Would you/have you secretly filmed at your child's Nativity?

[Dramatic]

So our school has a policy that you aren't allowed to film/take photos at all, total blanket ban. They don't take photos or film themselves either.

My husband works away and never gets to see the plays so I secretly film them/take photos (just my child's part but there are others in the background) and I show the videos to him.

I don't put them on any social media or send them to anyone else, even Grandparents etc.

Aibu?

If someone’s watching that video then it’s because they’ve already found the child! They don’t watch strangers videos and accidentally spot them. If schools were that bothered about protecting children the wouldn’t all have to buy expensive logod jumpers that identify the schools…. Can that child never go to a park or play in a football match, how do you stop filming there.

Our school also has a blanket ban on all videos and photos. I have the very odd photo (when the school has taken it) but very few really.

i accept their rule and just enjoy the show. I can survive without a video / photo. Their Dad always missed performances due to work.

In terms of morals, I normally consider what would happen if everyone copied my actions. In this case, it could potentially put a child a risk. I think it’s best just to trust the school and accept this is the rule. That’s what everyone I know does and I have never seen any secret filmers.

Why would someone randomly film your child in a park?! And kids football teams and other hobby groups ask you for photographic and filming consent, so you would say no.

Not at all. People will know the age group of a child and look at schools for the right age group. They will go through social media posts/ newsletters etc for the different schools. Any posts for the right year group they will look at. Often parents in that year group will like the photos/videos or comment. It only takes one. Then they look on that person’s social media, their friends and things they have liked. Until they finally find a picture or video. It is depressingly not as far fetched as we would like to believe.

You don’t want other peoples opinions do you OP? You just want validation that what you’re doing is ok 🙄

It isn’t.

They’ve got rules for a reason 🤷‍♀️ There could be children in foster care in the pictures whose photos aren’t allowed to get into the public domain and sure you say you only send them to your husband, but of course you’re going to say that on MN. Not cool and very selfish.

It seems very extreme of school to say no videos /pics and sad that they don’t take any of them

but can only mean there is at least one child who needs protection there

sadly many parents can’t be trusted

our head at every production will say - you can take videos /photos but for own viewing and not put on social media if others in background

so pic of own child is fine

I can guarantee that someone will post a pic of their ‘child’ with others in background that I see on my fb 🙄

some do stickers over heads - some don’t

so parents can’t be trusted which is sad and maybe one day our head will do what your school does

yes seems extreme rule but there are reasons behind it obviously

you say only send to dh

others will post it on sm

So basically, you recorded in secret, which meant you knew you were doing something you shouldn’t (otherwise you would have confidently just recorded and felt happy to justify your reasons and discuss with anyone there).

You posted in AIBU, as you obviously had doubts about your behaviour or were needing validation for your behaviour.

The vast majority of people have strongly opposed your actions and tried to explain why it wasn’t appropriate. Told you that you are putting children at risk by doing these actions and thereby encouraging others.

Yet you won’t see outside your selfish bubble of what you wanted.

Where children are concerned, I believe that we all have a safeguarding role to play. I’m sure that if your children were ever vulnerable, then you would want to know that people would help them. By not taking photos/videos at a school, you are being told that this is how you can help keep vulnerable children safe. To not do so is incredibly selfish and maybe you should question why you don’t see that.

"Noone minded because most people were doing the same thing to share with their families"

And you have zero control where your child's image will end up as a result or how it will be used or who will end up watching it. Does that not concern you from a common sense perspective?

Sounds like safeguarding in schools where you are needs to be reviewed and my child wouldn't be able to safely be there.

Yes, you had no right. These rules are.in place for very good reasons. Your husband should be turning up to these performances, if its that important for him to see his child perform, pull a sickie if he really has to.

I think the thing that we and Op are missing here is that OP’s partner NEVER attends his child’s performances and never takes time off to do so. He is content to have Op break the rules just so that he can see the performance while putting in no effort. And Op is happy to go out on a limb and risk being caught ou to accommodate him. Why?

Jakers he's at sea. He can't just call up a helicopter to get back for a Christmas concert. It's a rota written in stone x weeks on x weeks off. Hopefully he'll be back for Christmas.

I know a child who is being looked for.
The reality of his life is that he just doesn’t join sports clubs etc. Precisely because it will make him easier to track down. There are play centres etc he can’t go to.
The hope is that adoption will solve some of these issues by placing him somewhere well away from his birth family (and foster carers).
He doesn’t wear clothes with school logo’s anywhere outside of school. They don’t just pop to the shops quickly after school.

It clearly isn’t something you have experience of (and thank goodness) but there are children living really curtailed lives with massive limits on what they can do and where they can go through no fault of their own.
Why add to it by making school an unsafe place?

