To not allow nursery to use photos on social media

[wakethebaby]

Quite torn on this and my friends all have differing opinions.

DC is starting nursery. I've agreed to let them take photos for internal use in the monitoring app and internal displays, but have said no to photos being used in the parents email newsletter and social media.

Is this unreasonable?

My main concern is once I agree to let them share pics of my child online I lose control of her online footprint, they effectively can post/share any image of her (with anyone) and we all know there are total weirdos on the loose online.

The flipside is I have many fond memories (and photos) of my own time in nursery, pre internet days so obviously not the same concerns back then. But I would feel sade if my DC was excluded from photos or asked to stand aside during experiences (does that happen?) or to see her with big blobs on her face in all the pictures. I'm probably overthinking it, but i have friends who have said yes and friends who said no, and both are quite happy with their choices for their own reasons.

I feel 70% happy in my 'no' to social/external emails, but I'm just curious to see what others think. Also if anyone has any stories where either has been good/bad choice please do share. Thanks

DD can’t be in any for safety reasons as she’s adopted. It’s never been a problem and she hadn’t missed out at all. To be honest, posts like yours give me a little boost as the more children who stand alongside DD out of the photo the better imo. There will be all kinds of children who can’t be photographed or on SM and every reason is valid, whether it’s parental choice, adoption or families fleeing DV.

I think every year there are more and more children whose parents are making the decision to keep photos off social media. IMO you're doing the right thing.

Nurseries and schools should be well used to people making this choice. The permission forms become longer and more detailed every year as they try to allow for so many permutations. Your child certainly won't miss out on any activities, and may not be aware that photos are being taken.

You may wish to ask nursery what they do about people filming children's shows and concerts. It certainly becomes more complicated as children progress through school. Our head banned all filming of a recent concert.

Our crèche sends me the unblurred photos directly so I have the photos of dc, but when putting them online they blur dc out or if doing individual photos they just don’t post the ones of the children whose parents have asked for them not to be used.

personally I didn’t have an issue with school posting Ds picture but fully respect that others don’t want it. School shouldn’t leave her out of activities though they will have a method to do it without her knowing.

when it comes to parties and similar you may have to ask other parents not to post photos as many don’t seem to think to ask first sadly

Makes perfect sense to me to not consent to images of small children online, especially social media.

• Images of kids could be manipulated by wierdos and missfits and used on websites which encourage abuse.

• Once the image is out there, its out there and parents have absalutely no control.

• I believe children should have the right to create their own web identity.

YANBU because it’s an entirely reasonable choice. Just don’t be one of the parents I have experienced who withhold permission but then complain that their child’s picture is never in the newsletter, or that they are left out of the ’my first class’ picture and any other event or achievement the local paper wants to cover.

Tbf, these things have happened at school not nursery, but the principle is the same.

It's not unreasonable to not want the nursery publishing photos of your child. I opted out of this as well. Doesn't seem to have done any harm. They still put photos in my child's workbook (which only I and the teachers see) of activities he's been participating in.

I do allow it, but I don't think you're unreasonable to not allow it, that's why they ask.

I know everyone is entitled to their opinion and it’s up to you, but if I’m honest I find it a bit precious opting out of photos unless there are child protection issues.

Im not sure what all these pervs are going to do with a picture of a kid from the internet. It’s not like they’re naked! Neither are they going to be embarrassed by these pictures when adults.

When looking at nurseries, I found it helpful to see photos online of what the kids did during their time at nursery.

I think it creates an atmosphere of mistrust and fear if we’re assuming there are perverts lurking around every corner. Better to teach kids how to avoid the pervs rather than wrapping them up in cotton wool.

Id worry about the mindset you are encouraging.

I get that it’s a balancing act though, and all parents have to do what’s comfortable for them.

I work in a nursery. The photos you see may not look cropped but they probably are! We position the children carefully for group activities and angle the camera so that those without permission are either out of shot or at the edge and can be cropped out. Or if it’s an activity for small groups, put the ones who can’t be online in one group and just send those photos to their families. Personally we don’t pixelate/put emojis over the kids as we don’t like how it looks

It's up to you.

