Posting photos of sick children??

[rondarules]

Seems like a sickness bug going round so seemingly filling my FB newsfeed.

Various mothers posting photos of their children looking exhausted and unwell on sofas or hugging the sick bowl etc. Surely this is just attention seeking on behalf of the parent? As an adult I'd be humiliated for photos of me unwell to be online so I wouldn't do it to my child. The latest was a grandparent posting photo of grandchild on sofa with sick bowl (sick inside!!) beside him!

For what its worth hospital/very unwell children to me feels entirely different. My youngest has been admitted various times and I have posted updates (normally when better sitting up eating etc.) as its easier than messaging lots of people but posting about a bug just seems unnecessary.

Someone on my friend list (who added me after we only met once at a party! And has a thousand odd Facebook friends) posted a picture of her little girl stood in the bath in vest and pants covered in poo, and another pic of her kitchen wall with poo smeared on it, alongside a massive rant at how angry she was and how their house stinks.. No privacy for her kids at all!

I've sort of done this before. I posted a photo recently of dd on the trampoline laughing despite being covered in chicken pox and also posted a photo of ds in hospital smiling with a thumbs up after he had his tonsils out, out of my few friends on facebook most of them do actually care about them and want to know that they are getting better but even if they didnt they looked cute and its a memory I want to remember.
If they were in bed crying and being sick then that is not something I want to remember, so I wouldnt post that.

Saying it’s for the parents you are actually right and this comes from me who child is terminally ill who probably won’t love another year.
I haven’t been for lunch with a friend for 5 years, I haven’t been to the cinema to watch an adult movie.
I haven’t met up with friends for play dates or had any interaction with hardly anyone other than nurses and doctors.

Emails - hardly anyone checks their emails as instant as they do Facebook.
So yes it’s for me I suppose I share our special moments and react to the comments and talk to my friends and family. I also raise awareness of organ transplants , blood transfusions etc in hope that more people would step up to help the children like my child.
It is an extremely lonely existence which st times has made compensate suicide.
My whole life as much I absolutely adore my DD was torn away from me all social aspects of life gone, career gone , relationship gone.

And do for the hours that my DD sleeps sharing her achievements and having people to share them with helps just a little of the pain that I feel daily that one day it will be the last photo I ever took.

I don't like them. DH once posted a picture of DS2 in hospital and 'checked in' I made him delete it.
We can text/whatsapp or phone those who need/want to know how DS is.
I feel there is no need to take a picture and post it with accompanying hashtags every time I leave the house/don't leave the house/it snows/rains/is sunny/my kid eats/dances/sleeps/sneezes...
The odd picture is pleasing. Constant bombarding isn't.
If it wasn't for the fact I get a lot of information from school, about local events and party invitations from Facebook I could do without it.

I hate seeing photos of sick kids too. I am a emetephobe so seeing that there’s a bug doing the rounds freaks me out enough, seeing kids hugging a bowl tips me over the edge and puts me into complete panick mode. I wouldn’t want someone posting a photo of me on FB holding a sick bowl and looking pale.

@Aloneandscared25

What can be seen as attention seeking could also be a lonely, worried parent stressed about their ill child who needs some reassurance.

Night time on the ward with a very ill child is a worrying and lonely time. I’ve seen plenty of posts on here by people seeking reassurance whilst in that situation. Are they attention seeking too? Yes actually because they are worried but that doesn’t make it wrong.

Much of this is about context. I bit have about 20 people on my Friends list. They are friends and ones that are more friendly acquaintances have restricted access. I have no randomers, ex colleagues or school parents.

There’s too issues raised in one post varying from checking in to hospital, child privacy issues, acceptable use of private photos and just generally irritating people on Facebook.

Let people check in if it helps them deal with their anxiety. And unfriend people who use Facebook in a way that pisses you off.

I think it's pretty easy to appreciate the difference between legitimate updates on the progress of a hospitalised child who my be a long term inpatient, or a grinning six year old keen to show off their arm in a plaster cast, with the distasteful, attention seeking behaviour of 'checking in' to A&E etc. I agree sick bowl photos are just unnecessary.

Yes I totally get being home with a sick child can be isolating and in need of support but you don't need to attach a photo to prove they have a bug surely.

No we can't know exactly what our children will find embarassing but a smiley photo of the child at a zoo or whatever is unlikely to offend but a photo of a child laying sick attached to a bowl is likely to be.

