Do you post pic of your children's faces online / judge people who do / don't and why ?

[sicklye]

I occasionally post pics of my kids on FB and instagram.

Maybe once or twice a year. I occasionally do stories too. Maybe 3 to 4 times a year.

I decided that if it wasn't too often, it would be fine.

Some people never post at all or some blur out the faces.

Others post daily.

What's your stance on this and what are you reasons for posting / not posting / blurring out faces ?

I don’t post any pictures of my DC. I work for the police dealing with child exploitation though, so I am much more alert to the misuse of pictures than others are. I would also hate it if someone put pictures of me up without my consent, and that is in effect what someone is doing whenever they post a photo of a child.

I don't post my DS face if I do post with him in. Tbh I don't post often and it's usually a special reason to why I have posted. All my friends and family know his face is not allowed on social media. This is just something me and my fiancé wanted. I don't judge others for posting however I do dislike seeing photos of kids in the bath, half naked etc as I think they could get into the wrong hands.

I post pics of my kids.
One of my cousins posted lots of themselves before child was born & since (6 years ago?) they post nothing of selves or child.
I am curious how that turns out.
I can't muster further interest, except that people have always LOOKED and WATCHED each other. I can't see how watching & looking is different online.

I post photos of mine on my private Instagram but that's it. And I would never post a photo of her in the bath, or if she's not fully clothed, etc etc.

I don't judge parents who post on their private social media unless it's a photo in the bath or something.

One thing I hate is our local paper publishes (both in print and online/on their social media pages) photos of newborn babies that month and kids on their first day of school. All with their full names, where they live, what class they're in, full uniform etc. I fully 100% judge the parents who send their photos in to that. The paper also publish reception class photos and I have no idea why they're allowed to do that or how to make sure my child doesn't feature when the time comes.

I don't post pictures of myself let alone my dc.
I've always been of the opinion that it should be up to the individual to decide what images of them posted online.
My dd (now an adult) is endlessly grateful for this as when employers Google her they only get her linked in, rather than dodgy pictures from way back when, unlike many of her friends who have lost job opportunities because of images posted by friends and family

Children shouldn’t be put online. They can’t tell you what photos or posts they like or approve of. What information they don’t mind you sharing with the world. Imagine if every detail of your childhood was online for the world to see? Would you be happy that your friends and work colleagues had seen a video of your first wee on the potty? Or a video of you having a tantrum over something that your mum thought was funny at the time?

leave kids offline.

You have to sign permission forms to allow your child's picture to be used for publicity when they start school. If you don't want them in any public photos, make sure you read all the documents you need to sign and make sure you don't tick the permissions box.

I happily post pics on fb (dc are happy for me too - I checked when they were old enough and now they’re 12-16). They also often feature in the local newspaper as they perform multiple times a year.

Most dc have permission to feature in the school social media channels too. just a small number (around 5) in each year group who can’t be in the school pics.

I don't think my children are going to mind a pic of them with their birthday cake... it's not a big deal to post a pic with a birthday cake. I doubt they're going to lose out on jobs when they're older because of their 2nd birthday pic online 🤦🏻‍♀️

I rarely post on social media. Maybe 4 times a year I'll share a couple of family holiday photos or birthday celebration photos and will include photos of my children. With the exception of one friend, everyone I know shares photos of their children occasionally.
I personally am not worried. I only have friends and family on Facebook. No strangers can see my photos.

My kids are regularly on my private Facebook, but all my friends are people I actually know. If I had an insta with "followers" I didn't know, or if I were an influencer with 1000s of followers, that would be different.

I occasionally posts pictures of my kids if its their birthday and its a family photo etc but I dont do it regularly and my SM settings are set to private and I dont friend people I dont personally know.

I have been quite shocked seeing people with public profiles posting constant pics of their kids in the bath or in other potentially vulnerable scenarios etc I dont judge them as in "they're terrible parents" but I do think its incredibly unwise and it surprises me they seem so laissez faire about it.

