent poster.

Would it make a difference if it was a religeous reason?

I personally know some children who were abducted by parents, when they were in the care of their grandmother. Once home the kids had to be collected from school, they were not allowed out of school with the other kids, they had to go to the school office and be collected.

It's not just abductions, you said it was the first year your son didn't cry, OK well maybe last year when he did cry someone videoed it, how is he going to feel when he is 15 and somone puts it on facebook? (or whatever teenagers are using in 10 years)

It is only in recent years that so many parents have had cameras. When I was child I don't think anyone, even if they did have a camera, would be rude enough to take a pic during the performance.

If you want something for the future record your DC telling you about the play, the role they played, how excited they were etc.

Ok, this is one of those threads that go round and round in circles and occasionally someone will ask a question that was answered 4 pages ago, and back we go again. So here's the summary:

• Some children need to be protected from

a. abuse. physical, sexual etc. b. domestic violence. c. enraged parents whom they may have been removed from. d. other people who if they found out who they were would harm them.

• Next, the school should ideally NOT release the names of who these children are. But given a-d (see above), the guardians/carers/parents of these children have a perfectly legitimate reason not to want them being photographed. This is a reasonable request and is often vital to protect children.

• This, should not however be used to exclude these children from school activities such as nativity plays. In fact, if anything these children would benefit from participation in such activities.

• As a parent, while you may WANT and LIKE to take pictures of your offspring at such school events, the first two points may make it unwise to allow all parents to do so. Especially in this age of social networking and all kinds of digital recognition software.

• The school MAY have in place a system of taking separate photos that can be given later to students (presumably with the vulnerable children edited out). While this is a bit sad for them, it's worse to be left out of an entire activity altogether.

• Finally, most of us grew up in an age sans digital cameras and video recorders. Hence, our every move/accomplishment wasn't captured for posterity. Our parents seem to have perfectly reasonable recollections of our childhoods despite this. And we seem to have turned out fine as well. Again, while it may be NICE to take pictures of one's children, there are vulnerable children who need protecting and we all hope that as parents we can be sympathetic to their needs.

YABU and even when people think they have their privacy settings sorted on Facebook, the Facebook people make changes so often that it is highly likely that your Facebook page is less private than you think it is anyway.

I rarely post under this name, but feel compelled to by this thread.

Year ago, i fled my abusive ex husband with my two young children. We were placed in a womens refuge in another part of the country and we started slowly to rebuild our lives - we cautiously made friends, moved into a flat and DS started in nursery.

At the nursery nativity DS played a shepard. Quite innocuous and innocent, and he looked like any other three year old in a dressing gown with a tea towel on his head. At the end of the show, people began taking photo's and i rushed to get DS away so his wouldn't be taken. I was too late. He was in a photo which appeared in the local paper - not even a close up, more in the background, but you could tell it was him.

Three weeks later my ex husband broke into our flat, held my children and i hostage for two days, and in that time raped and beat me mercilessly, all in front of my children. Thankfully he didn't touch them, but what they saw i can only imagine how they felt. When he'd finished with me, he walked out without a care in the world. I spent three weeks in hospital, one in intensieve care.

He found us because of that photo. When he was arrested he had it on him. Turns out he'd been watching us covertly for days before he attacked. He watched us come and go from nursery, and followed me home. He was able to find out all this by chance from an acciental photo in a newspaper.

I realise my case is extreme, but it highlights what can happen when photos are taken when really they shouldn't be.

nevertold
Thankyou for sharing that story. I think you are very brave to do so. I am so sory for what you were forced to endure. I hope you and your children can find a way through and find some sort of peace.

Your story illustrates why there are policies in place and why they are important.

nevetoldanyone

I echo MrsdeV's post. I hope your little shepherd has grown up not too scarred by your experiences. Wishing you all the best. x

demeters
In ten years time parents of today will be explaining to children because they will have not pics of them in school?

