I need to figure out how to keep other people from posting pictures of my little girl on their Facebook pages.
Please note: I’m not bringing this up to discuss whether it is, or is not, good/safe/appropriate to put pics of young children on the Internet.
I am only asking the question – shouldn’t I (as my daughter’s mom) be the one to make that decision?
Heck, even her school asks permission to use her image in marketing materials, but nobody asks if it’s ok to broadcast to the world wide web?
Why is that NOT a consideration? I know I won’t post someone else’s picture online, unless I ask them if it’s OK – even if they are an adult. Nowadays, when people take pictures of friends, I usually hear “Please don’t put these on Facebook.” And I honor that, and assume that unless they specifically tell me it’s OK, that I assume it’s not.
To make matters worse, not only do I see pictures online of my child, but she’s even being identified by name.
Wondering if it’s ok to post a picture of my daughter on your Facebook page? Look at mine. If you don’t see any pics of her on there on my own page, chances are I’d not want any on yours. If you can’t even see my Facebook page because we aren’t friends? Then you DEFINITELY should not be posting pictures of my child.
Maybe I’m old fashioned – or maybe that is just because I would like someone to understand that they should ask first.
I would never make that choice for someone else’s child. Nor do I want someone else to make that choice for mine.
I realize this is the world that we live in, and the masses do this all the time. Like I said in the initial phrases of this post, I am not bringing this up to be a discussion as much about whether it should or should not be OK, or safe, or whatever. This is not about fear of something bad happening, or her image getting into the wrong hands.
This is an example, of a bigger point.
The bigger point is this…
We should consider how other parents might feel about things before we do them. Just because you are OK with 2,432 pictures of your child online, does not mean that I am.
Some may feel that I’m getting my undies in a bunch over something that is not that big of a deal. But as a conscious parents, I realize that something I don’t blink an eye about, someone else might. Just because it’s not a big deal to me, doesn’t mean that I can make that choice for your family.
Being a conscious parent is realizing that our actions have repercussions, and to have mutual respect for other parents who have different views on these things.
In response to a private message I got on this post –
For me, this is about protecting the children for sure, but also, meant as a strong message to parents to be thoughtful about the things that they do. I’m not advocating being paranoid or living in fear, I’m advocating being considerate to other parents, and realizing that the world does not revolve around what I chose to do for my family. And I respect what others chose as well. But when people do something relatively “innocent” like posting a photo, there can be repercussions. I can’t go and delete my daughter’s photo of her in a bathing suit because I am not the one who posted it, I’m only her mother!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I understand concerns about pedophiles and the like, but that’s not something that can be gotten around. In this day and age, you cannot prevent pictures of your children from making their way to the internet. Period. Children have to be educated earlier concerning the dangers due to this. It’s sad, but because of this some schools are starting basic sex ed in Kindergarten (5 and 6 years old). Well…because of that and the fact that studies show they get an informal one that can negatively shape their views of sex, women and relationships (particularly for boys) by the age of 8.
Hi Nina – thanks for your note. I agree that we must “parent” our children through the reality of our world. This post was intended as a discussion of conscious parenting, which means thinking beyond ourselves, and to long term consequences of our actions upon others. (and not as much about whether it is, or is not OK to put pictures online of children).
I do think it is important for us to communicate clearly about what is and what is not OK……and not just accept what is and that we can’t do anything about it. As conscious parents, it’s important that we model living our values to our children. It only took 5% of the population of the US to rise up for what was right against the oppression of the British, so a passionate minority aligned against what is right can make a big impact. My biggest message in this is that people need to not make the choice for other parents. Do what is right for your family, and respect that others may think differently. 🙂
I agree with Nina, but possibly because I live in Finland, where child abduction is not as common as it is in the US. If I was in the US, I would probably be much more considerate about this. I do not have children, but I have always thought that in this day and age, it is more peculiar if there are zero pictures of your child than having a few here and there.
I draw the line between posting so many pics and videos a day that you can basically identify the child from every angle. And no naked pictures of them either. But I do think that if you do not post any pics of your child, some people might get even more curious (because of human nature) and try to find out what your child looks like or what their names are. I have had discussions about this with people my age and they agree.
I do however agree with Erika that it is every parent’s right to make this decision for their child, no one else should make it for them.
Hi Nina, it sad that children are robbed of their youth and need protection from the moment they walk out the door. The point that a lot of people are missing is that there are paedophiles out there, that doesn’t disturb me as much as identity theft and stalkers. Meta tags on your photos that pin point where you live etc pictures of a childs birthday party identifying little faces. Its so easy to put a profile of someone on the internet these days. Why should we make it easier for potential thieves and deliberately put ones children in harms way?
Nina, I respectfully disagree. Although, no I cannot stop my eldest daughters picture from appearing online; I can however stop my one year olds photo from popping up online. This article struck a cord with me because several times now I’ve had people I don’t even know commenting or liking a picture of my daughter when I wasn’t the one who posted it nor was I asked if they could even post it. I know this world today is all about social media but I still want to raise my daughter with the Want to connect face to face and not live by your phone, laptop or ease of access. I want her to choose (do I want this picture out there) instead of that decision being made for her before she’s even old enough to understand what a picture even is. It’s just common curtesy ask if you can post the picture of someone else’s child before you do so. No matter how innocent it may seem to you.
Certainly I would never offer food or snacks, offer to take someone else’s child somewhere, reprimand them, etc.. without discussing it with the parents first, but at the same time, if I’m taking pictures at my child’s birthday party, I’m not going to take the time to edit all of the kids out before sharing the pictures with friends and family on my facebook page. I understand your point about the bathing suit pictures, but I can’t imagine any harm that could be posed by a picture of a fully clothed child.
Thank you for this point – I just had something similar arise, I took over 100 pictures at my son’s birthday and don’t have to time to nit pick a certain child out of every single one. Also, there are many ways to make yourself unsearchable on facebook to anyone but your facebook specific friends. Don’t take pictures at another child’s party if the party parent can’t see or use the pictures because you use them on a different site that they don’t frequent.
Im 22 yrs old. Ive had my facebook since i was 18. I recently had my son 6 months ago. I have made the decision to take it off. The reason why i took it down, is because its not private nomore, you see nude pictures, videos of people killing people, hurtful pictures, abuse of kids to animals. Everything has gone ugly in facebook, its just not the same anymore. So I talked to my son’s father (we’re not together) agreed that we both wont have a facebook, and put pictures of my baby. Unfortunately, my babys dad, didnt keep his promise, like always, and made another facebook. He has had three facebook and all three of them have been hacked, and still stubborn, makes another one, and puts nothing but pictures of me and my son, when i prohibit him of doing so. I wish i can do something about this. It boils my blood when he thinks he could whatever he wants. I need some advice, he thinks theres no bad people out there, that wont take my son’s picture or my picture and do nasty or bad things to it. In order to protect my son from pedifiles or any thing, i took all my social media websites down. Im not against it if my bbys dad wants one. Just dont put pictures of me or my son. Ugh, i just cant sleep because of this .
I totally agree with you! My boyfriend thinks it’s OK for his sister to post pictures of my babies even after I repeatedly said NO!!!! And she makes EVERYTHING public!!!! Ooooooh I just want to smack her lol and well him too!
Erika,
I agree with you 1000%. On your decision and on your point that people may not agree with it but should respect it. I have had to handle this point with friends and family members with my 8 month old. I have come to just say no, I’m sorry, he doesn’t handle fame well, lol. But the point is it is my decision for his privacy and safety and it is not to be questioned. As parents we judge ourselves so harshly and question our abilities every step of the way. We don’t need anything from outsiders except respect and support. I may not agree to happy meals, but in the grand scheme, what’s he harm? Or a later bed time, or cookies packed in lunches. But the bottom line is, unless it is truly going to cause my child harm, please respect my parenting decisions as I will respect yours, agreeing with them or not. What’s that they say about opinions? We shouldn’t have to validate our choices to have them followed or respected.
I love what you wrote – that we shouldn’t have to validate, or justify, in order for those decisions to be respected. Beautifully said. Thank you for sharing with all of us!
Hi Im wondering if anyone here, knows anything at all about the picture contracts that are signed? Or really a way to enforce them. I am a birth mother. My son is 13 months, I should have been receiving pictures and updates but they claimed I posted a picture on Facebook and that they now refuse to send pictures. The picture they are referring to, was posted right after I got out of the hospital, the papers were signed, but the picture was not theirs. And without going into detail, they waited till I was in the bathroom to take my son, our son, out of the room, and then blocked my number- I wasnt expecting that. So maybe, I was a little emotional when I posted it. But no, there was nothing negative said about them, and the picture was taken down after only a couple days. During this time, i wrote them many emails and at one point just asked if they were even listening and if they could send me a picture just to let me know they were even getting them. I didnt understand what was happening at all. And to answer any questions aboyt the agency, both me and the adoptive parents agreed they were horrible, again, I wont go into detail. But they were awful, and not helpful at any point. Heart of adoptions in Florida, stay away. Now, fast foward 3 months, i was so unbelievably excited to get pictures. Still confused on what happened, but while trying to deal with everything Id try to appreciate what theyre concerns might be or why they took him the way they did. I still have no answers. Anyway, I go to get my update and pictures, and there where no words written about my son, and there were to pictures. Neither of which where clear photos, it could have been anyones baby. I called the agency… Again they are awful, but the director did call me back, and told me that though she tried to get them to send me photos, but they said I posted a picture they sent me, and that its just their word against mine and nothing can be done. The agreement says I cannot post any pictures they send me.. They hadnt sent me that one photo yet, and that photo was never posted. Is there anyway I can prove this through facebook? Or anyway I can enforce the contract? Any ideas or information would be appreciated. Thankyou.
And Id like to take a moment and just say thankyou to any adoptive parents that appreciate and respect the birth mothers wishes for pictures. I can tell you, it hurts so greatly to be denied them. It has made everything Ive been through so much harder, and it truly is painful to know I cant see his face. Let alone wonder what this means they think of me, are going to tell him about me, and just so many other things I try not to think of. If you think the puctures you send aren’t important. Believe me, they are.
We had this issue with our stepdaughter just today…taking pics of our 2 yr old in the tub…full of bubbles, and yet, when told very clearly that we did not approve, and made it VERY clear that She did not have permission to post them on FB, she “but why not”? “Because I am his Dad, and I said so”….and that should be good enough!
Your example is precisely why I wrote this post in the first place. 🙂
Most people don’t think twice about it. There are many things in life, that we don’t think are a big deal – but someone else might.
I do not judge or fault a parent for putting their child’s photo online – I DO, however, expect that parents would be considerate of other parents.
Hi, I know this is an old blog and I dont know if you still follow it but I found it, and I’d like to add something. I am from the UK. I have recently divorced a woman who cheated on me. She has another child with the guy, and regularly puts photos of my son ( of whom I have custody) on her own Facebook page. I don’t like it, but as its HER page she has a parental right to decide what she posts. My lawyer even told me the same thing. HOWEVER!…. I have recently noticed that her boyfriend has posted photos of my son on HIS FB page, without his mother or other children being in them. I have an issue with that. His page is visible to ME as I am a FB “friend” still of my ex wife. Which suggests that his privacy settings are “friends of friends” at the very least. This disturbs me greatly, meaning that people who are not even connected to him directly can view images of my son. I have had, over the last 3 years, 2 occasions where i felt it necessary to get social services involved with regards to my son’s contact with him and my ex. One reason was that my son was exhibiting inappropriate and inexplicable sexualised behaviour. (It appears he has witnessed a sexual act, or pornography which he most certainly hasn’t seen here at home.). Secondly, the guy, who has a son of his own, had a shower with my son and his own.(age 5) Both kids reported that he had no clothes on. I made a point of stating to social services that I was NOT making any kind of accusation of abuse against him, but that that behaviour was utterly inappropriate and he was not sticking to safe boundaries with my son. He also seems to give my son a lot of attention, at the expense of his own kids. Something I have witnessed at gatherings where I have been present with my son. His own kids, (daughter 8 and son 5) were left to their own devices while mine got the attention. He touches him a lot, hair ruffling, hand holding, etc… This in and of itself raises warning flags for me. I find it extremely disturbing that he chose to post photos of my son on his personal page, instead of letting my ex wife do it on hers ( lesser of two evils). I’d appreciate your thoughts on this. Thanks
Thanks for writing in. You bring up a lot of topics relating to the new boyfriend, but for the purposes of this discussion, it’s not his choice to post the photos of your son on his page – he is not the parent. However, it’s a little muddled because you say it’s ok for his mom to post photos (even though you don’t like it).
