To not let my kids appear on school social media?

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Since DC started school, I've never consented to their pictures appearing on social media.

I thought a lot of parents would do the same, but the majority of parents do seem to have consented as the social feeds are full of lovely pictures of everyone else's kids.

Last week for example, there were lots of great pictures of sports day, and the week before, pictures of a school trip.

I'm now beginning to think I'm just making myself miss out on nice pictures of DC at school events, and actually there's no a real downside to letting them be in the pictures.

What does everyone else think? AIBU to not consent, or is there a real risk to having pictures of children on open public social media?

You do not have to allow your children to be shared online in order to look back on their life and achievements, funnily enough we have all looked back on our childhoods up until now without the internet. This is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.

It’s very easy to have family photos of your children, their life, their birthday parties, events, achievements, school plays all without it playing out on the internet for everyone to see.

I think deep down you probably recognise that the tide has changed, we now have so much more information on not only the dangers of the internet but the question around consent and sharing children online is when they can’t understand the concept or consent to it. You made your decision and it’s your choice to double down on it, that doesn’t however mean there is any benefit to a child’s image being shared on social media.

I can see this is lovely, but I wonder how possible it would be to scroll back to the insta feed from the school for this year in ten years time or so to show DC? Or do you mean you screenshot them and print them out?
I'm talking about pictures in general. I would agree that posting on Instagram might be a step too far in the need to do.

My comments relates to mum's who don't want their kids to feature in any school photographs.

It’s very easy to have family photos of your children, their life, their birthday parties, events, achievements, school plays all without it playing out on the internet for everyone to see
Again, I'm responding to the no pictures clan.

They consider that any picture is a risk of exposure online.

Parents take pictures of their kids birthday party on their Facebook, Grandma sees them and share, etc...

For me, it’s more about privacy overall. There are people from my past, who come in and back out of my life, who are not perverts or anything nefarious, but I like to keep the shutters down on my life. My friends and family are all welcome in my home, to be around my children, but I like to keep my privacy intact. And don’t get me started on grandparents who don’t understand privacy settings on social media, who have a whole album of public profile photos of their grandchildren and have no idea they need change their settings otherwise anyone can have a good old look.

You made your decision and it’s your choice to double down on it, that doesn’t however mean there is any benefit to a child’s image being shared on social media
You focus on the lack of benefits, I focus on the lack of risk.

As for consent, where do you start? All those mum's who insist on their kids getting antibiotics at every childhood infection they get without their consent will do much more damage than allowing their pictures to be taken.

Parents make thousand of decisions on behalf of their kids until their adulthood without consent. That's what being a parent is all about!

I don’t consent for them to be on SM. There’s an internal system where we can see photos but this is for parents only. I have consented to this. Some have not.

you do what is safe and acceptable for you. It’s a shame you miss the photos though so maybe ask the school if there’s another way you can see? Maybe at parents eve?

Well you have constantly quoted and referenced me, my question was what benefit is there to a child’s photo being shared online and your response was you like looking at old photos with your child?

I can’t see anyone who has said they never allow anyone to ever take photos of their child, which comment are you specifically referring to?

The conversation has quite clearly been about photos being shared by schools publicly online.

And I’m absolutely against other people making parental choices for others. It’s up to individual parents as it should be.

For me, it’s more about privacy overall
This not something I share, but that's a much more valid reason in my view than the fear of school pictures falling into the hands of paedophiles and harm being done as a result.

I agree, I understand people who want privacy, that is valid. I just don’t get the idea of not doing it due to pedos getting the photo off the school social media etc. A pedo can take their own photos which would usually be “better”than trying to manipulate a photo of 7 dc huddled around a computer screen all looking in different directions!

The irony is the op would absolutely love to see her child in a photo at school but the only current option is that it's also shared online publicly.

Surely you can agree that in this situation it would actually be great if photos were not shared online and instead with parents personally like they used to be when your child was younger.

A win win don't you think?

I post my kids on social media. My accounts are private

Agree - Kids have appeared in local newspapers for years, sports events, fetes etc not sure why this is any different

I havent consented for my sons school for the fact i dont want his dad to find out hes going there.

This is something we’re navigating as we prepare for P1 in September. The pre-school our DS attended only posted pictures to a parent app and on noticeboards in school.

The primary does post pictures to a website and Facebook. We’ve taken the decision to say our sons picture may be taken and featured on physical noticeboards in school and parent only communication, but not on the website, Facebook, local media etc. The biggest driver for us is that the school was asking for permission for not just a picture, which is inevitably connectable to the school, but also his name, which for me opens up the children to being approached by strangers who know where to find them and their name.

the Principal was very accommodating.

DS2, my only DC still at school, often has his photo on his school social media, things like food tech or science.

Presumably he's older though and has a better understanding of the situation so he can offer his opinions on whether he wants his photograph to be used or not?

I'm really sorry to hear they don't have a private way of sharing photos. It's a real shame that the only way parents will see any images of their child/ren, is if they allow them to be shared to a public instagram account.

I understand the need for advertising and promoting the school, but public social media accounts shouldn't be the only way photos are shared.

yadbu

The issue is that I think they just don't take the photos of children who don't consent. So if they did a group shot in front of the theatre they went to on the school trip, my DC and any others not consenting would be asked to step aside so they have the picture for socials. Or they would do a picture of sports day with a consenting child running etc, they just wouldn't take ones of my DC doing events.

I don’t either. I started off because I felt that it was important for kids to have privacy and to live their life without loads of people looking at them. And now it’s because of the obvious CSA/AI risks

He wouldn't care and wouldn't see the danger. I consented because yes, someone might be able to deepfake CSAM, but it's unlikely they'd bother with the photos that have been uploaded.

I didn't even think of that. I would be more concerned about using the image for AI abuse photos

I’m certainly not worried about some ‘weirdo’ looking at a random school pics.
But I wouldn’t worry about missing out - I’ve only ever noticed my kids in one video and a few pics from the school and it’s not like you keep them.

That's just creating a whole other layer of work for the school, at a time when budget and resources are stretched to the limit. If people want to opt out, fine. But it shouldn't be on the schools to accommodate and create another forum for sharing pictures just because it's nice for parents- they have more than enough to do.