Do you share your kids on social media?

[Blossom192]

Hello

I have two wonderful young children and since the day I became a parent, I've found myself constantly creating amazing memories with them - thousands of photos, videos, playlists, walks - but I have no safe place to store them beautifully. I have so many apps, a bursting photo album but no baby books completed. I don't share my kids on social media because I believe they have a right to their digital identity and I don't want them monetised for the sake of ads. I’ve seen a few articles in the press recently highlighting this newscentre.vodafone.co.uk/digital-parenting/sharenting-how-sharing-too-much-online-could-put-your-kids-in-danger/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=3&utm_campaign=4&utm_id=Twitter&utm_term=5&utm_content=6 and I’ve also had a few conversations with friends who are feeling frustrated too. Do any other parents have growing concerns around sharing on social media or share the same frustrations as me - too much content too little time to organise?

I absolutely don’t post a single pic of them on social media. I’m not on social media, it’s never been my cup of tea.

I don’t have much memory left in my phone and often feel like I’ve got very little photos and videos of them stored. I will probably regret that when they are older.

There is absolutely zero trace of ds on social media - if he wants to be on it when he's older then that's his choice.

We print pics out and keep family photo albums in the living room. Videos get saved onto a usb stick and backed up.

Yes, I share my kids photos on Instagram & Facebook. I have completely private profiles that only have people I know or have vetted following me. I don’t feel it’s remotely unsafe as no-one else can access it. I have family who live in various parts of the country, some who use Facebook & some who use Insta. So it’s a quick way to share photos with everyone at once. Plus, I like seeing what my friends & their kids are up too & presume vice versa. My children will have full say in what photos remain online in the future. If in 9 years time, my 13 year old wants me to remove all her baby photos, I will.

You could back them up on iCloud? Google photos? Flikr? There are loads of photo backup apps. They aren’t social media, they are simply a backup drive so to speak. I pay for iCloud as I only put up a selection photos on social media, I have hundreds I don’t that I want to keep safe.

I grew up with the invention of social media taking place. It’s been a part of my life since I was a teenager. All my friends use social media in the same way as me. Private profiles where we simply share nice photos of our lives 🤷🏼‍♀️

I post occasional photos of DD/us as a family on social media (maybe 3 or 4 a year) but have quite tight security settings.
We have a shared photo stream with close family that we share on instead, it’s a nice way to keep the grandparents updated without having to share every photo/video with loads of people.

And as PP said definitely back it all up on iCloud or something similar, would be awful to lose all of your photos

I do.

I only have a small number of facebook friends and they are all relatives or real life actual friends so I am quite happy sharing on there.

I back my photos and videos up on to icloud.

We don't share DC on social media, on the very very rare instance we have, their faces aren't visible, it'll be a photo taken from behind them for example. We have an app called the FamilyAlbum, which we share pictures of them on as we can add people to it and only those people can view them but means sharing with grandparents, aunts and uncles etc is really easy!

I dont share pictures (except when he was born) on social media. But then again I don’t post of any pictures of myself either. I do once in a while share stories on FB or Instagram ( maybe once every month). I’m so proud and I love my son so much I want everyone to see how cute he is :) but becouse I’m not comfortable with his pictures being there I think stories are better (gone in 24 hrs)

I do post my DD on Instagram and Facebook but have tight privacy settings.

I also have OneDrive as I don’t post everything on social media. I pay £6.99 a month for 1TB.

We are very conscious not to overshare on social media. We usually post a picture around Christmas and around his birthday and that's it.

My husband has a large family who are dispersed all over the UK and abroad. So we use an app called MySunshine to keep the family updated with recent pictures of our son. MySunshine has been invaluable during the lockdowns since it has meant we can upload photos, videos and even record milestones for the whole family to see.

For any of you wanting to share photos with your family but not through social media then I would highly recommend you give the MySunshine app a try!

Hi

Our first born is due in January and we will not be putting any pictures on Social Media. I will share them with family but will be explaining they are not to go on FB. I'll be backing them all up and printing out to make sure they're not lost.

Yes I share my son’s photo on my social media accounts. I have friends who share much more than I would, and others who share nothing at all. We manage to make different choices without judging each other.

I don't use social media but i share the kids' photos with close family members on WhatsApp or Google photo albums. (Their grandparents send them to all and sundry though).

No, I’ve never put a single photo of my children on social media and never will.

We are an adoptive family and don’t put any photos of our son on Facebook for safety reasons. I don’t feel we lose anything from not posting. I have 12,000 plus photos on my phone backed up to iCloud and many photo books printed to look back at memories.

Yes I put pictures of my family on social media. I love it when the memories come up on Facebook 😊

I've got a few pics up in my house. I upload pics to photobox. I've got memory sticks with photos too.

Yes but my accounts are private and they don't feature in my profile or banner pictures that are accessible to the public.

I don't want my baby on social media...
So I set up a private Instagram account so only very close and family can see.

I too wanted to save them somewhere easily accessible. You can put videos on there too

Some people are so odd about this I find. If your profile is completely private and only followed by friends and family, then what’s the big deal?

My social media is as the above, and I’ve only posted about 15 photos of my toddler on there since birth. They’re all very tasteful photos of the DC spending time with other family members or generally just looking lovely. Like I say, I really don’t see the big deal.

We put up one picture of ds the day after he was born , you can't seen his face as he is in my arms turned away . That's the only pic we will ever share. I send pics to close friends privately but I don't want him all over social media. I know loads of people who do share pics and thats 100% their choice but its just not for me.

No not a single pic or mention even though DH and I are very active on social media. DC are private people until they decide otherwise and are old enough to understand the risks.

I post pics of my kids on social media. I post pics of my pets and pics of myself too. I sometimes even post pics of my dinner!!

I was subjected to lecture about this from my cousin the other day. She chooses not to post any pictures as she doesn't want her children seen by randoms on the internet etc etc. However she does have 400 odd Facebook friends whereas I only have a third of that number who are all genuine friends, family or work colleagues.
I wonder if this is possibly why we view it differently.

I don’t share on social media. I use google photo as a family albums and it’s shared only with DH and the DCs. I occasionally send a link to a photo to my parents.

I save it all on my own cloud devices but I'm also very aware of how tech becomes obsolete quickly (minidisc anyone?) So I create photo books for each year.