It’s a sticky situation across the board. Does your ex know your feelings about posting pictures of him online?
I think that no authorities , administrator or government are able to stop anyone posting on sites, FB or Youtube or whatever. The internet is totally free for everywhere everyone.
Kids usually like to post lots of their own pictures or group with friends photo on line, sharing or tagging. they can have thousands of Facebook friends. Parents do not know about all and can not do anything at all. Smartphones,laptops and ipads are everywhere and anytime they just can take photo of themselves or anyone including the public.
“No privacy” will be the trend for future. How to protect the kids is a big question and tough work.
Parents should know what pictures of their minor children are being posted on the internet. Period. Parents have to monitor older children and communicate what the rules and consequences are for their family. Then follow through if the rules/trust are broken.
If you have a great picture of someones child that you want to share with them…send an email or go totally old school and print it out for them. 😉
I agree with you. I have a situation where someone was posting photographs of my daughter on FaceBook, she knows I don’t like it as we had a conversation about it, and then she subsequently “unfriended” me so now I can’t even see them. And the frustrating thing is that I can’t (according to the legalities around it that I’ve looked into) actually do anything about it. I think that is wrong and not OK. As my child’s parent, I should be able to get photos of her removed from Facebook. I don’t even have photos of her on there.
Actually you can do something about it. Facebook has an option, though hidden, that allows you to ask them to remove pictures of your children if they are under the age of 13. I have been having the same problems with people posting pictures of my 4 month old son and then finding them on other peoples pages. It does take time and I am still waiting for it to be taken care of.
Here is the link for pictures:
http://www.facebook.com/help/contact/?id=181623015268436
Mike, thanks for your information. Sorry that you are having a similar situation!
Unfortunately, I am familiar with that option and here is why I personally cannot use this method (though thank you for posting this because there ARE others reading this who CAN use this method).
In my case,there are hundreds of photos of my daughter on this one person’s page, and FB makes you submit a separate request for each photo. Which I would definitely do, even though it is time consuming. The reason I cannot actually do this is because immediately after having a conversation with the person who was posting photos of my daughter on her FB account, she unfriended me and now I cannot get the URLs of each of those images.
I have submitted a question to Facebook tech support about this issue, and of course have never heard back. I personally think that all of those “requests” or “questions just go into a big black hole over there.
Thanks again for posting your comment – I know it will be helpful to the many readers I get to this site who are searching this topic online.
I am having the same issue with Facebook photos of my son. To me it is a matter of privacy and rights of my child or any child. I think a parent should ALWAYS be asked before posting pics of their child as well as the child in the photo. Mine lets me know what photos he does not want posted or shared before I do so. When someone uses the photos anyway he gets the feeling his choices do not matter. I hate when he feels that way.
We did send, at my son’s request, the removal request in for a child under 13 and one out of 7 images were removed. Since then, the person has started leaving public comments about us on his page (which are promptly reported) and has moved all the photos to friends only so we cannot report them. He says he will not remove the photos though. I cannot find anything to assist us in removing them. I have found laws regarding copyright infringement of minors because of the lack of permission but the photos are still there. If anyone has any ideas i would appreciate it.
So sorry that you also are facing this. People need to speak up to Facebook about this idea because there is no way to contact them, communicate with them (other than sending a message but none I’ve sent to them ever get a response).
I can’t tell you how many visitors find my site because they are searching for this exact topic – so we are not alone. Maybe we can start a movement?? 🙂
Keep us posted on if you are able to get any resolution on this – many of our readers would benefit greatly.
Ive tired this with no avail for a year now. Facebook will not remove them. My brother posted it and will not remove it cause he thinks thats stupid of me to care.
Hi Erica, I’m a journalist writing a story about this issue…if you would be able to talk with me about it briefly would you mind emailing? You can reach me at youthradio@youthradio.org and put “for Turnstyle” in the subject line.
I totally agree… I am in your same shoes… A woman named Sheri is posting pictures of my kids on her facebook. I feel it is totally out of place.
I believe only the parents should have that right. My childs stepmother is using my daughters image as her public profile picture. I dont find it appropriate she is only 9.
I am having problems with the other parents gf posting pictures of my minor children on fb. I never gave permission and I do not want them on there since I know the other parent and his gf have at least one friend who is a sex offender. They also tag my children (put their names on everything since my kids don’t have fb) in photos and where they are. This is a huge problem and i think they should have to have the custodial parents permission in some circumstances. I only post pictures of family who have told me it was ok, if they ask me not to I don’t. I also have a family who will ask my permission before posting. I also think fb should take the option of saving a photo off. That means all the crazy ppl the other side has on their fb can in fact save the pics of my kids to theit own computer.
This came in from a reader who wanted to remain anonymous….due to her profession.
I am a child and family counselor and cannot believe anyone puts pictures of their children on facebook. As a parent myself I encourage you to speak up with your friends and even (gasp) leave facebook, blogs, etc. if you have to in order to protect your kids and their images. Imagine a darling girl whose proud mother posted her picture on facebook, on her blog, and on her business website. Four years later the popular girl turns 13, gets her own account, increases her time on the net, as do her friends and peers. One “friend” (ie middle school boy) finds a picture of her on a very questionable/horrible online site advertising young girls. That’s when I get to meet this 13 year old girl in my office as she deals with the fallout of having her childhood picture emailed and printed and passed around that would seem to indicate as a younger girl, she provided various services to people looking for girls on the net. Horrible. All someone had to do was drag her picture because she was so cute, save it, and use it for their own purposes. Protect your kids. Resist the urge to “show them off.” Share photos privately over email if you have to.
I agree totally with ERICA, we have our granddaughter in our care, whom we have a residency order for, she has been with us since birth, her mum never regularly attends contact (0nly 7 times a year). she has put numerous photographs of our granddaughter on facebook, even though she has parental responsibility so do we, if not a bit more as her main carers as our granddaughter resides with us. She has some friends who have been section 1 sex offenders, so by putting any photos of our granddaughter, may be putting her at risk? I personally think that if you cannot join a certain social networking site, such as FACEBOOK, until you reach 13, then there should be no photos of any child allowed whatsoever until at least that age? In saying that my oppinion for any safety of any given child is paramount to their safety and wellbeing, and not being put into harms way by means of pervs who scour socail networking sites to fulfil their fetishes or worse? Any good parent would put their children first and foremost? If friends or family want to see photographs of their children, then get them to visit or send photographs via email. Once a photograph has been posted onto FACEBOOK, it gives them the right toi do whatever they want with it, including advertising on bill boards etc etc. Even if you delete the photo from your facebook it still remains on the FACEBOOK servers, this is all writtten in the smallprint that nobody reads but just ticks the box to accept terms of agreement. This happened to a family from America who went on holiday to Spain, only to discover that a photograph of her family had been plasterd all over billboards and are being used by an advertising company. The family seeked legal advice over this discovery that had outraged them as they were not contacted by FACEBOOK for permission to do so, on seeing an Attorney they were told, that there is nothing they can do as FACEBOOK has done nothing wrong, because you gave them permission to do so, once you tick that box that states you accept the TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
To the child and family counselor: May I copy and paste your comments on MY FB page? I see so many photos of children & grandchildren — to include my own grandchildren ! I hate to shut down a piece of such communication, but I can sure see YOUR point so well !! Thank you !
The family counselor has not posted their name for privacy reasons. As that person posted here for the purposes of helping, I think it would be OK if you linked to this post so others could read it here, where it was given consent to publish. Hope this helps!
For my wife and I it is even more difficult, because we are not on any social media. So when people come to our house and take pictures of the combined children playing together, and post them on facebook, we often don’t know about it until someone tells us. At that point we usually contact the “poster” and ask them to remove them. They almost always comply, that I know of, however it is VERY frustrating that people don’t have the common decency you would expect. The truth is, you own all rights to your own image, and you minor children’s images. But until someone takes someone else to court over this its probably not going to change.
Actually, when a person takes a photo of you, that photo belongs to them. Anyone can post an image of you or your child. The distinction of image rights comes into play if the photo of you or your child is being used for commercial purposes without your permission.
That’s untrue. A private person owns all rights to their own image. Unlese you’re a “public persona” as any celebrity, you have all rights to your image, and all rights to ask it to be taken down. The image of a public persona is public, they can be posted, bullied, harrassed and otherwise invaded without or little consequences on any offendors part. But a private person is a provate person and so are their children.
I’m ok with it to an extent … I took my children to a friends birthday party, later that evening I saw my children on FB along with all the other children gathered around a birthday cake. I’m ok with that. Tonight, however, I just about blew my top! My children are adopted, in a sealed adoption. (They are mine biologically, but my husbands by adoption.) This means that once they were adopted, all record of them ever being born to any one else was court ordered to be sealed, forever. I have been given the only copy of the adoption papers, the court is legally bound not to release them to anyone else. We were issued new birth certificates, stating my husband and I as the BIRTH parents. (The original birth certificates have also been sealed) Of course, before the adoption, the biologial father had pictures of my children. I looked at his FB page tonight and he has pictures that he stole from my page of my children … I didn’t have my provacy settings right! Well, he is blocked from my FB now … but he has already stolen my pics … and he is posting them on his page as HIS children. To go a step further his GIRLFRIEND is now posting a picture HER FB page stating that he is thier father! (Um legally he is NOT!) and she put comments about how much she (new GF) loves her (My daugher!) and how she wants to squeeze her, oxox, etc. CREEPY!!!! I sent FB a report on the photo and they refused to delete the pic so I juse now sent a LONG and STRONGLY worded letter stating how they WERE going to delete it! Seriously – I’m angry as a mamma bear right now! MAYBE posting a pic of someone kids isn’t the end of the world … but posting a pic of someones kid …. and claiming that they are YOURS! NOT OK!!!!!
I’ll add that the adoption was closed, sealed, legal and final … the Bio father has not seen the children since then. (So the GF “loving her so much … etc” is just creepy! She has never seen met me, or my children.)
In Final sealed adoption papers it states that the biological parent that is terminating their rights must turn over any and all documents pictures and personal belongings that go to the child at that point they are no longer their parent and im having the same issue. It is in the order and still nothing is done. I was told I could go to court and ask that the ex parent be ordered to not post pictures and return all they do have but that cost money of course that comes out of my pocket.
Wow, I am SO sorry that you are going through this! I cannot imagine the frustration and the mama bear energy that you must be feeling right now.
I can’t tell you how many people are finding my web site BECAUSE OF THIS ISSUE. Clearly, the implications of technology being adopted so fast without thinking of the long term consequences are just wrong.
The worst part about it is that there is nothing really being done about it. What I have a very hard time with is that I have never heard of anyone who has reached out to FB, with a concern, or a situation, who has actually gotten a RESPONSE.
As conscious parents, we know that love, kindness, and alignment are FAR more powerful forces than jealousy, negativity, and injustice. As hard as it is to know that their bio dad is doing this….just know that you are their rock, their compass, their mom. Continue to do what you can do for them, and know that in the end, your loving guidance will matter far more than what he does. Remember, children sense energy so if you are conflicted, they will feel it. Try to find some peace with the situation and just love all over your precious little ones.
