Anyone on social media with their older step kids? Is this wise?!

[K888]

Hi, needed to share some photos with my older step kids (older teen/early twenties) - easier way seemed to be through social media like Facebook. Anyone else done this?

I'm always a bit careful with social meda - try to be neutral - worried as their mum uses it a lot with them and she's pretty antagonistic to me. Would she feel like it is treading on her toes?

You can send them by private message on Facebook?

I think so, or I can limit the photos to just them.

My main point is that I have just 'friended' them- had thought it might be best to keep out of it before - sometimes there is bad feeling stirred up by their mum - they are a pretty close knit family. Is it okay do you think if I am now their 'friend' on FB?

My partner isn't on it - will it just be more fuel or gossip to get at me? Or am I just being paranoid! Maybe it's a good thing!

, DSS won't have any parents or step parents as friends on Facebook. I message him through it but he's not on my friends list. If there's any chance it might cause problems, take them off and just message or email them?

Although I do have a rule of no one more than 10 years younger than me as they all look like they're having too much fun

See how it goes and take them off if there are issues. At that she it's up to them, not their mum.

I would put them in a restricted group though so they (the mum) don't see too much what you're doing.

But if what you really do actually want to do us share photos there are many free cloud based options where you can upload them and open the fils to them for sharing. Dropbox, Google, Amazon and the icloud if you have Apple devices. All far better than fb if sending photos is really all you need to do.

age, not she

The best way to share with them and not their mum is not to tag them in them, and have your settings to 'friends only'

I use FB quite a bit to share photos of my DSC with them and its a nice way of sharing our lives. Their mum's a technophobe, but her DP's on FB and sometimes likes the photos so i presume they don't mind.

Wouldn't it be easier to just email them to them?

There's a free messaging service called whatsapp that you can use to message and send photos. That might be easier than FB hassle wise.

Thanks so much all of you.

I did set the girls up with Google plus and shared the photos that way but they 'can't use it' - basically unless their friends are on something they have no interest! So FB it is.

You never know, it might help for them to see that I have a life and friends - not just 'Step Horrible Person' or whatever they think of me!

I think you should be fine - just start out with some low key photos that don't shout "we're a family that you're not included in" to their mum (ie not the whole of you lined up for a family photo or whatever) And maybe let them tag themselves if they want to.

You can send photos via FB messanger very easily too, and can do group chats to all of them (and your DH, own DC, etc) with photos if you want to share them to a restricted group, but it's not quite the same as sharing on FB.