I don't post pictures of my children. They can't consent. When older, they may want a private life or a very public one and it's up to them what pictures they choose to show.

I also worry that baddies could get info from the pictures and recognise my kids and say "oh hello, I'm friends with Breaking, come and get in my van and see my puppies and sweets"

@DramaLlamaBangBang Ah thats the same as at nursery then - we've made sure she never features on any social media, local newspapers, their own marketing etc. Glad to know it's the same with school!

DC are young adults now, but, no I didn't. When they were old enough (6-7ish) I asked them and they said no and didn't change that stance. Although I'm sure they'd be OK now, just haven't asked. Family have posted big groups over the years in which they were included which didn't bother me or them seemingly.

Don't judge others that do* - think it will become more normal as time goes on.

*actually someone put a photo of her two young boys (around 4-5ish) in the bath on my old school FB group (100+) and I did judge a little bit! They were standing in positions with bubbles on them so you couldn't see their willies but you could see they were very much naked. Sad to think that ithese nnocent photos could be viewed by some very differently, but that's the world we live in and it made me feel uncomfortable.

I don’t put anything on Facebook, my children are 4 and 7 and there is nothing of them on there.

On Instagram I have a couple of pictures of them. But my account is private and I have a grand total of about 35 followers. All friends.

I hate the thought of strangers or a bloke I worked with 20 years ago looking at them.

I never have and I never will. I share photos in a private WA group. I don't even post pix of my husband. My private life stays private.

I don't and never will post anything about dc online. Name, pictures or latest milestone reached. Anyone who's close enough to us to be trusted knows these things anyway and the rest are just old connections who don't need to know. I'd rather spend the time living life and enjoying the here and now than crafting posed pictures and status updates.

My instagram and FB are also private and I hardly have any followers or friends ( fewer than you ). So we've taken the same approach.

No, I am very private on SM. I post like, twice a year and it's never personal stuff.

I have been really surprised by people posting on FB etc like it's their personal diary. I mean, if it helps them great, but I cant imagine anything worse than posting every deep thought I have about really personal issues being out there for everyone to gawp at. I cannot relate to that at all, it seems so intrusive.

All parents in the UK with older children in secondary school( I think) recently got a letter from the National crime Agency about sexploitation. Its not just about young children. Older children are vulnerable to having their pictures taken off websites and used for blackmail purposes. When I was listening to the radio about this, someone from the NCA said that these are sometimes through deepfakes, so they could take a head off the internet, superimpose it and use it to blackmail teenagers. I do have pictures online of my children, but have my privacy settings set to private. DH didn't, despite working in IT. One of my DS's friends found a picture of him and made a 'joke' poster of him. I was shocked that his friend could just google and access DH's facebook. We both tore a strip off him, so he now has beefed up security settings. I like seeing what my friends and family who live far away are doing, and they like seeing what my kids are up to, but I'm hoping the strong privacy settings stops them from being accessed publicly. I have googled all of us since, and we arent visible on google.

I don’t have instagram.
I have fb with a smallish number of people I know well - family, close friends. It’s set so that only people I’m immediately friends with can see anything or pics I post, not friends of friends. I do put some pics of the kids on there - usually family pics of days out, or an occasional bday party (though I don’t put pics with other peoples kids in). So I do know anything that goes online is a bit out of my hands but it would have to be via one of my friends deliberately sharing a pic on purpose and I don’t see that as a big risk given my network.

When you ask this question you get a lot of replies from people who don't post photos of their kids. I don't think it shows an accurate picture of how many do. Out of all my friends on social media 99% do share photos of their children. However, the vast majority have private accounts and only share the occasional photo, which in my opinion is fine.
I only have one friend who bombard us with photos abd videos of her DD. I do think it's excessive.

That's a very good point about the deepfakes. That could be catastrophic for teenagers etc. even for adults being blackmailed.

Something to think about.

I post pics of my kids