Hugs,
Erika
There is a young girl posting pictures that she takes of my dining her page by taking the pics with her cell phone….I WANT THeM taken off!!!!!!!!
I have another concern, my childs old dance school have a load of pictures that they have posted on line, naming the children and most in their leotards from ages of 1 to 16, I thought that under safeguarding rules this was not permitted, that no identifying text such as names and likes etc should be shown as it could be used for grooming and that it should be behind a fire wall but this doens’t seem to be the case and the teacher refused to discuss it or take down the images, the same is true for the FB page which as a page means that there is no security at all over who sees the pictures.
does anyone have any idea how I can at least force the hand to getting the pictures behind a login? I don’t know if it can be reported as a safeguarding issue but i know at least 3 of the children pictured are classed as ‘vunerable’ and it does concern me as 1 is a victim of abuse and gets upset that her abuser can see the pictures 🙁
That is REALLY strange that they put the child’s name?? My daughter dances and we sign releases for the possibility of photos being posted somewhere but they would never put the child’s name anywhere??
I am tired of my daughters cousins taking pictures of her and putting them on facebook without my permission. I have told them time and time again I do not want her on there. I do not even have her on there because she is 6 years old. They have so many friends on their page that they do not know, they are teenagers. Just because they own the iphones I still don’t think that is right for them to be able to take pictures and post them everywhere on instagram ,tumblr, and facebook. There parents will not tell them to stop and I am furious. I told them if they want to take pictures they can send email of picture not post it everywhere. How can I get every one of these pictures taken down and kept from anymore coming up since no adults will help me on this situation.
I also want to point out that her cousins have a lot of friends on their facebook pages that they do not know and you never know who is a pedophile. I don’t think young children should be on facebook period!
Cute picture and lovley name! 🙂 We’re due in 10 days and if we have a girl her name will be Lucia also (named after 5 generations of the name in our family). Although, I’m curious how you pronounce your Lucia’s name and if you have trouble with others pronouncing it differently?
Our daughter attends Montessori school, she is 3.5 year old. The class teacher promised us some pictures reflecting the kid’s progress at the end of every week. We said ok , as we signed a waiver for the school and its staff to take pictures of kids for school and school related purposes.
The first horror starts….
A few weeks into the School year, the teacher (in fact a volunteer for the class), started a group on Shutterfly to upload and share pictures which the teacher takes every week. We were not comfortable with that and requested the teacher to send us the pictures via email and not on shutterfly,as was told to us at the beginning of the school year. She never responds to us when we ask her if my kid’s pictures are getting posted on Shutterfly. She says we have to be “extremely patient”, there is no explanation as to what is happening and why we should e patient.
Three weeks back we came to know that the volunteer(who is yet another parent and not a school staff) gets to keep the disk with kids pictures(including my kid’s pictures) with her , take the disk home and download them to her personal computer, we came to know that she is the one who uploads them to Shutterfly. We were not comfortable with this whole process. Can the School allow this legally? We raised this point with the teacher and she is silent, even the management is keeping silent. We come from a different nationality and new to the School system here ,can you tell us if School can allow any other parent to take pictures of any kid and take them to their home without prior permission.
Then the next horror starts……
No permission slips were sent before one of the volunteers working for the class has invited(via email) all the parents to come for some activity on dec 14th with their cameras. We got concerned as other parents can take our daughter’s pictures and post them to some sites that we do not approve of or even distribute them to inappropriate people. Even if we trust all parents, how can we trust all the people they add on to their facebook or similar sites, who can see my daughter’s pictures. We raised this point with all the parents in the class as the volunteer sent the email to all parents siging it off on behalf of all parents. As we are one of the parents and because we can not approve of this, I emailed to all the parents saying that we do not approve pictures of my kid taken y other parents without prior permission.
Many parents in the class approve of personal cameras in the class, they say they want to make memories. we also want to make memories, but we can not allow what the school is doing unless it is her teacher or some other staff and unless such pictures are managed carefully. Some parents started accusing us personally suggesting that we do not participate in all/some of the activities so we should not question anything that is happening in the class, they even suggested us to leave the school. they think that we have some ulterior motives in raising a concern but our point is our kid’s safety and a right to privacy from other parents, after all the School does not screen all the parents right? We chose the school because of the academic curriculum not to help make other parents make their memories at the cost of my kid’s safety. We are victims of Internet and for us the risks are real and I feel that I have a right to chose privacy for my minor child.I
Please can you let us know we are correct in our standing and if we approach a legal person in this case.
any help on this matter would be very much appreciated.
Thank you for your time.
It sounds as though you have had a rough go at it! I am not a lawyer so I cannot advise you about the legalities of it. We are in unchartered territory here in terms of having real precedence in these matters, and that is why this is so important for parents to fight for what they believe is in the best interest of their child. And no parent should be forced to just “go along” because other parents do. Whether it be junk food in the classroom, served to children without notification to the parents, or whether it be taking and posting photos of someone else’s child, the idea is the same. It’s not up to us to make that choice for another person. End of conversation. It sounds as though your school is not taking any authoritative or responsive steps, and that sounds problematic to me. I wish you the best of luck in your circumstance, and please keep us posted. I know many parents would benefit from learning what you did to make it right.
My brother posted pictures of my baby on FB and refuses to remove them.
Since it seems this is an issue faced by other parents, can we band together and file some sort of class action suit? I know they are being sued for using user photos without permission to sell products. There must be a way to prevent the publication of our children’s images in order to protect their right to privacy.
Thanks for writing this! My in-laws do this with my child, and it absolutely BUGS me! When she was born they had an entire album for her already. Did they not see I hadn’t even posted ONE picture? I still haven’t, but for some reason, they feel they should share for me. A few of my siblings post one occasionally, but they ask me before. Because they seldom ask, since they know how I feel about it, I allow it every now and then. Again, thanks for assuring me that I’m not the only one feeling this way.
Hi, I am having the same situation for over a year! I have made it very clear to a few family members that I DO NOT want my daughters pictures up on their Facebook. So one of them defriended and continues to post my daughters pictures. And now since they are not my friends, Facebook will not take them down! Something has to be done since it is a violation. I’m thinking its only a matter of time before a lawsuit is filed! How is it possible that others can post pictures of a minor and it be allowable! What happened to child endangerment. As a parent you don’t know who these people’s friends are!
Ok I realize I’m late to the party with the comments but I was wondering if I could get some insight. First, I do not have kids of my own but have some friends that do. Recently, I overheard my g/f talk to a sibling who has a 2 year old child about their toddlers experience with their cat. They had some laughs about it and moved on in the conversation.
The next day I noticed a friend of mine (who has posted hundreds of pictures along with several videos of her 1 year old and also has her facebook profile picture set to that of her child) posted a cute picture of her child with their cat. Thinking nothing of it I decided to post this picture to my girlfriend (I did not tag the child) and thought this would brighten up her day to see this. A short time after posting it the child’s mom posted a comment on the picutre asking why I was posting pictures of her son. Followed shortly by a tirade on her news feed lamenting that Facebook didn’t seem to have any security about who gets to share one’s photos with the rest of the world and how it’s so sad people lack the decency to ask before doing so. Realizing that I had offended her I immediately removed the picture from my friend’s wall.
So now I sit corrected and please take a lesson from me. For those of you who are parents this may well be common knowledge but for those parents who have friends with no kids, it may be a good time to post that photos of your kids should not be posted without asking for your permission first. As well, be sure to check your FB’s security settings and ensure that your photos can only be seen by “friends” instead of “friends of friends” or “everyone”. As one who committed the faux pas discussed in this article, the last thing I ever wanted to do was hurt or offend anyone by doing this and I’m guessing your friends who may have done so unbeknownst to your feelings may well agree with me on that.
Thank you for sharing your experience and story. I know so many people do things unknowingly, and you realized afterwards what you did and you corrected the situation. Part of my writing this post was to talk about the idea that as conscious parents, we do want to think about these things before we do them, and sometimes we’ll still do things. Myself included. 🙂 And your point about someone not being a parent does certainly add to the not knowing, and yours was an innocent mistake.
What prompted me to write this, and what so many others have chimed in on here, is the blatant disregard for the parents’ wishes, and Facebook’s lack of follow through on how to handle this significant problem they have with their community. I know in my case, the person who posted the hundreds of pictures of my daughter, knows I wanted them removed, and rather than remove them, she unfriended me so that I can’t see them. Yet I still see the pics as we have common friends and they show up in my feed.
Thank you again for sharing your story, as it’s important people realize the innocent mistakes, and you are a great example of someone making it right once you realized what happened. 🙂
And I also wanted to add that the person who “yelled” at you as a result, would have been better served to address you personally. I have a big problem with the bold meanness of many people over social media. Even those I am friends with, I have seen new sides of them since social media has become such a daily part of our lives. And I don’t like it.
(I did another post about that by the way…)
Decency goes both ways – assume no mal-intent, approach the person directly, and then speak kindly and truthfully. No need to be mean just because you are hiding behind your computer. People can still “see” you.
Some Guy,
You are definitely not part of the problem described here. The person who ‘called you out’ had already posted pictures of her own child in a public forum. You just thought it was cute and re posted it which I think a lot of parents like because it gives them bragging rights for their kids. You took it down immediately and that shows that your intentions are good and you’re not part of the problem.
The problem we’re talking about is people who just show up, take a picture of your kid, and post it with no permission at all, sometimes even with names and locations. THEN, when asked to correct it, they don’t. THAT is the crazy problem here.
Thanks for sharing your experience.
I have been dealing with this issue as well.we just found out my ex husbands girlfriend of 3 months is now his wife. My daughter did not know her pictures were plastered all over FB and instagram. SHe asked her father who by the way does not have any sort of custody of her and a violent man at that….to please have them taken off. His reply was no its the internet its public to which she replied exactly why I want them off. He refused so she nicely asked this woman to remove them. She told her absolutely not and you cant make me. My daughter is 14 so the child under 13 rule does not apply to her. So now my daughter has reported all the photos of her on the page but instagram i cant find any way to report or remove them, This invades my daughters privacy. I am at a loss of how to fix this problem.
Yes, this is a big problem, that I keep getting many people writing to me about. I wish I had a solution. I believe Facebook needs to change the way they handle this, communicate about it, and actually help the parents who are having challenges such as all the ones that have been detailed here. I’m finding this page is becoming a huge collection of examples of people who are stuck, wanting to get help, with nothing but crickets chirping as a response from Facebook, and the other companies as well.
I’m having the same problem i don’t get along with my family and they posy pictures of me I’ve asked then to take then down they said no i would have to hire a lawyer first so i told Facebook the said it did not violate anything that they are posting my pictures i want my pictures off of Facebook the family members blocked me that don’t help the pictures are still online i just want them taken offline is there nothing i can do i don’t want to have to get a lawyer
I put photos of my baby daughter on both Facebook and Instagram but I keep both private so I get to choose who in my life gets to see them. Her dad isn’t involved but a mutual friend sent him pictures of her and he posted them all over his not private Facebook and Instagram, openly admitting his fatherhood (after 2 months) I’m kind of not sure what to do. Thinking I could have a private Facebook and limit the audience of her photos backfired. I guess just learn my lesson.