If a partner walked in on me sick on the sofa, took a photo and posted it online for sympathy I'd be humiliated and would leave the relationship, it feels too intimate to me and similar to a photo of the child on the toilet or something.

Aloneandscared25
I'm so sorry you and your DC are going through such a hard time, wish you all the very best

I feel sorry for children these days. There is no privacy.

@alone I’m so sorry for what you are going through

I think i can safely say that my comment and the comments of others were not aimed at anyone in your situation. I can see why, in your situation, social media has been helpful and stopped you feeling as isolated whilst allowing you to share updates of your child’s progress.

That's twice now people have mentioned their children being 'hidden away', if they don't post photos of them on social media.

It's not 'hiding your children away'. It's simply not violating their right to privacy

WorraLiberty I think those that said that are on about children who are in hospital a lot. Their bulk of life is spent in hospital with usually no visitors or friends for obvious reasons. They tend to feel his away and unknown and Facebook sharing pictures of them helps to share them with family and friends who may not get to see them. I joined a group on Facebook for people with the same condition as my daughter. It was great for them to see pictures of her and know what the tubes etc were for as they have been through it. It really helped bring me comfort and I didn’t feel stupid for not knowing much and I learnt a lot from them. We also didn’t know what would be her last photo and wanting people to know and remember her. She is thankfully still here and doing extremely well. I don’t need to post so many pictures as I’m not in fear that we will lose her. I updated on achievements etc or really bad bugs incase it could be the thing to throw her. I have another child and don’t post pictures of her ill though.

I don't understand the need to have Facebook friends constantly see photos of your DCs. I'm as proud of my children as anyone else and take dozens of photos; they don't need to be plastered over social media. Not least because they wouldn't like it, but I don't see the need for it.

Worra my children have been described as 'secret children' several times. As in, 'why have you kept your children secret??' and 'how come I didn't know you had kids, why the big secret?' . Of course they're not secret at all, just not on fb. I just don't see any benefit to them of me putting pictures of them on there. I also know friends who have struggled with infertility and found seeing scan pictures on fb very difficult. Weirdly some of the same people went onto post every scan picture when they did fall pregnant.

Every day I see pictures of children I don't know in fb, mainly because they are included on pictures of dc I do know, but sometimes because a friend has 'liked' a picture posted by friend of theirs (but not mine). Everyone on mn seen to have their fb 'locked down', it's like the mn chicken!!

WorraLiberty some people will never be able to give consent. My son will never have the understanding to give consent Are those people to be missing forever from family photos that might be on social media because they are not able to give consent.

So if facebook never existed would the people who just want to share their update with their friends and family have called them all to tell them instead? Somehow I doubt it.

Not putting pictures of a sick child on facebook isn’t hiding them away. That kind of attitude is to do with other people not the reality. And if facebook disappears in the next ten years or so (which is likely given these things come in cycles and it is likely to be replaced at best) what will happen to those memories then? Added to which if a child is not able to consent to having their pictures posted online then they shouldn’t be posted online.

I have teenagers and they would be mortified if someone posted pictures of them on the internet as youngsters. Similarly I was seriously ill in ICU a couple of years ago. If someone had posted pictures of me attached to tubes and monitors and unconscious so unable to consent but they “needed to post them because I might not survive” I would have disowned them. And if I’d died I would have come back to haunt them.

Interestingly there is quite a backlash within the disabled community at the moment against parents who blog about and take pictures of their disabled children while they are still children and not able to consent to that. The thinking is that it is their life and the parent has claimed it as their own struggle without consideration for how it makes the disabled child feel when they grow up and read about it. If a child will never be able to voice that opinion the opinion still stands within others even if one can see on some level why a parent might want to talk about it.

I personally don't like blogs where the child is identified but that is very different from ordinary photos that most people wouldn't mind.

@QuimReaper naked pictures is not on. I would report the photos to Facebook so they are taken down. Poor kid.

My child is not forgotten because their pictures are not on social media. Memories of my child are not forgotten because their pictures are not on social media. I don't, nor does any member of my family need Facebook to think about my child.

sirzy

Sorry I don't really agree with posting photos of children on Facebook at all. I agree with worra that children have a right to privacy and I think that applies to all children whether they're in good health or, sadly, in poor health in hospital.

30 years ago would people have developed spools of their photos and sent them to ALL their friends and acquaintances? Just because it's easier to share pictures nowadays doesn't necessarily mean it's right to do so