September 1, 2021
There are many of you who may feel that Jon and I are being overprotective, but we do not show pictures of our kids with their faces in them. You may see a slight side shot, or a picture of them wearing a mask, or their backs in the picture, or just a part of them in general.
Well here are the reasons that we post like this. The number one reason is we want to protect our children. There are a lot of people out there that are looking to be picture pirates. It is called digital kidnapping and it is a type of identity theft that occurs when someone takes photos of a child from social media or blogs and repurposes them with new names and identities, often claiming the child as their own. This is happening so often, it is truly sad that children can’t have something sacred and special like many of us did in our childhoods. They can also use this to pass the child off as if they are their own, and kidnap the said child.
The second reason for not sharing pictures of our kids’ faces is that we are protecting them from bullying. I (Lisa), personally grew up being bullied, many different times and in many different ways. Cyberbullying is the a popular way for kids to be bullied in our kids’ generation. “According to security.org’s cyberbullying research, in which they studied parents of kids between the ages of 10 and 18, 21 percent of the children have been cyberbullied.”* Since what is posted on the internet is generally permanent, it is important as parents to be conscious and protective of what we are posting. When a peer is looking for a way to use the information to hurt another they will use that information they find to make fun of, insult, and even bully the said child as he or she grows older.
The final reason for not sharing pictures of our kids’ faces is that children can feel like they don’t have ownership over their own bodies or values. Children are vulnerable and their brains are still developing and are not able to process things the way that adults do. This includes having opportunities to disagree with their parents and what they are posting about them. They are still learning that they have a voice and a choice. For Jon and I, we feel our children have that right to their childhood, and they have a voice in what we share. At this point, they have a choice and they are being taught how to use their voices to express themselves. So, if you see a picture it is fitting of the above criteria or it is one they have chosen to share.
*Cyberbullying: Twenty Crucial statistics for 2021. Security.org. (2021, August 25). Retrieved September 12, 2021, from https://www.security.org/resources/cyberbullying-facts-statistics/.