I am having the Facebook nightmare. I have 2 adopted children who are now 13 & 15. The older is autistic & has a severe seizure disorder called Lennox Gestaut. Thanks to Facebook, he has been contacted by his biological parents (who are not even together), & that set the foundation for secret meetings, telling lies, re-inventing the past. My husband passed away a few years ago form ALS as a result of Gulf War Syndrome. The kids now receive a fairly The the older younger child is not easily influenced, & they haven’t had much effect on him. However, they have convinced my 15 yr old that it is the medicine I give him for his seizures that MAKE HIM HAVE THE SEIZURES, & now, he has started stealing money from me, because he has been told that is HIS money…all because of Facebook. The birth mother has created a page, in which she claims “her son” has been illegally taken & is in the custody of an unstable woman who abuses him & subjects him to all kinds of maltreatment. She claims I am a drug addict, sex offender, kidnapper…you name it. She asks everyone to do a specific thing & take a picture of it to post on this page to see how many prayers & good thoughts will come his way. I now receive hate mail, death threats, all kinds of harassment & have even see threads (sent to me by other people who can see the page) of conversations from total strangers, some not even in this country, who want to know what they can do to help, or where we live & where he goes to school, does anyone pick him up, …people are talking about KIDNAPPING MY SON!!! What does Facebook do? Absolutely NOTHING. I can’t even contact them to tell them this is happening
So I did the only thing I could think of at the moment, & posted the guardianship papers she signed when SHE gave us the kids in 1999, when one was 20 months old & “Unborn Baby”, & the signed Irrevocable Consent to Adopt she & the birth father signed when, after 6 years, they both decided they liked their lives without the burden of children, & went their separate ways permanently. Now they both have Facebook pages where they have attacked me, my morals, my integrity, my motives (“Kids are just PAYCHECKS to her”..my husband DIED & that’s why they receive that money, it isn’t welfare or public money). But somehow, she has managed to get MY Facebook page shut down for violating HER privacy. She continues to post pictures of my kids, claiming herself as their mother, & continues the contact with them. So does he. He claims I am crazy & drug addicted, even wrote a death threat so horrifying it makes my skin crawl. I reported all of it, to no avail. No response. At al. She gets MY page shut down for posting truth, & I can’t do anything at all about her insane lies & the page she has up that is fake or scam or something, & he continues to post lies & rumors & generate an awful lot of hate toward me from total strangers who want to do harm to me. Law enforcement is no help with Facebook…most of them don’t even know how to work with Facebook. This is nuts. I feel like I am definitely in danger, & my kids maybe in danger of kidnappers who THINK they are saving them…their pictures are wallpapered all over Facebook as a result of her desperate pleas to help her get them away from me. And not a single word of any of it is true or accurate!
You may want to speak to a lawyer. This is defamation of character.
I also have a suggestion to you folks. Why don’t you get the *$#&! off of Facebook?
Unfortunately, I think the challenge is that even if these people were to get off of Facebook, it would do nothing to stop other people from posting pictures of their children without their permission.
Erika,
Thanks for starting this very important discussion. I love your blog!
When my daughter was first born, I sent emails to a select group of people with pictures I wanted to share with them. This was really before FB became popular. Well, sure enough my pushy sister saved them and posted them on her FB page. There I am in my hospital gown for all her friends to see! Needless to say, I stopped sending electronic pictures about four years ago. I don’t have a FB page either. I don’t see her in person very often so she doesn’t get the chance to take her ‘own’ pictures. But this whole discussion here is showing how little control we have over the situation.
I mean, seriously, do we just send our kids out in ski masks? WTF?
Thanks for letting us all vent and know that we’re not alone. I’m so tired of people reacting with “what are you hiding from?” I just want to scream!!!!
Thanks, Betsy, for your comment. I wish more parents just realized that we don’t all feel the same way, and it’s OK – but it’s not up to us to make those decisions for other people. As conscious parents, it’s important that we have conversations with our children about listening to their inner guidance system – their gut instincts, etc. For example, I never made my daughter say hi, or hug someone she didn’t feel right about – she would sense their energy and immediately pull back from the person and I never made her wrong for doing that. I wanted her to learn to honor her instinct as it would be a great tool for her in her life when it comes to being safe, etc. In fact, it’s something I covered in my recent webinar because it’s such a vital piece to raising self-assured children.
I am also having a problem with facebook. I was engaged to my daughters dad and I thankfully ended it. He is very manipulative, verbally,emotionally, physically aggressive. He has post on facebook that our daughter health and safety are in jeopardy and needs ppl to send money to his lawyer. When we go to court he posts total lies about me, names the lawyers and judges who continue to rule against him calls them liars, idiots, stupid on fb. He has posted naked pictures of our daughter, hundreds of pictures, pictures of me, my son and he has been told to remove them. I do have full custody of her. He has had ppl offer him the use of their rifle to kill me, hiring a hitman and nothing has changed. His family are bad at posting all the pics. When I speak to the lawyer he says they can’t post them, but it continues. The police tell me its not safe to have posted which I agree. I don’t have any pics on my fb page. I have reported pics and nothing happens by facebook. I do not feel safe with all the lies and hate he has posted and so many stupid ppl believe him. He and his sister have about 2000 ppl on their sites not including friends friends. I need help to change this too
I have been fighting with family members for years about posting pictures of my kids online, I dont do the online picture thing, I send picture via mail or email that is it. I know that there are some very troubling people out there that is very sick mentally and whenever I bring this up Im told im too young to be so old fashion that I need to get with the times, well recently my kindergartener had a play at school and not even 3 hours later there were parents posting pictures on fb of the class photo that they had taken with their phone while at the play, I feel if you want to take pics of your child and put online that is your right but you should not be able to post pics of other people children, not to mention im not on fb or any other social networking site so the only way i know is that people who have fb was showing me the pics or calliing me and telling me how they saw the picture being posted my many parents that were there. really it shouldnt take something happening before something is done about this i personally feel that no pictures of any minor children should be allowed online by anyone but hey you cant take away someone else right to freedom you just get to have yours taken away because you think differently than the majority.
Hi everyone, I am having the same problem now with in laws posting photos of my daughters on instagram and my husband had them reported and Facebook and instagram removed them without fuss but it doesn’t stop persons re uploading photos. So I sought legal advice and though it’s a fine line they told me that we as her parents have the rights to any photo used of our children and those who use it must request permission or it can become a severe legal matter. It’s an offensive for people to use photos without permission, so we are having a cease and desist letter to tell them to stop using their photos and respect our wishes.
Thank you for sharing your experience and what you are doing to fight this. We are eager to hear how it all goes for you, and are sending lots of support your way!
Please keep us posted on what happens, and the process so all these people who come to this page can benefit.
in gratitude,
Erika
I’m trying to serve a cease and desist on someone as well. Did you write it yourself or get help from an attorney? If you wrote it yourself, did you find a template online? I saw a few but nothing as far as for someone posting pictures of my child.. Any help or advice would be sooo much appreciated!!
Hi Everyone!
I seem to be a little late replying to this post, but in my defense, today was the first time I found it! And boy am I oh so happy I did! I too have been going through this Facebook nightmare for almost a year.
As I sat here and read through all of your stories, I kept saying to myself “Boy can I relate!”
My problem started last August, right before I had my little girl. I specifically told everyone in the delivery room that I DID NOT want any pictures posted onto Facebook and my aunt relayed the message to my daughter’s dad’s family. It wasn’t until the day I brought my daughter home that I discovered pictures of her. She was completely naked and vulnerable. Right away I demanded the pictures get taken off, but her dad’s family (his sister to be more specific) refused. She yelled at me, so I decided to take matters into my own hands.
I used the picture link, followed all the steps, and about 2 weeks later, finally got a response from Facebook. I did experience a few set backs, such as, I didn’t have the exact URL for the pictures, but since it was the only baby pictures posted that day I seriously thought Facebook would be able to figure it out, but I guess not. Anyway, after they “supposedly” removed my daughter’s pictures, I received a very angry phone call from my daughter’s dad’s sister and she went on and on about how she has every right to put up those pictures and how she’ll just do it again and I said then I’ll just keep reporting you. My argument, which to this day, I still believe is a very valid argument, is that she’s not the parent to my daughter. Her dad and I are. Him and I both had agreed that NO pictures whatsoever would be posted on Facebook. We don’t even have pictures of her on our pages. She did it without our permission and didn’t even bother to “tag” us, not that that would have made a difference. I would think that if we posted naked pictures of her kids all over Facebook for our friends to see she would be extremely upset. How can she not know that it’s beyond wrong to do such a thing???
So fast forward 9 months later and something in the back of my mind told me to double check to see if the pictures were really gone, so I looked on Facebook again. I scroll to August and sure enough there they are. Plain as day.
Now I can’t help but wonder did Facebook ever remove them, or did she just put them back up??
Also, what should be my next plan of action?? Do I report her again to Facebook (although I think I know where that will lead) or should I take it a step further and report her to the police?? Although I’m not sure what they could do??
Now because of her, I have major trust issues when it comes to my daughter’s pictures. I’m very hesitant to give my own family pictures, even though I know that they know better than to post them on Facebook, but there’s still that thought.
Hi, I am totally uncomfortable with my daughters picture being on f b, at every party, christening, get together etc I make sure I say that I don’t want her picture on. People think I’m mad…. its so normal to just snap a picture of their kid in the bath… and then …. straight on Fb. Strange world we live in when a child has no privacy at all! Any way I work at a school , which in september she will be starting. Well, recently I’ve noticed parents have full classes of kids videos on fb, I can’t find a policy for this, but there must be some rules? I really don’t want my child on fb, but does that mean she should have to miss the class assembly? Or the sports day? I need a solution. I’m shocked at all the responses… thought I was on my own! X
Thank you for bringing this up! It is a constant frustration and my daughter is now 15 and we are still always fighting it. Another question maybe someone can help with. My daughter attends a convention for one of her interests and they insist on name badges with their full first and last name. I think this is terrible- we have a very unusual last name and someone could easily track her down by knowing her last name. Does anyone know of there is any law about this or do we have to go along with it or not attend?
Hi Mary,
I would give a false last name for your daughter. Or, bring some tape and cover it as soon as it’s issued. Once it’s around her neck they will hard pressed to do anything about it and, if they do, then sadly you should just leave.
I feel your pain 🙂
You folks might want to look into the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, which the FTC enforces. I don’t know if it would apply to simply posting pictures online. Also check out EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center), http://epic.org/privacy/kids/ and other such organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation.
Thank you for posting this information….I know many people here will do just that. 🙂
Has anyone actually had success at having pictures removed from fb? I reported pictures (as a parent of a child under 13) but they’re still up. How long does it take? Why can’t people respect that not everyone wants their children’s pictures out there for the world to see! Thanks
I am in the same situation as most of you. When I bring my kid to gatherings with other parents who have a kid of about the same age group, many of the parents take photos and post them on FB as soon as they got home from the gathering. A lot of times I ended up seeing my kid’s pictures on their FB site, along with other kids at the gathering. It seems that I am the only one who dislike the idea of posting kids photos on FB. I do not know how to voice this issue to the other parents, fearing that they might not invite me to their gatherings in the future. To be honest, I enjoy those gatherings as it allows my kid to be social and play with other kids of the same age group; at the same time I enjoy the gathering time with the other parents. But because of this fear, I recently skipped a few gatherings even though I wanted to attend. I made up excuses such as I have a cold, or I have other plans that day, etc, just to avoid going to those gatherings for fear of others posting my kid’s pictures on FB.
