“Sharenting,” which involves posting photos of your child, can harm them in several ways.

A good back-to-school resolution could be to limit the sharing of photos of our children on social networks. These photos, sometimes difficult to delete afterwards, can turn against him one day.

More than one in two parents have already shared content about their children online. Moreover, this practice has a name – an anglicism, as is often the case in the field of digital practices: we speak of “sharenting”, a contraction of “share”, which means to share and “parenting”, parenthood.

According to the e-Enfance association, on average 1,300 photos of a child are published before the age of 13. While in France, since 2023, a child only reaches digital majority at 15. It is therefore up to parents to review their practices.

This sharing poses several problems. First, a child’s digital identity does not belong to his parents and he has the right, like everyone else, to respect for his private life. However, a simple photo can harm his dignity or reputation. Then, because it is very complicated to make a photo disappear, once published. It could have been saved, in particular by other Internet users, who can circulate it in turn. Which leads to the third problem, which is particularly worrying: misappropriation for malicious purposes.

This photo can lead to cyberbullying, be used to create fake profiles, or end up on child pornography networks. It can also give information about the places your child frequents, their schedules. And this too can put them in danger.

All this is quite chilling and we don’t think about it when posting a photo. So, it may be time to readjust our practices. First of all, before posting anything, we talk about it with the child, if he or she is old enough to understand, obviously. We must also ask the other parent for permission: this may seem procedural, but it’s the law. Then, we avoid posting a photo that is intimate, in the bath or even in a swimsuit. And generally speaking, we hide the child’s face. It’s easy: you use an emoji that you insert on the photo. Finally, we don’t indicate his or her first or last name, nothing distinctive.

On networks like Facebook, you can set your profile to private mode, but it is best to use private messaging for this type of sharing and even to set up the sending of ephemeral messages. Last piece of advice, if you are facing a delicate situation, for example if you cannot get a photo deleted from a network, contact 3018. This is the anonymous and free number for young victims of digital violence. It is also intended for relatives and families.