Your toddler vomited in the car on your way to the dentist. Frazzled, you post a status on Facebook about the terrible, horrible, no-good, very bad day.
Social media has made “sharenting” easier than ever. But just because you can do it, should you?
A new national survey from the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital found that more than half of mothers and a third of fathers acknowledge that they share the ins and outs of raising their children online. We’re talking everything from cute photos and anecdotes to pleas for help raising their little monsters.
And more parents who share information about their children online are more interested in the ways “sharenting” can help them cope with parenting concerns than they are concerned about the potential negative consequences for their children, according to the survey of 569 parents with children who are 4 or younger.
It’s easy to understand why sharenting has become so pervasive. Sharing on Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr and other platforms has made communicating online easy – even for parents whose time is a scarce commodity. And for parents who may be dealing with new or difficult challenges associated with their children, comfort is never too far away.
It’s no wonder that tweens and teens are now turning away from the social media platforms their parents are beginning to infiltrate.
“By the time children are old enough to use social media themselves, many already have a digital identity created for them by their parents,” Sarah J. Clark, associate research scientist in the University of Michigan’s Department of Pediatrics, said in a statement. “On one hand, social media offers today’s parents an outlet they find incredibly useful. On the other hand, some are concerned that oversharing may pose safety and privacy risks for their children.”
According to the survey, parents seem willing to call out other parents who overshare online. Three-quarters of parents say they know someone else who shares too much information about their child. More than half of those people classify the information as embarrassing or divulging too much about the child’s location.