That’s not true. The op said their dc is in yr 2 and he has attended the previously. He works offshore on a rota so I doubt that he can simply take a days annual leave or pull a sickie as some have suggested.
I don’t think the op is right in filming the performance but let’s not make things up.

Not necessarily. I’ve worked with children where they weren’t allowed to know the name of the place they were moving to, because they were young and might accidentally mention ‘I’m moving to Manchester!’ (or wherever) to a little friend, who then tells their mum, who then says in the playground ‘how exciting! Whereabouts are you moving to in Manchester?’ in earshot of others. And before long, the implication is that a large number of people know who might let slip to the non-contact adult who isn’t supposed to know where they are.

The reason for this being that some people who aren’t allowed contact with specific children because they’re dangerous will often be highly motivated and persistent in tracking that child down. If they know a vague location, they will then start looking for videos and photos on every school website/social media page in the area, and if that’s fruitless then looking at the social media pages of total strangers connected to the schools (so, for example, other parents with kids at the school) to see if someone has uploaded a video with the child they’re searching for in it. They’re not stumbling upon them by accident. Sadly I’ve known this scenario to happen, it is absolutely staggering and frightening the lengths and hours that some people will go to.

This can be a difficult thing to get your head round as a person who isn’t a danger to children because a normal reaction is ‘but no one is interested in random videos of random kids in school plays.’ But some people are very interested, and if a child is at risk in this way, it’s sensible for the school to have a hard-line policy in place to protect them.

Children in these positions probably won’t be going to parks in areas where they could be recognised by someone connected to the adult they can’t have contact with, or joining a football team unless there is a similarly strict photo policy. Or attending a community day where lots of photographs will be taken. Or going to a televised football match. And even non-branded uniforms can be an issue, especially if they attend the only school in the area with a particular jumper/blazer colour. The restrictions placed on some children’s lives are difficult to imagine when you’ve never been in that situation, and sadly are proportional to the risk a specific person poses to them.

That is not true for many of the children I have fostered. I cannot say too much but the family of the foster child in one particular case had no idea where they were placed and there had been a almost "professional" search for them in any photos or filming of different areas/schools. Children's services, the police and the school knew they were searching everywhere within the same county.

In this particular case I have talked of in this thread, the foster child had to change schools because a parent had taken photos during a nativity performance. As there was a very high risk of abduction Children's Services decided they had no choice but for the child to change schools. The parent who had taken the photos said they would not post on social media but there was no way to prove who she may have shown the photos to in real life. Unfortunately the child had just settled into the school after numerous moves, and it was their safe place where for the first time they had made friends and trusted their teachers. But it had to be done despite their heartbreak. The school were also devastated and could not have done more to insist nothing was recorded or filmed. All of this because a parent decided that their right to take photographs was more important than a foster child's life. And their two siblings, not even at the same school, but another local one had to move also.

Also the children were not allowed to go out wearing their school uniform which would identity them, and on advice from a police special arrangements were made to take and collect them from school in safety. They would not have gone to a local playground or attend anything that may be photographed, or birthday parties where of course numerous photos may be taken. BUT the safe place should have been in the school hall if only everyone had stuck to the rules.

That’s so sad @musicinme - the selfishness of some people (parents) is staggering but as the Op here has proven, sadly that selfishness will continue.

@undercovermarsupial - anyone who can read your post, and the similar ones from other people like @Taztoy and @musicinme, with real-life experience of safeguarding children, and can still argue that they have the right to film the Nativity play, is severely lacking in any empathy, and is the definition of entitled.

Totally agree @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius

you are massively unreasonable. Why should the rules not apply to you too? I can’t stand people like you who think you’re above the rules that applies to everyone - and then comes up with some kind of excuse as to why you should be allowed.

also, how about you tell the parents of the children who think they’ve not been recorded now have been and the content of their children has been passed around. You have no idea wether the parents have a no photograph/video the child in place - yet you could be the person putting their children at risk

As a foster carer who has cared for children whose young lives have been ruined due to "common sense parents with the ability to only see the good in people sharing photos only with their families", I feel so very very sad and my heart breaking for the children who go through so much and miss out on so much, only to have their safe place (of the school hall) become a dangerous place after all... because of a photo...

You have no idea the lengths people will go to in order to find out where their children are or the corrupt organisations that support them.

@musicinme it's why I send my son to a private school where I don't have to deal with this. Literally not an issue.
Also shame everyone assumes the worst in people like I said before. Noone in the school assembly is taking photos for any other reason but to share them with family. End of.

End of. Well for you, perhaps that is true. But for these traumatised and terrorised children it is only the beginning.

Why don't you have a passport now?