Secondly, I have the same problems with my in-laws. My mother-in-law takes pictures of my kid every time she sees us about every two weeks. I think she already has over 100 photos of my kid since birth. She takes them with her cellphone and I have no control whatsoever of what she’s gonna do with those pictures. My sister-in-law lives in another country and she would always ask to see photos of my kid. I suspect my mother-in-law has already sent of tons of pictures. I really do not like this idea because it is MY kid and I hate it when MY kid’s photos are being circulated without my control. My sister-in-law came a few months ago and took TONS of photos when my kid was born. I have no idea what kind of pictures she has of my kid as she took them with her own camera and I never get to see those pictures. I learned recently that she printed out a whole album and mailed it to her grandfather and my mother-in-law without me nor my husband knowing. How come we, as the parents, are the last person to know that the album is being circulated??? I am really frustrated about this. I personally think that my sister-in-law shouldn’t have distributed photos of my kid without both of my and my husband’s consent. Now, she is coming to this country visit again in a few months, and for sure she would take lots of pictures of my kid again. How can I prevent them from taking pictures of my kid??? A few pictures is ok but she is the type of person who would take over 100+ pictures of my kid when she comes. and I have no control whatsoever as to what she will do with those pictures.. If you have any solutions… please let me know…
I have argued with my husband over this issues lots of times but he doesn’t seem to find it a problem… I feel to the point that I get depressed because of this.
I am having problems with my child’s birth mom. What makes it more complicated is that she is my husbands great niece. We have not spoken or had contact with any of his family for years. My adopted son suffered years of abuse at the hands of his drug addicted birth mom as well as many foster parents. He is diagnosed as Emotionally disturbed, as well as having PTSD and R.A.D. His birth mom found a picture of him (by searching our local news papers) and posted it as her profile picture on Fb. We jumped through hoops and Fb did have the picture removed but not before my son saw it. He himself does not have Fb, but he was trying to find his brother who was adopted also. His birth mom has used a combo of her childrens adopted families last names soo …. bingo her page came up. (this was done on the bus with a friends phone). We had to pick him up from school with because of a mental breakdown. She now has started posting publicly on Fb on my sons birthday as well as some random posts. He knows they are towards him because she uses his first name and age. His grades drop, he has breakdowns, and starts having behavioral issues as well as being afraid to fall asleep and is always looking over his shoulder. He has begged us to please find a way to ask her to stop until he is an adult and decides himself to reach out to her when he is healed and strong enough. He said he doesn’t want to look but he gets curious sometimes. He feels that she should know better because she is an adult. We contacted her by message and in return received a message from her that she will NEVER stop posting publicly about him. We have tried everything we can to stop her, but the law appears to be on her side. Unless she posts that she is going to cause him physical harm there is nothing we can do. It makes me sick to my stomach. I wish law makers could address this topic of social media when it comes to children. I still see it as abuse!! Why is there no way to stop these selfish people whose rights have been taken away for a reason? I wish she could feel the pain she causes. Thank you for this site. I wish it hadn’t taken me so long to find it.
Similar like comments from ‘Some Guy’, at the swimming class of my daughter, yesterday My friend and i took photos of the coach’s cute baby. Im a mother, and im sorry i was being insensitive, but Im not sure I knew. part of me thinking its ok part of me was just not knowing, thats all. I did ask her nanny if it was ok, and she said it was ok. But after taking several photos, my friend was yelled at (i dont know why not to me) for a at by the coach from the swimming pool, and it was so awkward when she jumped up from the pool and keep yelling for her to delete it and she wants to see them deleted. Truth be told, f she thinks her daughter is so confidential, we should also not allow her to see our phone as it could be personal too. But it was so embarrassing there were so many ppl looking at us. I feel so embarrassed and I just couldnt sleep thinking abt it. Sometimes I wonder, if it was the first lady taking photo of her kid, would she yell too or would she just let it happen??
So I googled and came across your website and what parents think about that. Fine, now I understand and Im not going to argue why because I can understand. But I really feel theres always a way to tell people not to take photo of your kid. Because as much as u dont approve, when ppl take photo of your kid, quite often than not, people dont mean any harm, and its only because u have the cutest kid in the whole wide world. If someone had to jeopardise that photo, then its so unfortunate, but please, understand how we feel too. There is a nicer way and and not make people lose face even on private, please dont be too mean.
This is why this topic of FB pictures of children that aren’t ours is a GREAT one to talk about conscious parenting. Most people would think it not a problem to post pics (everyone does it, right?) but some parents don’t want that, and therefore we should think about our actions in this way.
Sorry that woman handled it the way she did….there are MANY people like you who aren’t intending anything negative in their taking pictures of cute children….and like I said, this post was less about whether it was OK to do that, and just more about how we should think about things a little differently.
Thanks for your input!
Interesting topic, what is stunning is that some tend to be exaggerate the interpretation of privacy.
A parent in my children school has requested that her children picture not be used by school to be published. Our school does refused to give a class picture because of this reason. Next year, I will make sure I have a request that my child should not be in the same class as neither one of these children.
So true not everyone wants there kids plaster all over the web not only for saftey resons but the child should have the right to their own privacy and if they are unable to make the most correct choice it should go to the parents and NO ONE else. I can’t believe there are so many that just don’t care and have no respect for what the child or parent wishes are but are the first ones to belly ache when it’s a picture of them people have lost all respect and morals for others and is very sad….
I’m so glad to find this thread and see that I’m not the only one! I also feel for each and every commenter here, and I know some are facing some unique situations. I wish them well.
I’ve learned a few things over the years about this. I don’t want any pictures of my child on the internet, but I’ve changed my approach considerably. I’ve learned:
-If I want people to respect my choices, I must respect theirs. This means approaching the subject carefully (but firmly) and without judgment (i.e. don’t approach with ‘all this internet posting is CRAZY!, even if that’s how you feel 🙂 I always start with “I know I’m outside the norm here, but I need your help. We don’t want pictures of Susie on the internet, and that includes Facebook.”
-If pressed, it’s been helpful to make FB (or Instagram, or whatever) the bad guy, as in “Well, I just don’t trust the company. They change their policies too often, and once its out there it’s too difficult to control.”
-I often joke or keep it lighthearted (as appropriate), as in “Well, you never know, we could be in the Witness Protection Program” *wink* Believe it or not, that’s been the most effective so far!
-I always give people the benefit of the doubt (even the crazy ones!). Even though, in my mind, I’m not out of line or asking for anything special, unfortunately, that is how people see it. It’s taken me a long time to learn this. So instead of demanding a removal, I approach it as if I’m asking for a favor, like driving me to the airport. “Look, I know this might be a pain, but I really need your help. Can you please take down the pictures of Susie on your page?.” Again, this approach has been far more successful. (most) people will do a favor for a friend. Some people, on the other hand, will dig their heels in if you insinuate they were wrong all along (they were!) and stubbornly stick with their actions to prove a point.
Good luck to everyone out there! Thanks for having the discussion!
Betsy, these ideas are wonderful! Thank you for taking the time to write them here, as you will be helping many of the parents who have posted here, and who come to this page on a daily basis. I LOVE the Witness Protection Program joke – it’s a funny way to make someone realize their actions have potential repercussions. Thanks for being part of our community. 🙂
I can’t thank you enough for writing this! I have this issue with my in-laws. I do have a Facebook account but absolutely EVERYTHING is private. I only have my family (no in-laws!) and a few friends. My page can’t be found unless someone I already have added knows my OLD e-mail address. My in-laws, however, have everything out in the open.
My husband’s aunt got to my page thru his sister, who sent me a message before I edited my privacy settings a year ago, and tried to add me. Upon peeking at her page I saw pictures of my son that were posted without our knowledge or permission. With some of these pictures were his full name, birthdate and birth time.
Since nothing is private I also went to my mother-in-law’s page. Again, more pictures and personal information. She even used our son’s picture as her profile picture. His pictures are tagged with people neither of us know and have comments from strangers as well. I wouldn’t allow my son around most of the people we do know that commented.
His other aunt has her page private but has about 1,000 people as friends. These are mostly people from our area. I do know that she has posted personal infornation and pictures because we saw someone my husband went to high school with and she mentioned seeing it on her page. Isn’t that nice? Someone my husband barely talked to in high school sees him 6 years later and mentions seeing his son along with personal info on a Facebook page!
We don’t appreciate his pictures being plastered all over the place. If these people they have on their friends list need to see our son so badly then his family should take the time to email or text the photos. Frankly, if WE didn’t send the pictures that person probably doesn’t need to see him anyway!
I finally reached my breaking point today and had him inform everyone to refrain from posting our son’s pictures. If they’re already up then please remove them. Pictures can be shared by email or text. Please respect our son’s privacy and safety. He said that the responses have been positive but I still see pictures up. These people basically post whenever they crap so I see no excuse for them to delay their removal.
I completely understand that people want to show him off, but there’s a way to go about doing it. Did my parents send pictures of me to their 200 family and friends, the employees at the gas station and grocery store, the drug dealer down the road, his pedophile cousin and the entire county? No! Not because they couldn’t but because that’s absolutely absurd! Just because it happens to be convenient doesn’t mean it should be done. I decide who I expose my child to, these people don’t have that right.
Yes, times have changed and the world is a different place. But that, in my opinion, is the exact reason why we should be concerned with our own privacy and safety. Especially that of our children who we’re supposed to be protecting and setting an example for.
Certain situations, like the one above, are simple mistakes. But the author did it one time and immediately corrected the issue. These people that do it constantly, disregard the concerns of the parents and disrespect the child’s privacy make me sick.
Thank YOU, Natasha for writing in with your thoughts and circumstances. (BTW I almost named my daughter Natasha! 🙂 ) In any case, it’s a very important issue, and what we truly need as a community of conscious parents, is to do our best to honor other parents. In my case, the woman unfriended me and there are still hundreds of unauthorized pics of my daughter online…..and rather than honor my request as my daughter’s mother and remove them, she ignored me, unfriended me, and continued to add pics after the fact. In my opinion, that is absolutely abhorrent. It’s one thing if you do something unknowingly or unconsciously, but if another person asks you parent to parent and you purposely go against them? The lowest of the low. I appreciate your contribution to this post. Wishing you all the best – stay strong mama! 🙂
Why don’t you talk to your daughter about not posing for photos while in a swimsuit? Parent!
I 100% agree that parents need to talk with their children (which I did, and she was only 6 at the time) about such circumstances, yet I don’t agree with suggestion to put the complete onus upon my 6 year old to police the supposed trusted adults in her life.
You are completely missing the point of the post – which is that parents need to be aware of how their actions affect others. Common courtesy and respect. An honest mistake is one thing, but after a kind request is made, and it is subsequently ignored, is another.
In this digital age we must be vigilant about parenting our children through the risks, but at the same time, if parents did their jobs appropriately, children would be able to enjoy the innocence of youth for far longer than they do now. I refuse to have my child grow up feeling that the world is a place to be feared, and hope that other parents feel it important to help with that cause.
Very well written and I couldn’t agree more!!!! As a blogger and abide Facebooker, I really don’t care too much if pics of my kids are posted – so long as there’s nothing suggestive about them. BUT…that’s how no feel about it. I would NEVER post pics of anyone else’s kids knowing that the parents would prefer I didn’t now you’ve made me aware enough to at least ask the question – think before posting.
Nice post. Excellent point.
Think of all the pics on facebook and other social media we don’t even know we are in because we just happen to be in the background of a strangers candid. This is a losing battle. Think of it like this…you’re at a child’s b day party. Do you really want the photographer to tell your daughter to please move away from the other kids because they are taking pictures?
Not stating whether I agree or disagree (much like you mentioned right off the bat) but I do think unless you home school and never take your child out in public, this is something you simply will not be able to control. I do not know the age of your child, but once school parties and athletic activities begin, it will be literally impossible to keep your child out of all photos. I am a professional photographer and I have a signed waiver for all school athletes, but I guarantee that the dozen other parents standing on the sidelines with their cell phone cameras do NOT have such a waiver, and they are posting pictures right and left.
It does not matter the reason behind not wanting pictures of YOUR child on Facebook, the internet or whatever. It is YOUR child. You do not have to give a reason. My very best friend had a baby a couple days ago. I took a picture of MY niece and asked if she would mind if I shared the picture. Even though my Facebook is set to private, I asked out of respect. That is all it boils down to, RESPECT. As human beings we need to worry less about posting pictures or making status updates on Facebook, and worry more about the lack of respect the world has.
