“Let’s face it, everybody brings a different philosophy to parenting. We all have our own belief systems and approaches to raising our children. When it comes to your child’s online safety, there is no right or wrong way. Some parents share every aspect of their child’s life from the moment they are born. Other parents believe they should shield their child’s identity or wait until their child is old enough to make the decision themselves. These are hard decisions for a parent to make and as bloggers, it’s even more complicated because we are often sharing intimate details about our lives.”
The above is the opening statement from Domain.ME’s guide to writing this personal, sponsored post about children’s online safety. Interestingly enough, they point the finger at me, and correctly so, for what I post about my family, whether it be personal or private, and who I allow to see this.
I am a parent blogger and post pictures and videos of and with my son on a regular basis. I have no issue with it, he has a bit of performer in him and he enjoys it, so we are comfortable with this decision. But I always have my mother’s voice in the back of my head, never post a picture of my son for anyone to see, ever, at any time. This is a topic I have thought about since day one as a parent, and one which I do not take lightly, but also do not take to the extreme my mom would like. I make sure to keep things light and positive and prefer to never share anything that I consider too personal or revealing for the protection of my son and my family, and I am extra cautious because we are a same sex couple with a child and do not trust the world to all feel supportive of us. My guard is always up, but I do share personal items.
I have always shared pictures of my son with more clothes on rather than less. I hate to even write the “P” word, but that is what my mom says is out there looking for pictures. That is why my Facebook page was initially set to friends only.
Lastly, as a parent, I never share my son’s personal location information. I have never tagged his Elementary School, and I have never tagged his Middle School. I am uncomfortable with others if they tag us with a location when they share their pictures, but I have very little control over that. This is one of the strongest messages I have for other parents, this is a privacy concern that is of the utmost importance to me. I have no big issue with you seeing my child, but I do not want strangers to be able to find out where he is when I am not with him.
My son is now 12 and almost as tall as me, i.e., no longer a “kid.” He censors me faster than anyone else, even my mom, because any picture of him now has to pass his coolness test, it cannot be anything that will be embarrassing, etc. And he ha final approval before I hit send.
Because we are all on Instagram. Not just me, but my son. And his friends. And his friends parents. Almost all of us are on this social media channel and many of us are following each other. My friends follow my son and vice versa. My son’s friends follow me and vice versa. These are people that I trust and I feel quite strongly that this is also an extra tool to have more, rather than less, adults keeping an eye on my child and his safety online.
And safety online now means two very distinctive things. The first is for my child’s protection, I and my community have to make sure no inappropriate conversations are occurring. No one out of the group is initiating contact with our children. And on the other hand no one of my son and his peers are starting to get curious and send anything they should not be sending or writing. I am grateful for the adult community and that this social media platform works for both generations.
I believe in the parents role as online POLICE. I have read many articles, seen many news stories, and heard through the grapevine of inappropriate actions happening online with teenagers in our area and in the country. I want to be ready to nip any of these behaviors by my son and his friends in the bud. And I am happy to announce to everyone that I make no bones about the vigilance I believe is important in watching our kids. I was a bit of a helicopter parent when we were playing outdoors and am now the same with online actions. I strongly believe parents have to be, it can be very dangerous out there.
I am also a blogger who allows his son to work with one outside agency that showcases product reviews for children, by children. I have attended seminars that this group has sponsored and I know that they closely follow all laws having to do with the protection of children and online activity, they are COPPA compliant (Websites that are collecting information from children under the age of thirteen are required to comply with Federal Trade Commission ( FTC ) Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA). This is very important for all parents to be aware of, for any online access your child may have with an online community if they are under the age of 13. Do not be afraid to ask if a website that your child is accessing is COPPA compliant! Never be afraid to go to any lengths to protect your child from cyber dangers!
The last topic related to protected your child online is about protecting them from themselves. My son has a smart phone as do most of his friends, as do many young children of all ages. They are computer experts, all of them, and have access to many dangerous things on their own. I can only do so much to protect my son, I teach him what is OK to view, and what is taboo. And then I have to take it a step further and make sure he never has his phone behind closed doors. He has Internet access on his smart phone and to reiterate, can visit many online sites that are not age appropriate, and it becomes very difficult for us to protect our curious children. He also has a computer that is strictly monitored, mostly because these kids can click on anything enticing and download computer viruses, the desktop is actually easier to monitor in that regard because he has seen what can happen to kill a computers operating system!
What’s your opinion? This is an important topic for everyone. How do you manage your kids online? Can they be trusted to self police? Can they be trusted to not over share? And what do you share or not share in relation to your kids and/or location? I think this is an important conversation for all of us to have and continue the dialogue!
Disclosure: “This post was inspired and sponsored by Domain.ME, the provider of the personal URLs that end in .ME. As a company, they aim to promote thought leadership to the tech world.”
I agree with you. I now check with my kids before I post any picture of them, never say where they go to school, plus I don’t say the exact town where we live in NYC. I monitor wifi use and we haven’t gotten my oldest an email address yet (he’ll be 10 at the end of September). I told him when I do, I will monitor his email and right now I buy his apps (no apple store password for him yet). I know that things will change in the future, especially when he gets his own phone, but for right now, I can monitor things.
