The internet allows us to connect to people across the globe and share instant updates with friends and family regardless of distance. Parents can easily post pictures of their children on social media to commemorate milestones or everyday adventures, but this comes with both advantages and risks.

Prior to the digital era, sharing photos of kids required much more time and involvement. You needed a camera with batteries and film to take pictures, then develop the film, and later hand deliver or mail them to others. Today family and friends can remotely participate in events like children’s birthday parties through Zoom or FaceTime and you can quickly upload photos to social media sites for others to view and comment on. These moments would not be easily shared without technological advancement and it can be a great way to stay connected to loved ones.

Posting photos to social media can help document events and create a digital archive of memories. If you prefer physical photos, you can use companies like Chatbooks to link your social media accounts and have photo books printed from your posts. Some online photo storage and social media sites will also send out reminders with photos from the same day many years ago that can serve as sweet mementos.

I have also seen many families use social media as a way to document challenging times they are going through. If a child is being hospitalized, online posts can update multiple people simultaneously and serve as a site for support and well wishes of others. It can be a way to connect with other families who are going through the same thing and provide needed support that may not otherwise be available.

These advantages of sharing online posts also come with some concerns, particularly when it comes to privacy. Once a picture is posted online, you no longer have full control over where it ends up. It has the potential to be viewed and saved by many people and there may be those who would misuse it. As your children grow, they may end up disliking shared photos of themselves and feel like their privacy and autonomy were not respected. It can be helpful to consider the impact online posts have on your children over time and involve them in the process as they grown to understand their own digital presence.

When they reach an age where they may have their own social media accounts, children need to know that once something is released on the internet, it never truly goes away. Posts and photos can impact their future in ways that they may not even consider – such as college admissions or job opportunities. It’s important for both parents and teens to be mindful of what they are sharing.

There are also security risks if you create posts that include personal details about your children. Accessible information like birthdays or school location can open the door to problems like identity theft and fraud. Thoughtful safety measures can help minimize these risks, such as using a private account, turning off location tracking, waiting to share about vacations until after you’ve returned home and making sure no identifying information is visible in pictures. Facebook settings also allow you to limit who can see your photos to specific friends only.

I personally post on Instagram and enjoy sharing family highlights that include our children. Recently I changed my account from public to private and feel more secure knowing that only certain people have access to what I share. I polled some local parents about how they handle social media with kids and found that most include their children in posts and like that it helps them stay connected with family members who live far away. The majority of them use private accounts and some expressed concerns about their kids’ online exposure, but deal with that by not sharing certain things, limiting the number of posts that include their kids and ensuring that security features are enabled. One mom who doesn’t post on social media platforms said that doing so would be well out of her comfort zone as an introvert and she doesn’t share much even in person.

Posting pictures of kids online is a personal decision for each family to make and like many things it poses both risks and benefits. Being able to connect across distances and preserve memories can be great, but privacy and security should also be taken into account when determining how to best use social media with children.