I don’t even have kids and I think it is incredibly rude to post a photo of anyone on the internet. I really feel sorry for all of these kids when they grow up and have to deal with people having naked baby pics of them – or even just pics of them going through a dorky look stage. Some kids may be joked for being fat and and end up losing the weight when they get older. Do they really need other teenagers having access to their old pics with the cyber bullying that goes on?
I don’t even let friends or family take pics of me anymore. It’s sad, but I am a private person and do not wish to have my photo on the internet. Maybe I don’t want everyone knowing I attended a particular event. Maybe I don’t want my circle of friend’s knowing who my date was at your wedding. Why is it necessary to upload pics of me ??? Too many people don’t respect your wishes and like many of you have said, if someone knows you don’t like it, they will even continue to do it more.
But today we have relatives and friends who think it is their “right” to share images of everyone else. People can still take group photos of their kid’s activities but why is it necessary to upload those for everyone on facebook to have access to? Take a few pics of the child blowing out the candles, opening presents, etc. Why do group photos need to be posted?
BJ,
I couldn’t agree with you more. Those of us that want the privacy we had from the beginning of time up until about seven years ago sure seem to be the odd ones out. I would love to go back to the days when cameras and film cost money so people took their pictures more carefully and just kept them in an album or shoebox at home instead of plastering them all over the Internet with our personal details.
And all for what? Watered down bragging rights. “Look at all the people I know.” Wow. Yay.
Thanks for sharing..
Wow. @BJ Privacy is a modern invention and an illusion. I think it’s a little creepy when someone is so “private”. Relationships are about moments shared and our experiences with one, we share with others to teach, to learn and to grow. I’ve learned the hard way that being a closed off, secretive person is the surest way to get hurt. It’s actually MUCH more dangerous. I would be very wary of anyone who at least THINKS they need to hide that much of themselves. In fact, my boyfriend is currently in therapy to help him with this issue so that he can have healthier relationships with others. So, please understand, though your views aren’t uncommon, they’re very unhealthy as well as dangerous.
Nina,
There’s a huge difference between what you’re describing and what we’re talking about. It is not dangerous or unhealthy to opt out of the current social networking craze. For you to insinuate that someone is ‘hiding’ or has something wrong with them because they choose not to be plastered all over some social networking site, for the pure purpose of letting someone else photo-brag about their lives, is really off base. Someone can be quite present, giving and sharing without facebook or whatever site is in favor that week. In fact I find those people far more sociable in real life because they are not viewing / living life through a four-inch screen.
What BJ is really describing is boundaries. If you had a friend that drove too fast every time you were in the car, and you asked them to stop, but they refused and then tried to make it sound like you were the one with the problem, would you still be their friend?
REAL social networks, the ones without glowing screens or pictures, are about real people interacting and listening to each other’s concerns.
I would also like to say that privacy, in my experience, never protected me from anything as a child. Living my life out loud however, has actually saved my life more times than I can explain.
This subject is not about respect. It’s about the unrealistic expectations of others (in this case parents)and how far the rest of us should condone a behavior in a parent which forces others to be restricted in primary social activities when nowhere near the parent’s child. As others have said, it’s not fair to be unable to post pics of one’s own child because another child is in the picture. I used to babysit for a woman who DID NOT want ANYONE who was not her or her mother to change her sons diaper. This is paranoia with no plan. Is there something you can spray on your child to keep bullies away? Do you think you can make your child invisible so no one can hurt him/her? Well you can’t. You can’t expect everyone to protect your child from LIFE. YOU CAN’T MAKE THEM INVISIBLE. That leaves making sure you know what all the “NEW” dangers that go along with this new fangled invention of THE INTERNETS are and how to deal with them so you can teach your children all the ways expectations of privacy have been reduced since its invention…. RIGHT??? – Not ignore them and hope they’ll go away and that everyone will continue to let you live in your little world of denial by hiding all the pictures they post of your kids from you so that they don’t have to edit each one just to please you?
http://epic.org/privacy/kids/
The Child Protection Act: This law governs only the collection of and elicitation of personal information from children directly and has no effect whatsoever on those use a website – ONLY on the operators of a website. There can be no law that gives you what you want without restricting the freedoms of others, thus creating a slippery slope situation. The must be a clear and present threat or demonstrable harm. That is the basis of any and all laws that ever will or have governed such situations. Your preferences are not legally enforceable, cannot be enforceable and should not be enforceable as it restricts the rights of others to an unreasonable extent.
Nina,
It’s not about hiding and it being something creepy. It’s just that some us have learned that friends/family members don’t need to know who someone is doing things with at all times. Regarding me not caring for everyone to know who my date was…it’s not about embarassment – take for example if two people with mutual friends began dating and chose to keep it to themselves at first. Let’s say I took my date to a wedding. Then so and so finds out from pics on their sister’s friend’s second cousin’s facebook – and now begins trying to butt into our relationship.
I have had so called girlfriends who I thought I could trust try and sabotage a new relationship for me. That is why I choose to not share every detail of my personal life with every person I know. Not until I AM ready to share that information. I get that this may sound EXTREME to you. But what if this date is my co-worker and we don’t want everyone in the office knowing we had just begun dating? That could really cause problems.
Or, what if I had a dinner party and then a member of the party decides to post pics and now a couple of my friends are very hurt that I did not include them for my own personal reasons. There is NO REASON for people to post pics like this. IT IS all about a brag show. “Look at me…I was invited to a party…look at how much fun I had….Look..I have friends!”
Why not share group pics of a child’s B-day only with relatives who could not attend and tell them not to post them? It is not necessary for Grandma and your sibling to then post them publicly so that all of their friends can see. Why can’t people just enjoy photos and keep them to themselves?
Actually, I want talking about anyone’s willingness to it out of social networking. I was talking about the excessiveness, the somewhat obsessive tendency some people have to keep their lives private. Not wanting people to know who your date to a wedding was is excessive. If you’re embarrassed, why attend? Why attend any public function where there might be pictures taken? Do you see where I’m going with this? There is a point where anxiety over such things becomes unreasonable and are actually dangerous. You keep quiet about symptoms you’re experiencing, no one knows where you are or who you’re with to find you if something happens…our relationships are maintained through the sharing of mostly small events in our lives, through whatever means. I have nothing to hide. Regardless, the topic was posting pics of other people’s children and this tangential topic relates because there are informed fears and unreasoning ones. There are also unreasonable reactions to reasonable fears. Not wanting others to post pictures of your children is an unreasonable reaction to a reasonable fear of/discomfort with the possibility of repurcussions, which I feel it’s merely due to control issues or not knowing what to do if something were to happen. Become informed about these things instead of trying to restrict the lives of others in a way that can’t be done.
Let me be clear. I’m very informed about these issues. I know how to lock down and monitor an electronic device that a child uses. I know to inform a teenager that sending naked or similar pictures of a minor is distribution of child pornography and a crime that both she(in one case that I’ve dealt with)and her boyfriend can be treated and charged a sex offenders for. I know how to call up Life lock and protect the identity of a child. I know what key words to inform a child to watch for, what online behaviors a predator will display… Who to go to for help. I know how to file a restraining order or order of protection, what authorities to go to if there is cyberbullying or any other type of bullying. I know how to talk to a child about these issues and keep them safe from real danger. I know what to do if something happens anyway. I know the laws and how to apply them, I don’t expect everyone else to be responsible for my family or their safety. I expect REASONABLE precautions and I’ve quelled such fears by remaining informed. Do any of the rest of you know how to track someone who is cyberstalking you or a loved one? If not, why put the responsibility on everyone else?
I hear what you are saying Nina, and I agree that it is up to the parents to have those conversations like you say. I don’t think anyone is saying that they just expect everyone else to comply with their wishes, so that they can not have to parent their child through the challenges we face today with the Internet and social media.
I’d like to just remind us of the original topic at hand, which is that if us parents are more conscious of our actions, and how they might have an effect on others we don’t even consider, that as a whole we’ll have a lot less “fixing” to do. It will never be perfect, yet if as parents we talk about this, and create a culture of awareness around these issues, that we will help our children immensely.
well @Nina you just know everything and have it all figured out. so funny you don’t see the irony of your statements being posted anonymously.
why do you demand the right to know who someone went to a wedding with? why do you demand people not value privacy?
it’s actually those who insist no-one else needs privacy who are controlling, Nina, not those who simply want some privacy.
it’s interesting that almost every sentence of yours starts with the words “I know”. hmmm. I guess you’ve revealed a lot about your psyche here. but that shouldn’t bother you.
I absolutely hate it. I have asked my family repeatedly not to put pictures of my children on Facebook, my space, or anywhere on the internet. But, they still do it. Some photos are even geo tagged so you can see where my children are! I’m am absolutely furious, my own mother and sister cannot seem to respect my wishes. They feel they have the right to do what they want, I hate it. I love my family but they have no respect for me and my husbands wishes. And, that’s what is wrong with the world, people don’t know how to respect one another.
Unfortunately I’ve had this issue as well with my husband’s family. After a dispute I was also “unfriended” and even after a yr of thinking maybe we’ve mended relationships only to be blocked on Instagram.
I’m old fashioned and I don’t like it when photos of my children are posted online but I’ve learned to accept it. My only issue now is of a more personal nature. When people post images of someone else’s child and restricts their access (example: I am the mother and my SILs won’t let me see the pictures). How is that even acceptable? It has put me and my husband at odd many times over.
It has caused relationship issues between myself and his family. If these people can’t respect your wishes as a parent how can they claim to have the child’s best interest at heart? Doesn’t our relationship w our children warrant that kind if respect? If you don’t respect a child’s parents what kind of person are you? Not a very good person at heart.
It makes me sad that the world had come to this. Not only because of all the dangers of everything out there but also because nobody is thinking of the children. How does anyone know if that 2yr old child when he becomes a teenager or adult even wants his whole childhood plastered all over the place?
Why is no one thinking ahead? Everyone is entitled to their own decisions about media sharing (if I post a photo of myself it’s fine I am making that decision of myself) why is it the children do not have that right???
What happened to being respectful of children’s parents? Asking permission or at least acknowledging the parent or allowing them to be aware of what’s out there so wrong?
And people wonder what is happening to the youth today how they can be so disrespectful to their family etc…
Take a good look in the mirror people, who is setting that example?
In your case, give your husband an ultimatum, the kids will not be allowed to be in the presence of ANY of the extended family members who have posted or are continuing to post photos. YOU are the parent and you have a say as to who your child will be around. Even if your husband disagrees, you are the parent and legally you have rights. Send a clear message to the family members that ALL photos will be taken down before they see your children again and that none will be posted again.
This person is the child’s parent…not everyone else’s. Her husband is the other equally important half of this equation. The middle way is the wisest. How about communicating with your loved ones and come to a safe and reasonable compromise. If you are looking for a 100% your way or the highway….this will very likely cause much more harm then good..and that is not good at all for you, your husband, your family, and ultimately the center of concern, your child.
Best wishes.
These days, most schools, clubs, and organizations have you sign a waiver stating if you are okay or not with your child’s picture being taken. I figure – if I’m not allowed to videotape any of my child’s events, or take photos, then they will let me know. Otherwise, it IS okay. My child has made it into several photos of our town’s events, newspapers, and school webpages. I’m personally okay with that because we are also a vlogging family on YouTube. However… IF I weren’t okay with it, I know that you CAN request to have these things taken down, ESPECIALLY if your child is under the age of 13. Facebook removes any photos of your child if you are the parent reporting this concern. YouTube will also remove videos if your child’s first and last name are used. I can tell you though, that from the opposite point of view – if you don’t allow your friends or family take video or pictures around you, they probably won’t be coming to any of your child’s birthday parties any time soon. I’ve had some parents raise an issue about my vlogging recently, where their kids were seen in the background of the videos where I was taping my daughter’s first time skating at a roller rink. Their names weren’t even mentioned, and they even asked me not to tape anything when we were invited to their daughter’s birthday party. What happened? We didn’t show up for the party, and I told her that if she had been my TRUE friend, then my vlogging wouldn’t have been a problem for her. Needless to say, we are no longer friends.