I am totally paranoid, so I don’t even let my kids go online. I worry so much about predators, but I know it;s only a matter of time before they want to get on the computer.
This is such an important issue for all parents…and one that we are continually grappling with in our house as my children are now teenagers. It seems every day we need to figure out how to walk that fine line between giving our children their privacy/letting them grow up to be responsible adults and protecting them/keeping them safe. It was so much easier in their younger days when we could just keep them offline. My kids are fairly good at sharing with me what they post, and showing me what their friends are posting. One rule that we do have here is that they may be followed only by people they actually know/go to school with/have met in person. Their posts are kept as private as possible…not on public view for the world to see. We have impressed upon our kids anything they post could be seen by future employers. And my hubby’s & my siblings are supportive aunts/uncles who have ‘friended’/follow my kids online… it’s always good to have those extra trusted-adult eyes watching what’s going on.
Internet safety is paramount to me, especially now that the kids are just old enough to look for youtube videos. Their intentions are pure, but it’s so easy to land on sites that are just terrible. That’s not even mentioning predators.
This is a great post! I don’t think a lot of people think about it when they are sharing on social media. I don’t even like to show my children’s faces on my blog or my social media.
I love that you are talking about this topic. I dont have little ones but it scares me to think of how accessible everyone’s info is – especially little ones who aren’t able to protect themselves from it.
It’s hard to believe how accessible everyone’s information is to the world. It used to be a matter of child safety that people in the community knew where they belonged in case something happened. Now it’s important to keep them almost invisible on the internet community so no one knows. I like the practice of using initials or non-personal descriptions when talking about family members and kids.
Keeping kids safe online can be hard. Especially with all the new apps and websites coming out every single day. I used to use initials only when talking about my kids online until they grew up.
I’m the paranoid you have to sit beside me mom, who has sit and watch everything that’s being done. I’m totally not ashamed or sorry about it either. Its crazy how things are now. I remember as a kid blogging by myself at age 11 and 12. My mom had no idea what I was doing. It CANNOT be like that anymore.
My oldest can self-police but my middle child needs careful monitoring. In fact, she doesn’t even know her own social media passwords. My youngest isn’t allowed to have any social media access yet (he’s 9) except for watching some YouTube videos with permission. It’s a scary world online – and now with all of the apps available on phones I worry about how easily these kids can get into gray areas! Only my 16 yr old has a phone right now.
I think it’s important to remember that information and pictures don’t go away after posting them even if they’re deleted. If they get older and realize they’re not okay with having hundreds of pictures of them online already without informed consent,they’re completely out of luck.
That’s so true, information kind of hangs around even if it’s been deleted! It’s important to be safe.
You can never be too careful, I say. I know I am not perfect about it but I do my best to respect and help keep my children’s privacy. I think, as a blogger, it is even harder to ensure we do so!
It bothers me when people check in at their kids’ school or openly talk about it. Our school has safeguards in place but it’s still a concern.
My kids are still young so they have no online presence yet. Except for my blog. They older ones want to do Youtube videos but I have been holding out for them to find a safe way to do it. We do have to police our kids until they are old enough to make decisions and even then I’ll be policing them.
This is a great post! I don’t know if a lot of people realize the importance of protecting their kids from the internet. Online safety is important.
You did a great job of sharing the concerns that most parents feel when it comes to online safety! Finding a balance can be tough, but it sounds like you have some good boundaries in place. The tip about never revealing your child’s location online is very important!
It is scary! There are so many pictures of my kids online, and I don’t see how to completely avoid that doing what we do. However, I do take some of the same precautions as you do. I don’t tag locations, make sure our house number isn’t in photos, etc.
I am so cautious about tagging myself and my family anywhere! Social media can be dicey when it comes to privacy!
I have shared a few pictures of my kids. It makes me nervous so I don’t share them often.
I’m with you. I don’t share pics of my children online. If anything, it’ll just be a view of their profile… never their faces.
This is so important to me because I have a small child. He loves the computer but I have to protect him.
Online safety is so important! I’m like you and take as many pre actions as I can!
Precautions*
It’s definitely something I worry about when it comes to me sharing things about my kids. I don’t share locations and rarely share their pictures. My big concern is when they’re old enough to be online. Being the “online police” will go into full effect then!
Having no kids but grandkids let me say you are doing a great job.My grandkids are not allowed to be on internet yet I have personally notice some people share too much
I understand the privacy thing. I am not a huge fan of sharing my child on the internet at all. I have before but I do not much anymore, I enjoy our privacy, esp. as he is so young to not even understand the limits of the internet.
Kids cannot be trusted to self police, I think there needs to be some kind of adult moderating any kind of internet use by any child. I never even share our state. Not out of fear or anything but I just like my anonmity so to speak, as muhc as it that can be had on the internet anyway.
My sister watches her 13 year old like a HAWK online! It has to be done.
We have to be so careful with sharing to much on the internet. We have so many crazy people out there now days. Thank you for sharing this great article.
Very thoughtful. You never know who is looking at your posts. Thank you for sharing your strategies for dealing with this tricky issue. We all want to be online and connected with friends, but avoid causing professional/personal trouble because of it.
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