The Risks of Sharenting

What Do Our Kids Learn from Our Online Habits?

Before I begin, I will admit that I found this article difficult to write.  I have two grown kids, 22 and 19 and and my wife and I shepherded them through social media, online drama and screen habits.  But I don’t want to preach, I only write from my the challenges we faced with our our children, and somehow those travails prepared us for managing social media more easily. And I think it’s important for the reader to know that I don’t think that parents who share photos, videos and post about their kids achievements online excessively do so maliciously, or are attempting to outdo families and neighbors in their communities. My point about writing about online sharing is that we may not be aware of how much harm we could be doing by posting our kids lives online in such detail. So this is an invitation to reflect on what you are doing, and not a judgement against your decisions.

What Gives Me The Authority To Write This Article

I am just a dad who, along with my wife, had to respond to a curve The Man Upstairs threw at us. Navigating those difficult waters prepped my whole family in a many ways.

One of my kids was diagnosed with Tourette's Syndrome at age 4, and so perhaps that is why we were extra vigilant regarding over stimulation from computer and phone overuse.  My child was ultra sensitive to color and other visual stimuli, loud crows, fireworks, loud church organs, and many other things my other kid just ignored.  We had to become real detectives hunting down what was causing tics and excessive emotional outbursts and long sleepless nights.  That lack of sleep compounded other symptoms for our child.  We were trying to avoid medications as a remedy at all costs, so we conducted exhaustive, and I mean exhaustive, review of routines, change in routines, exercise, and diet.  We discovered that the change to a “big kid bed” and a room painted banana yellow was too much for our child, so we repainted it a soft sky blue and got light blocking shades for summer. We managed to avoid medication because we figured out by a lot of trial and error what alleviated symptoms. To date my child has not had any physical movements or tics related to Tourette’s in over 9 years.

That doesn’t make me an expert in any sense, it just helped us stay in tune with what we were exposing our child to.  When it came time to devices we already had been through the ringer regarding books on CD with jarring music too late in the evening, loud movie theaters and venues ,so we learned how to be selective.  And it has made my experience different.  By profession I am a software developer so my concerns regarding security and allowing information about my kids leaking out online also made us very cautious.  I don’t trust big corporations to do the right thing, because I have worked for large corporations.  So the views and remedies I offer here are based on my experience as a parent.  But that’s what they are, born only from experience.  I’m not condemning other methods, because as I say I am not an expert.  And I don’t write to make myself appear to be the pinnacle of perfect parenthood.  

We are all proud of our children, and sharing moments of our kids’ triumphs, achievements, birthdays, and family trips is something that has increased as access to digital photography, internet storage and communications has become cheaper and more readily available. To want to share those moments with other family members and friends is natural, and those memories celebrate the child in positive ways. And now that they are home for the summer and their activities become front and center, it’s tempting to share all the more online, particularly if you just got home from an outing and the fun is still fresh in your mind. 

This is called sharenting.  The Collins Dictionary defines it as “the habitual use of social media to share news, images, etc of one’s children”.

https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/sharenting

And we have seen adults acting out on videos with their kids on TikTok, and that sometimes can appear like a quest for attention.  It does present a certain image of a lifestyle for public consumption and in some cases it is a status symbol that your child is living an exceptional life. Or that your skills as a parent are demonstrated in how your kid is performing, or who they are growing up with.  This goes beyond healthy pride, it is gratification by affirming status.

But there are risks that many don’t consider when the majority of a child’s life is published on social media. These risks are at the expense of a child’s physical well being but also their emotional health.

Building An Easy Target For Predators

Some of these risks seem obvious, but I am listing them to be thorough because perhaps we haven’t learned enough about building such obvious profiles online.  As we reported on our Morning Mission podcast A Touch Of A Finger, predators are just a swipe away.  To ingratiate themselves with your child without raising suspicions, they use information that they can glean to create a familiar context.  So think about your child’s age, grade, teacher’s names, pets’ names, school names, club names, your neighborhood, even your church.  Add photos and events and it’s easy to create a persona that feels familiar, that could mimic a child of the same age.  Or that of a family who happens to live in a nearby neighborhood.