What you need to know before sharing your child’s life online

Parents have long documented the small but meaningful milestones of childhood—wobbly first steps, first days of school, birthday parties, and prom night portraits. These family moments that were once tucked into photo albums and passed around at family gatherings now crowd our social media feeds. Sharenting refers to posting one’s children’s photos, videos, or other personal details online. In a 2021 Security.org surveyopens in new window, more than 75% of parents shared information about their children on social media, and 8 in 10 had social media followers they had never met. Eighty-one percent admitted to using their child’s real name on social media, and fewer than 1 in 4 sought their child’s consent before posting about them.

A few phone taps can publish children’s photos and videos to broad, often public audiences. Some children’s online identities even precede birth these days, pregnancy announcements that include sonograms, for example (Leaver, T., & Highfield, T., Information, Communication & Society, Vol. 21, No. 1, 2018opens in new window). For many parents and caregivers, sharenting offers community, connection, and validation. Yet its reach now extends far beyond the traditional circles of friends and family. In many ways, parents are using tech to meet ancient needs: people’s desire to feel connected to kin and community, to mark milestones, and to earn reassurance that they are parenting their children well.

But in today’s digital ecosystem, these posts are not just keepsakes—they are fuel for the algorithm. Each image, video, and caption may carry hidden details such as a school logo in the background, a house number on a mailbox, or a geotag in the metadata. This creates a digital breadcrumb trail that carries risks parents may not anticipate in an always-shifting digital environment. Because of the way platforms and bad actors use people’s content, everyday family posts can unwittingly become raw material for abuse.

AI has heightened the risks of oversharing—or even just sharing—online. Children’s faces and likenesses are sensitive biometric data that can be scraped from social media posts and used to create deepfakes—AI-generated synthetic media that mimic real images, audio, or video. Even without AI, posts created through sharenting expose children to significant risks. Technology increases the likelihood of cyberbullying, identity theft, and other forms of data misuse. In 2018, Barclays Bankopens in new window projected that by 2030, sharenting could represent two-thirds of identity fraud affecting young people. The gravity of these possible outcomes has prompted psychologists to examine parents’ motivations behind sharenting and how those choices influence children’s development and self-concept. Many caution against placing the onus solely on families and instead call on policymakers and platforms to better protect young people’s digital futures.

A growing body of evidence shows that sharenting often reflects parents’ broader social media habits and perceptions of risk. In a survey of 493 U.S. parents of children 10 years old and younger, most routinely posted photos of their children and felt comfortable doing so without their children’s explicit consent (Amon, M. J., et al., Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 6, No. CSCW1, 2022opens in new window). Posting frequency was the strongest predictor of sharenting, and parents often failed to distinguish between “regular” photo sharing and posting identifying information about their children. Frequent sharers tended to have larger social networks that included people they did not know personally and often underestimated risks such as photo misuse by strangers or future embarrassment for their children.

For many parents, the risk-benefit calculation involves balancing proximal needs, like staying connected with loved ones, with less tangible long-term privacy concerns such as identity theft. Yaniv Hanoch, PhD, a professor of decision science at the University of Wolverhampton in England, examined these trade-offs in a coauthored study of Facebook sharenting among U.K. mothers of young children (Briazu, R. A., et al., Technology, Mind, and Behavior, Vol. 2, No. 4, 2021opens in new window). The perceived benefits of maintaining relationships with distant family frequently outweighed concerns about data privacy.

Participants were also more attuned to immediate risks such as “stranger danger” than to longer-term threats like identity fraud. About 1 in 5 mothers reported negative incidents such as offensive comments, trolling, or regret about past shares. Yet their posting frequency did not differ from that of mothers who had not had such experiences. Seeing peers and relatives share similar content reinforced the perception that posting about children was both typical and acceptable. “What we learned is not necessarily that people are unaware of the risks,” Hanoch said. “They are engaging despite the risks. They might see their friends, family—all of them—posting, and think, everyone’s doing it—what can happen?”

Additional research on parents’ perception of the sensitivity of their children’s information echoes these findings. In a survey of 418 U.S. parents of children ages 10 and younger, most parents viewed their children’s personal information (such as Social Security numbers, medical history, and fingerprints) as highly sensitive. Surprisingly, fathers in parenting partnerships and as single parents were more likely to perceive their children’s information as sensitive yet more willing to share it with social media marketers (Hoy, M. G., et al., The Journal of Consumer Affairs, Vol. 57, No. 1, 2023opens in new window). The pattern suggests that awareness of risk does not always translate into more cautious behavior.

The risk-benefit calculus becomes even murkier when sharenting intersects with financial incentives. Advertisers have created high demand for kid-centric content, leading to the rise of parenting influencers, family channels, and “kidfluencers” who can earn money through sponsorships and brand deals. While not all parenting influencers are guaranteed to make a profit, those with large followings can earn significant income. One estimate obtained by ABC News found a range between $4 and $20,000 per sponsored post for creators with 100,000 to 1 million followers. Research shows that sharing more intimate family moments often attracts more followers and engagement, increasing the potential for monetization (Tosuntaș, Ș. B., & Griffiths, M. D., Journal of Family Theory & Review, Vol. 16, No. 3, 2024opens in new window).