Personally a photo of one of my DC on a website playing in a sandpit or similar wouldn't bother me one bit. I'd quite enjoy seeing it in fact.

Not quite social media but there's been some great photos of my children in our local paper at events and I have copies of the papers for when they're older.

If for some reason it bothers you then just say no.

This 100%

I work for a local newspaper. We go out and take pics tired of lots of events with kids at them and do class photos etc. If a child doesn’t want to be in the picture then they stand aside. I’d say there’s probably on average about one or two per class who can’t / don’t want to be in pictures for whatever reason. It’s fine. We don’t mind.

We’ve found most parents like to see their kids in the paper or on our website. They tag each other in the social media posts or their grandparents go out and buy the paper. I think pictures of children are an important social record and when we run archive class pictures or images of carnivals etc they always do so well on social media. I don’t remember having a single complaint tbh.

I appeared in the paper lots as a child for sport or music achievements and I treasure those papers.

Totally up to you and I would be very surprised if at nursery age the kids are even aware that the staff are positioning children for photos. That said, in my experience of running a playgroup, it’s still quite rare for parents to opt out of SM photos so it doesn’t really affect most children. My own DD must have been a photogenic kids because she ended up on a lot of posts, in the newspapers, even on national TV at one point. She’s older now and loves to look back on these memories. My eldest wasn’t picked for these and he’s a bit sad that he doesn’t have the same mementos. Also, from my experience- my kids never noticed their classmates being pulled to one side from photos at nursery of even infant school age but the time they’re 7+ they have started to notice when it happens and to quote my DD ‘I feel sorry for X because they’re not allowed to be in the photos’

Most schools I’ve worked in don’t include children who can’t be online or the likes in photos.

Too many opportunities with blurring or covering for the wrong photo to be used accidentally.

One school, that had a number of children because it covered a refuge, had two cameras and the kids quickly learned that they should only be in pics on the red camera, not the black one. And no pics from the red one were ever uploaded online.

It's fine, many parents don't allow it!

It's totally normal. And fine.

My dcs school pop little stickers over the children whose parents don't want them online so they still get to join in photos. Then the individual families get the pics without the sticker on their own child.

How much does the nursery use social media? Do they have an Instagram they are regularly updating?

Ours never did, but maybe things have changed now.

At my DD's nursery there were a couple of children who's parents had not given permission for photos on social media. They were never asked to step out of photos, just a yellow smiley face over the top of their face. It shouldn't effect their experience at the nursery, most don't get many posed shots anyway- just photos of the children doing activities etc.

Mine is opted out and has been at nursery for a year. He definately hasn't noticed. We do get less photos than other parents but this doesn't bother me, we definately get 'some' photos.

As an example when Santa visited at christmas all children had their photos taken with him, as did mine and it was sent to us. They did a group shot where 3 children were to the right of Santa and cropped and the others to the left and not cropped, we didn't get that but I saw it ok Facebook. I found that okay :)

Most schools have private Facebook pages as this is a handy comms tool to and from homes on events and trips etc. I'd imagine many Nurseries have similar.

I don't allow it and our nursery are ok with this. I was furious when a club my DC used to attend put pictures up of them recently (for advertising purposes). I didn't ever give consent to photos being taken let alone used online at that activity. Thankfully they removed them when I asked (nicely).

I'm worried about school though and those parents who love to ignore the head teacher and take a "sneaky" picture to share of social media. The school we've chosen has very strict social media/photo policies but there's always that parent who doesn't think it applies to them.

I would never in a thousand years allow photos of my child online.

DS's nursery covers up the faces of all children anyway in social media posts, so no child has to be left out of activities if pictures are getting taken (unless their parent has asked for them not to be photographed at all, not just not shared), or stands out as the one child with their face covered up by a sticker.