“Sharenting,” a term that combines “sharing” and “parenting,” occurs when parents post photos, videos, and other information about their children online. This can include posts about daily activities, trips and family outings, and special occasions like birthdays.
Sharenting Can Support Parents
Research shows that most parents in the U.S. have engaged in, and benefited from, sharenting. Posting about children online gives parents an outlet for developing their parenting identities and celebrating their children’s growth with others.
Sharenting can also build virtual communities. Parents use these spaces to get advice, find social support, and share experiences and tips. Virtual parenting communities can be especially helpful for parents facing unique challenges, those with minimal in-person support, or new parents.
The Potential Risks of Sharenting May Outweigh Benefits
Despite these benefits, it’s important to consider the potential privacy and safety risks of sharenting. Even when parents use secure privacy settings, it can be hard to control who sees their content, what information is saved, and where and how it is shared. As a result, cases of identity fraud among children have been traced to sharenting. Content might also end up on websites used for child sexual exploitation. This is even more worrisome with the rise in artificial intelligence tools, which can alter original posts to create explicit content.
Consent and children’s right to privacy are other important issues related to sharenting. Because sharenting often starts in infancy, many kids have hundreds or thousands of photos, videos, and other information about them online before they can walk. This means kids are often left out of the decision-making process when parents post about them. These are missed opportunities to model and teach kids about respecting others and the importance of consent. When they get older, children may look back and feel their privacy is not valued.
Another drawback of sharenting is that it can conflict with children’s self-chosen online identity. As teens start to construct their own digital identities, what they post might be very different from what their parents post. This can lead to family conflict, discomfort, mistrust, and poor communication.
Balancing the Risks and Benefits of Sharenting
Child advocacy groups recommend parents obtain children’s permission before posting about them online. This includes having conversations about what they are sharing, where this information is going, and who will see it.
When posting online, parents should share as little personal information about their children as possible, use privacy settings to limit who can view the content, and consider how the post might affect their child in the future. Understand that there is no such thing as risk-free posting; with today’s digital tools, any photo you post of your child’s face may carry the risk of being used or remade into other content, without your permission, including potentially explicit content.
Approaching online sharing with self-reflection can help parents balance the risks and benefits. When in doubt, respect your child’s current and future privacy as you would want respect of your own.
It’s important to be transparent and careful with what you share…discuss your sharenting practices with [your] children, ask for their permission, because even young children can express how they feel about the picture.
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