To Multimom: Your violating other parents children privacy and not only is it WRONG, but its also inconsiderate and disrespectful. What is okay for you in your life, isn’t okay with others, respect that and you will won’t have these issues with people. Blur the photos in photo edit, it takes a minute, save your friendships and show that your respectful thoughtful person…turn a new leaf.
Amazing that people think nothing of violating privacy.
Our family chooses to not be on any social media, mainly because of the incredible waste of time, but additionally because of major privacy breaches these govt colluding corporations have demonstrated.
it’s even more difficult keeping pics of your kids off facebook when you’re not even on fb.
sometimes it comes down to re-thinking who your friends are….
at some point FB will get hit with a class action lawsuit and you will have to claim digital rights and media permission to post pictures of others on your fb wall.
truth is, facebook could easily do this by saying you can only post pictures of fb friends who have opted in to give you that privilege over their digital content.
the legal question probably is: who owns rights to a picture. the photographer or the subject.
When we did our high school yearbook (before the internet) we had to get a media release signed for every picture of students that wasn’t of a crowd or whole class.
our church would get signed media releases for anyone’s picture to be put on anything like in brochures etc.
are media releases something that have gone away?
My husband and I are in the same situation. Both of our children are under 4 years old and facebook has a tendency to revise their privacy policies frequently. We recently asked someone to removed the pictures of our children on their facebook page. This person asked us to remove the pictures that s/he took on our FB page’s. We complied right away; however, this same person refused to remove the pictures and blocked us. Not only that, but they both set up new profile’s and all of our children’s pictures were put up. Not only were they posted but they are PUBLIC (do they really think that we are THAT stupid)!!! Some of the pictures are just of them in diapers! We have never posted pictures like that! Luckily, we have the URL’s to the over 100 pictures and video’s and are well into the process of reporting them to Facebook – apparently, you reach a limit of what you can report a day.
We cannot control someone’s privacy settings. We cannot control who looks at their pictures. These two people have close to 800 friends between the two of them. We don’t know these people or what type of past they have. Anyone can download someone’s pictures – which I feel is insane.
When our children are much older, then they can’t decide what to put on the internet (after long talks and monitoring, etc).
Why is it so hard to respect our views on our children’s right to privacy? If these people that claim that they loved our children as much as they, why can’t they understand that they are OUR children, not theirs. All hell would break loose if either of us started posting private things about them. I think they see it as a personal attack on them, which it isn’t. It comes down to my children’s privacy, which apparently doesn’t matter much to them. We didn’t ask them to take down the pictures in their house, just online.
Between my husband and I, we removed hundreds of pictures of them. The little that are left in albums are set to “friends, except acquaintances.” After reading the comments here, I’m deleting every single one of them.
If they aren’t remove from these people’s Facebook, does anyone know what the next step is?
I agree. If I post pics to be seen only by Friends, why would anyone, including “Friends”, post pics PUBLIC on their profile?!
Then they get all butt-hurt because you brought to their attention that pics of yourself and your child are viewable by ANYONE!!
Just the fact that people DO NOT EVEN CONSIDER asking if we are ok with them putting our children’s pictures on the internet makes my blood boil.
I recently put my children’s names into Google images and a picture of them was first to show up. Then when I went to that site there is mine and my husbands names along with the city we live in. My heart sunk!
I have read about Facebook and how they are, at least, trying to take images of children off where the parents have asked. But I don’t believe anyone said anything about google? I have asked the family member to remove it but it has not been done yet. I have done this in the past with family members and Facebook and as far as I know they did remove he pictures.??
I do not have a face book account and my husband does not put pictures of our children on his. Like you have said isn’t that an indication that we don’t want them on there anywhere. I know people believe I am over reacting but I’m done caring about what they think. I also know that people do what ever they want to do regardless of how they know I feel about it, but I feel as if this was the last straw for me.
Since I am not on face book I do not really know how many pictures are out there of my children, and I have been ok with the ignorance in the past. I think because I know there is so little I can do, even by confronting these people. It seems people believe they have just as much right to display these pictures, of MY children, as I feel I have to request them not to.
Who is in the right? I hope sometime soon someone out there gets frustrated enough to take it all the way to the court system. Cause we all seem very confused about who’s right is greater.
Why anyone that cares for these children would want their pictures out in the World Wide Web is beyond me. Other than selfish reasons, which in my opinion, is not in our children’s best interest! What is so hard about emailing the pictures anyway? And letting children’s lives be precious and not for the whole world to participate in.
One of my main goals as a parent is to keep my children safe AND to protect their future.
I found your site, because I’m researching what to do about a woman (my ex husbands girlfriend ) has been posting pictures of my son on her pinterest boards labeled step mom and coparenting. Their are pics of her captioned “me and my son”, memes that my son will one day have to get therapy because I am a sociopathic narcissist, that I have golden uterus syndrome, parental alienation syndrome, etc etc 🙁 she lives 75 miles from my son’s father. And he’s 200 miles away from us. I have custody. He doesn’t fulfill his monthly legal visitations, then tells others, Im keeping my son from him , which I wouldn’t do to my son in a million years. And advise ?
Lord have mercy on those foster people posting pictures of someone else’s kids!! Who they never even conceived!! They are posting pictures like If those kids were actually theirs and they can’t even let church people post a picture on their website or anything like that! Well there are people who are doing just that!!
Here’s my issue. I have no problem posting a picture of my daughter on FB or Instagram (IG), but it is at my discretion. Certainly, I do not post every single photo of her. The issue I have is a family one. My sister-in-law posted a picture of my daughter from Halloween, funny thing is she never saw her on Halloween. All she saw were the two pictures I sent to her and my mother in law. My mother in law asked to post the picture on FB and I politely responded I would rather not. The next morning I wake up and my sister in law posted a collage of my daughter and my other two nieces. She wasn’t even there to take the picture of my daughter, what makes her think she can just post a picture that I text to her? Am I way off base here?
Hi Laura! Your comment is getting at the main point of my post in the first place, which is ultimately, to think through any situation before acting. I’m sure your sister in law is a proud aunt, and thought nothing of doing this because you post photos of your daughter yourself. Nonetheless, YOU are the parent, getting to decide what you want to put into the public sphere. Period. It is important that you communicate this to her, and acknowledge that you are sure it was completely innocent an unintentional, but that there is a reason you didn’t want that photo posted online (per what you asked your mother in law to honor). Perhaps there is an underlying issue with your sister in law that this is triggering for you…if this is the case, then this would be a fabulous opportunity to heal that with her. Whenever something irks me, after my initial response, I try to figure out why this is bothering me so much. I often get a really good lesson or a-ha moment from that introspection. Hope this helps in some way!
I hate it when other people post pictures of my daughter on their facebook. I did not give permission, therefore it is unacceptable.
If I choose to post a picture of my daughter on Facebook, that is my choice. I also have options to make it more private, like only sharing with my family, or making my profile completely private. I believe it is entirely up to the parent whether a picture should be online of their child.
I have had several “friends” post pictures of my child, and it makes me nervous to even have her photo taken anymore. People don’t have consideration these days. Everything is made SO PUBLIC, that they don’t even think, hey maybe I should ASK before I post this…. hmmmmm
I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who has a problem with this.
Totally agree with your post! I found photos of myself and my child posted on facebook after a meet up with our friends. I felt very annoyed that a seemingly private get together with friends was posted on facebook. I believe permission should be sought first from the individuals before posting online and particularly so when a child is involved. This has now left me with a feeling of discomfort every time our friends take a photograph when we meet up!
I have a problem with this and my mother in law. She thinks because they are her grandkids, she can do whatever she wants. She posted 71 pics of my kids and my house the other day. I asked her to take them down and she flipped out and said she will just crop me out of the family. She then went through her photos and cropped me out of all of them. Even my own wedding pics. I’m OK with that. I am very sensitive about it because I had a stalker and it was the most terrifying experience of my life. It’s a miracle that I’m alive. I want to protect my children from that.
I’m sorry to hear of your experience. Have you shared that with your mother in law? Explain why you don’t want the pictures online of not only you, but your precious children? Obviously she’s a proud grandmother, yet putting her grandchildren at risk, when there is already a precedent set in your family – seems so cruel and selfish to me. Perhaps there is a way to have a conversation with her, calmly, where you explain your reasoning, and even if she disagrees, that you aim to come up with an agreeable solution? If she wants to show off her grandchildren, would you be OK with her emailing pics to her friends? If not, what would be something you would be OK with, that would allow her to share her family with others? Just some ideas.
We are having this problem now, my underage daughter’s photos, taken by someone else without my permission, are being posted on Facebook along with her name and a map to the school she attends, as well as other personal information regarding her. We have nicely asked that this information be taken down to no avail. They appear on at least 2 different peoples Facebook pages that we are aware of. Because they are “private”, not porno, and are not phrased as a specific threat, we have been informed that the people who are posting these pictures and information are protected under the first amendment. Let me add that these people are Facebook friends with people with criminal records. We have gotten no where as far as help from Facebook and our local law enforcement has informed us that until something happens to our early teenage child they can do nothing. It sickens me that in this powerful country, no one seems to care about the right to a child’s safety. And yes we spoke with child protective services first, they told us to call law enforcement and law enforcement would handle it. Law enforcement would not even come out and write a report, citing first amendment rights of the Facebook user as their reason. Have we gotten to a point in this country where children are disposable?
Just an up date, I called the child protection 24 hour “hot line” in our county late last night and they took a report, which the lady answering the phone assured me she would bring to her supervisor as soon as we got off the phone. She stated she could make no promises, but would follow through. She also recommended I contact any and all my state reps as some states are in the process of drafting legislation to better protect children’s privacy via the internet and Facebook in particular. Also learned, for children over the age of 12, the child is the only one who can petition Facebook to remove personal information from another’s Facebook account. It is sad that Facebook cares more about making money, than protecting underage teenager’s privacy rights. However we seem to finally be making some progress in protecting our child. I hope this helps someone else in a similar position. Finally, let me say, as parents we have a moral obligation, if nothing else, to protect our children. With that said, don’t give up, we must somehow get this country to understand the gravity of this situation. After all, France has been able to achieve this for their children, it seems we as Americans should be able to as well.
Thank you for your comment, and your update as well. It’s amazing how many of such stories I hear from people writing in to this site. Your post has prompted me to want to re-escalate this topic within my communities and contacts. What started as a post years ago on my site as an example of conscious parenting, has taken on a life of it’s own and because of this, I’ve been interviewed on several media outlets, and even written an article on children’s digital privacy for The New York Times. Did Facebook actually reply to your request? I have never heard of them actually replying to anyone that has written here. They certainly never did reply to me the numerous times I requested help for this.
Facebook has made the process so convoluted that we got to a point where we had no appropriate answers to their questions (as I am sure you know, you may only pick one answer to each question and Facebook decides which 4 or 5 answers you can choose from). I think they do this for a reason, so they don’t have to reply or take action. I also believe this is why you cannot talk to anyone at Facebook and can only contact them through the internet. While Facebook’s lack of regard for other peoples right to privacy repulses me, I find it hard to understand why our government, on all levels, has swept this issue under the rug. It is sad that Germany and France are more concerned with people’s right to privacy. Thank you for your reply and I am open to any ideas as to how we can make this issue one our country takes seriously, before more children are hurt by thoughtless or vindictive people.