This can subtly shift parents’ mindsets. Their posts may become more focused on satisfying “the hungry algorithm,” according to Robyn Koslowitz, PhD, a clinical child psychologist and the educational director of the Targeted Parenting Institute. Algorithms are designed to maximize user engagement, and content that features children often triggers high levels of interaction (Ugwudike, P., et al., Deviant Behavior, Vol. 45, No. 4, 2024opens in new window). When sharenting posts receive high engagement, algorithms are designed to amplify them to a wider audience. This can incentivize parents to post similar content to maintain their reach and influence (Ugwudike, P., et al., Big Data & Society, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2024opens in new window). There is evidence that algorithms may even favor content featuring children who are upset. One recent study found that TikTok videos depicting psychological maltreatment toward children received significantly higher engagement than other content, raising concerns that such incentives could encourage harmful posts (Stormer, B., et al., Child Maltreatment, Vol. 29, No. 4, 2024opens in new window).

“Algorithms really alter our personalities. Instead of the parent thinking primarily as a parent, they are thinking primarily as a business owner or content creator,” said Koslowitz. When a family’s income is tied to online engagement, the potential for exploitation grows, given that children cannot meaningfully consent. Parents may even frame filming as a way to achieve a family goal, such as funding a vacation, but children are not yet able to weigh those rewards against the long-term costs of public exposure.

This commodification of childhood raises significant ethical questions. While there are laws on the books in various statesopens in new window to protect child performers in film and television—mandating limits on working hours, meal and rest periods, educational requirements, and preservation of a portion of earnings for adulthood—children featured in monetized social media content have few legal protections. Their “employer” is not a studio but a parent who also controls their home life, schooling, and income, creating an inherent conflict of interest.

The case of Ruby Franke—a Utah-based family vlogger convicted of child abuse in 2023—helped spur the enactment of Utah’s H.B. 322opens in new window in May 2025. Her daughter Shari Franke reported that her mother coerced her and her siblings into performing acts that would play well on camera, even when they were humiliating—all for audience engagement. H.B. 322 established safeguards for minors involved in social media content creation, including protections from financial exploitation and privacy violations. It also requires creators who make more than $150,000 per year from content featuring children to place 15% of those earnings into a trust fund the children can access at age 18.

“Parents who earn income through their children’s online presence are crossing into new ethical territory,” said Fran Blumberg, PhD, a developmental psychologist and professor in the Graduate School of Education at Fordham University. Many children are performing labor without legal protections. Blumberg suggested that social media platforms establish an ethical code or guidelines to restrict the monetization of child-focused content and the potential violation of child rights.

Experts agree that parents should not be solely accountable for protecting kids online. “Right now, we put all the responsibility on parents to make the right choices online,” said Hanoch. He notes that this approach “assumes people can make purely rational decisions in environments designed to keep them engaged.”

“If I had a magic wand, I would not even approach the parents,” said Hanoch. “I would approach the social network sites, the communication providers, and the policymakers.” In fact, a series of landmark cases against Meta, Snap, TikTok, and YouTube this year will determine whether social media companies, which have been called “digital casinos,” will be held accountable for their addictive properties and forced to change how they are designed.

At a minimum, platforms “should not be allowing photos of minors to be altered and posted” to prevent the creation of manipulated AI content, said Jacqueline Nesi, PhD, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University who studies how technology affects children’s mental health. Nesi further argued that platforms must provide more transparency around data and privacy so that both parents and children understand what happens to their information once it is shared.

Pamela Wisniewski, PhD, a principal research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute and an expert on adolescent online safety, suggested that platforms could implement “just-in-time” interventions such as showing a photo’s metadata to the user before its posting and alerting the user if it contains location information, such as a child’s school or home.

She also suggested developing features that could detect when a child is featured in a post and prompt the user to consider the intended audience or the post’s sentiment. “I imagine there are tons of parents who post something as a cry for help after a frustrating day,” said Wisniewski. Thoughtful design could help route caregivers toward support while reducing potential harm to children. “It could also benefit them to be given some insight from a more objective party in a way that’s less privacy invasive for their children.”

At the family level, Wisniewski suggested sharing decision-making about what gets posted in a developmentally appropriate way. “Consent education needs to be scaffolded,” said Wisniewski. “We don’t want to just start turning over all the autonomy to them at 18. We want to involve them in the decisions along the way so they can begin doing some privacy calculus of what the benefits of posting this are or what the potential drawbacks are.”

Parents can begin nurturing this awareness early by inviting children into small decisions about what to share and why. Even young children who cannot legally consent can offer “assent,” said Keneisha Sinclair-McBride, PhD, a clinical child psychologist and associate chief of integrated behavioral health at Boston Children’s Hospital. “They can’t fully consent, but we should talk to them about it,” she said. “Asking for their assent establishes early habits of respect.” Such conversations should convey that the child’s feelings and emotional boundaries are the priority.

Modeling also plays a central role in scaffolding. Parents who seek permission before posting content—and who explain their reasons for keeping certain details private—are demonstrating what digital ethics looks like. As children mature, scaffolding can expand to include private discussions about online identity and digital footprints. These discussions can also include family media agreements that clarify boundaries and allow children to withdraw consent if they regret something posted earlier. Through ongoing collaboration, parents prepare their kids to move through the digital world with care. “It establishes a pattern where you’re treating kids with respect and modeling good digital citizenship,” said Pamela Rutledge, PhD, director of the Media Psychology Research Center and a professor emerita at Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara, California. “You’re giving them a sense of agency over their own image.”