What like parents of a few short years ago did and before that?

My eldest (would be) 20 and 18 and I do not have any video proof that they went to school and performed in school plays.
There is none of me or my mum or my grandparents.

But somehow we all managed to remember we went to school and were in plays and stuff.

Its only been very recently that your average family could afford a video recorder or a digital camera. When I was a kid not that many people had a camera at all.

I was the angel Gabriel 36 years ago. I can remember (skimpy white vest,tinsel wings,bloody cold) every second. No photo exists. I was then second-pirate-on-the-left. One photo of that one exists. I am hopefully untraumatised by this lack of evidence that I was there.

The whole living every second of your life (or othr people's in this case, the children's) through photos, is just plain weird somehow. As someone said a few pages ago, I have FB friends about whose children I see upwards of a 100 photos a week. Not to speak of the "ooooh, bubba just said......" interminably boring minute by minute accounts of his/her day.

Of course I have photos of dd. Yes,I put some on FB when I can be arsed. (about twice a year if I get round to it) No, I don't expect anyone not directly blood-related to give a fuck.

It's all so terribly smug and "look at my perfect family" somehow.

But that's a tangent and my own particular drum I'm beating about how generally boring other people's children actually are.

We only have your word for it Bucharest
Are you sure you were Gabriel?

I demand photographic proof

By jove, that's it isn't it.

If there isn't a photo, it doesn't exist.

This whole thing isn't about PFBism at all!! It's philosophy.

Of course, I only found out after Gabriel was a boy angel, which miffed me somewhat as had evidently been chosen,not for locks of golden hair and angelic behaviour, but because had no tits.

I think most of what I wanted to add to this thread has been said already, by people like nevertold and others, who speak from actual experience (and thank you for sharing, very brave of you).

All I can add is this: about 8 years ago, I volunteered in a Women's Refuge. Us volunteers often looked after the children in the on-site playroom, or brought them to the local library / Mc Donald's / playground, when their mothers were having their counselling sessions etc. We had to be so, so careful about what we said in public (eg, when returning to the centre, gathering up the children, we were only aloud to say 'lets go back to the playroom') - to the children, to each other, and to the women staying with us when we sometimes brought them shopping etc.

The fact was, some of the abusive exes managed to find out what refuge their ex and child/ren were staying in, and had someone linger nearby, waiting for them to leave to follow them and hopefully glean information about their life, or to harass and intimidate them. The women were secure in the refuge, but if for example we were overheard in public discussing where the woman's next counselling session was / who her solicitor was / where she was relocating to after she left the refuge etc, this could have been very dangerous. It may seem unlikely, but these rules were in place for a reason - because this had happened in the past. This was before the days of FB, so it frightens me to think how much easier it must be for abusive exes to stalk and intimidate now.

Okay, yes the number of vulnerable children in any one class, school, community even is likely to be very small. However, if schools feel the need to put these measures in place, clearly there is at least one child needing protection. If not allowing photography at such events keeps even one child safe, isn't it worth it? If your child was the vulnerable, at-risk one, wouldn't you think it was worth it?

Hmm, Bucharest, I was always a king or a shepherd. The angels were always the small, adorable blonde girls, in their First Communion dresses and tinfoil wings. I was neither . Although I do remember my best friend accidentally stepping on the back of my long, kingly cape and almost choking me when I didn't realise and kept walking, when I was 6 . Even without the photos to prove it!

After Nevertold has shared her real-life experience, I would very much hope that those who still think the whole thing is silly and "looking for excuses" will have a re-think.

Sadly I suspect that they will not.

And I too was always a shepherd wearing an outfit constructed from 70s stripy curtains.

I always held out hope that I might one day be an angel but my only 'promotion' was to the donkey.

Fuck it, let's cancel all xmas plays & concerts and make sure all parents have their cameras crushed. After all, you can never be too careful and if it saves one child.......

"if it saves one child"

That'd be good enough for most of us.