It has been over two weeks and as far as we know, nothing has been done. As a map to her school, a picture of our daughter as well as her full name and other personal information remains on Facebook for friends of people with criminal records to access. I just can’t believe adult’s first amendment rights trump a young teenager’s right to safety in this country, I thought we protected children. How is this not considered abuse? For anyone who may be wondering, no one in our family has a Facebook account. And we are dreading the start of the school year as the most recent information (map to school) has been on Facebook for over a month now. A parent should never feel so powerless to protect a young child, I feel a target has been painted on her back for any perv who is friends of a friend of a friend on Facebook and there is nothing that can be done about it. How can Facebook (and our country) think a 13 year old child can be responsible enough to handle these situations, much less fully recognize them. The government wont let her hold a job a this age for her own safety! Government statistics show this is the age group in which something is most likely to happen to a young girl which can be traced to internet use. They are not adults, they are learning to be young adults, hopefully responsible teenagers on the way. Our country certainly recognizes they are not adults and need protection from adults who don’t respect their right to safety in and out of the home. Why are these rights not recognized on the internet? My daughter has stated that she does not understand why we are “making a big deal out of this” when we spoke to her about it. While a smart child, she is still too young to fully understand the real danger this poses. I guess we just wait for some politician’s child to be harmed by something Facebook does not want to address first (God forbid that any child be harmed). I just can’t believe this country has become either this stupid and/or so jaded. How pitiful that the country was more concerned with child safety 100 years ago. They are not allowed to be full members of adult society (and rightfully so), but we allow others to put them in harm’s way citing other’s first amendment rights, and wait until the harm is done before doing anything for the child. I know I am going on and on here, but I cannot believe I am the only American who thinks some type of legislation needs to be passed ASAP to protect the children of this country from thoughtless and or vindictive people who use the internet in ways that could or do harm children by not protecting their right to privacy.
I agree completely that, we as parents must be considerate of other parents wishes for their children. And, do the right thing for our own children and family. The Internet is ‘way out’. So, even though we may want to have fun by socializing, sharing, and even showing off for others, there is serious risk involved. And the posting of photos is not to be taken lightly because it looks like everyone else is doing it. It is an old lesson about not following the crowd. As parents, we have to discern carefully, and ask permission.
Dear Erika, Thank you so much for posting this site! I read many of the initial posts in 2012 and was relieved to see current ones in 2016. My children’s school now is posting pictures and videos of them on the internet (Twitter, YouTube, etc.) without our consent. When we register them each year for school we answer “No” to whether pictures/videos of them can be posted on the internet. Yet, they contacted FPCO who directed them that they can do it without any worries. Why is there no federal legislation in process? It should be without question that a parent can make privacy/safety/well-being decisions regarding their children without another entity violating that right. I’m so frustrated and do not know how to proceed. I saw a post where you suggested a “movement” for these issues. I agree and know that more cavalier parents may call us paranoid freaks. It is a matter of personal safety and emotional security. Just the fact that having pictures and videos of my children so widely publicized causes me distress. To make matters even worse, the elementary school is identified in these videos and this school is very lax with security. For the holiday parties each year, anyone is allowed to enter the children’s classrooms as long as they sign a piece of paper with their name. I expect that this school will be the next Newtown, CT or Nickel Mines, PA or even worse – a new hunting ground for pedophiles and human traffickers. Please help!
My 9 year olds picture is being used as her new stepmothers profile picture on every single public social media account. I dont want my childs picture being exposed to any unknown perverts or child molester. I dont post pictures of this womans children why is she allowed to post pictures of mine. How is that okay?
Thank you so much!! I feel the same way. Before my son was born I told the grandparents “No Facebook pictures of our baby” Next thing I know random people in my community were walking up to me and saying “awww I saw him on facebook, he’s so cute” etc. I was furious. I don’t have Facebook because I want my personal life to have some privacy. Wouldn’t they think I’d have a page with him on there if I wanted him on Facebook? It has left me so agitated with my mother-in-law. I had my husband tell her one time before, but every time she sees him or keeps him she takes a picture and asks me if she can put it on Facebook . I caved and said yes one time , but it’s so hard for me to tell her no.
I cannot express how strongly I agree with Erika and the other like minded posters, I am lucky that the social media sites are American and you have an act to protect your childrens’ privacy. We do not have that here in The UK so I am literally relying on American Law to protect my children’s privacy.
I do find that in the vast majority of cases people will quickly remove pictures of your children if asked, but I always worry about he situation a few have suffered, of them closing their facebook to you so you are none the wiser.
So worried in fact, that if it happens in future I am thinking of bypassing the polite request and sending the URL straight to facebook for removal.
I find it so sad that people feel the need to parade their children online. I often see images of new borns being posted a matter of minutes after birth and grandparents finding the images are up before they have managed to get to the hospital so their first introduction to the ever so important new family member is on social media. Not to mention the social workers point, anyone who has thought about the situation’s most dreaded consequence. But each parent to their own and it is there decision about their own child, just as it should be my or my wife’s decision about my children’s image and details NOT being placed on social media.
I agree with this 100% and it drives me crazy. Here are some things to consider.
If your child has a party and you are too lazy to ask the other parents’ permission or crop out other children, then stage some photos of just your child to be uploaded. There is no need for anyone to post pictures of other people’s children just because they attended a social event you hosted.
This is not just a matter of safety but also privacy. When your child grows up and their image has been plastered all over the Internet, how many of these photos could bring embarrassment to them? Finding one unflattering photo can lead to bullying. No one thinks about how this affects the child, but post pictures because they are selfish and care only about what they want.
The reality is… no one cares about your child the way you do. It is not hard to email the people who DO care (close friends and family members) pictures of your child. I’m pretty sure that if people were honest, they’d say they don’t care to see photos of their friends’ children constantly popping up on their new feeds.
There are also sites like Flickr where you can make password protected albums and share them with the people closest to you.
Put your ego aside, think about what your child might say or how they’d feel if one day they had to tell you that they wished you never posted all those photos of them. You can’t erase anything from the Internet.
Note to parents in agreement with this blog: you can ask Facebook to remove photos of your children from other people’s pages. It’s a pain in the ass but you have parental rights to do so. You need the Web address of the photo and proof you are the parent/guardian. They usually remove in a day or two. For parents who are separated/divorced: make it part of your agreement that there is no posting allowed of your child without written permission from both parents and get it court ordered. If the other person fails to stick to this then take them to court. You also may be able to sue someone if you have explicitly stated you want them to remove and discontinue posting pictures and they continue anyway. In some places, children are suing their parents.
This is not a joke. This is the reality that by posting my child’s image, her name, and photos of her home, stating the city you live in, identifying her parents, finding out my maiden name, posting her birthday… my child’s identity can be stolen very easily.
Do not post photos of other people’s children. It’s simple. Limit what you post of your own, and make them private.
Totally agree about keeping kids’ pictures off of social media but in the end this issue is about respecting the decisions parents make about their own children. We do not post any photos of our kids online except for a password protected site that our closest friends and family have access to. It is not a popular position and most people think we’re being ridiculous (and many have told us so). They’re all entitled to their opinion about it but I expect my choices to be respected. My cousin once posted a picture of my daughter literally minutes after we had a face-to-face conversation about how I don’t want pictures of my kids online. I was livid and our relationship has not recovered. I couldn’t believe she would do something like that so intentionally. It’s happened on other occasions by people who weren’t aware of our wishes (or had forgotten) and so far everyone has taken the photos down when I’ve asked and I hold no ill will towards them.
My parents once gently tried to soften my stance on it and let other people post pictures of my kid because they didn’t see the harm in it and felt it would make other people happy. I responded, “Remember when we first got an AOL account and you wouldn’t let me go into those chat rooms? The internet has never been a safe place but we’re losing sight of that. If kids and teens aren’t careful, they can get themselves into serious trouble and someday I’m going to have to explain that to my kids. How am I ever going to have that conversation with any kind of credibility if I’ve been letting pictures of them be posted online their whole lives?” They haven’t tried to change my position since then.
The entire point of this post originally was merely just what you said. Just being mindful of other parents/people’s wishes. I don’t understand how if you have just asked someone to not do it, that they immediately do it! The same thing happened to me. If you read through the many comments here on this post, you’ll see how many parents had unintentional bad consequences from people doing this. I appreciate your comment.
My wife and I cannot find a dance class that doesn’t facebook pictures, therefore my kids lose out. Paedos only appear real, once it has affected someone first hand. More fool you people who think it’s OK because one day, when someone sees your child on social media and smooth talks their way in to your life, see how clever social media photos are when your childs life is ruined because you failed to protect them. Paedos are very real and not few and far between, there are many both men and women and they are very, very real and very sneaky. If I found someone put a picture of my children on facebook, I would beat the sh*t out of them. That simple, no one has that right over my children and I have a right to protect.
I am the step mom to a beautiful 12 year old girl I posted on my fb that I am the mother of 3 children yes to our mine by blood but one is not the bm is causing a major deal over it cuz it her child not mine…what is ya’ll thoughts on this matter?
My daughter died many years ago (1974) at 2 1/2 in a horrible car accident. My sister (whom was only about 7 when the accident happened) just recently posted a 8 x 10 picture of her on face book (also had distributed that photo recently to other family members that didn’t even know her. Not once did she asked me if its’ “ok”. I do not, and would not myself put my deceased daughters photo on face book. That is very personal to me. Also,the pictures that she is giving away and posting our mine that I had professionally taken when my daughter was 2 yrs. (my mom had them in her possession and I kept asking for them, but they were always in storage and she had to find them). Well my mom passed away in 2009 and my sister since she was living in the same state and close to our mom (she Tennessee, me California) received my mom’s house and all her possessions. Am I being to sentimental and selfish about this? I truely believe, my sister should have asked me permission. I saw the photo accidently when I was viewing her vacation photos, and it was included. She had visited my childs gravesite, placed the 8 x 10 picture of her grave site. I felt she went behind my back as she knew I would say no to the facebook post. She knows I am upset about it and still will not remove the picture. Am I crazy for not wanting it posted on facebook? Please someone give me some advice about this. Please….
First of all, I’m so sorry to hear about the loss of your daughter. I cannot imagine. Every situation is complex of course, however, it’s fully within your boundaries to not wish this photograph on Facebook. This is highly personal and painful for you, and it’s certainly fair to choose to keep that part of your life private. Obviously I am not familiar with the dynamic with your sister, yet perhaps this is her way of processing what happened long ago. Her process may be different from yours. She may not understand why you don’t want to have it, and perhaps is not aware how much you don’t want the photo on social media. Or if she does, then that’s another conversation. There are some people who truly don’t understand why posting on social media wouldn’t be OK…..and don’t realize the impact it has on others. It is fair and understandable why you would not want the photo on the world wide web. I wish you a positive resolution with your sister…. hopefully a heartfelt conversation would help this circumstance. Wishing you all the best!
Best time to prevent it is when you see others are taking the pictures. And if they post it, make sure you are not tagged. As for posting them, I understand if pertinent info on name, etc. is included but everytime children go out in public, they are being seen by potentially dangerous individuals. A grocery store, a mall, a parking lot, a library, etc. And if you are in public and you call your child by name, their name connected to their face is seen/heard by anyone. It is sad the world is such a dangerous place now days but its the world we live in today unfortunately. It is important not to have too much personal info on facebook so if a bad actor sees your child’s picture, that is all they can see. Let your friends and others know in a nice way beforehand, please don’t include my child in your pictures that are posted but likewise move your child out of others’ picture taking efforts out of consideration that they may want to post pictures of their child in a group setting. Many people now days live far from family and friends and facebook is the easiest way to keep them updated with pictures of their children. All my children, grandchildren, nieces, and nephews and many of my close friends live far away and it is a comfort and joy to get to see their photos.
I am not trying to discount your fears but explain the desire to post pictures.