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It’s the time of year for Nativity’s and Christmas Shows, Carol concerts and parties. It’s also a time when we want to share these moments with friends and family, celebrate what our little cherubs have done and how cute they look in their sparkly party clothes.
But it’s also a time for some parents to fear, for they know that their child’s image might inadvertently be shared across social media because ‘Persephone’s Mum wanted to show Grandma how pretty she looked and put a photo on the internet’. It’s all done with the best of
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intentions and no malice intended but us adopters and foster carers know a darker implication to innocently posting a photo or video.
We know that birth families are out there, and some are actively looking for the child they had removed. My boys foster carers have been followed to their homes, been confronted in public and chased down streets, complete with buggy, by birth parents. These are people that for whatever reason can’t look after their child, but also don’t agree with them being adopted. They want their child back.
Birth family see a
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photo on social media, they recognise the school or area – what could happen next? What does every adopter fear?
Even if you haven’t adopted or fostered, if you have a biological child, do you really want their image on the internet – forever? Do you want people you don’t know looking a them? Looking at them inappropriately? Seeing from jumpers or blazers which school they attend? We don’t live in an ideal world where everyone is ‘good’ and everyone is ‘nice’. I wish we did.
So please, whatever protocol your child’s school has for
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events, and this happens not just at Christmas, think of those times when you’ve wanted to take a quick photo, think who else is there, in the background, next to them.
If you want a photo, take your child to one side and do it when they’re on their own, when it’s just about your family and not someone else’s. Because you don’t know what damage your innocent snap could do.
I know it’s sad and it is frustrating but what’s that compared with keeping our children safe?
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Jo Adamson-Parker - 21 Dec 18
It’s the time of year for Nativity’s and Christmas Shows, Carol concerts and parties. It’s also a time when we want to share these moments with friends and family, celebrate what our little cherubs have done and how cute they look in their sparkly party clothes.
But it’s also a time for some parents to fear, for they know that their child’s image might inadvertently be shared across social media because ‘Persephone’s Mum wanted to show Grandma how pretty she looked and put a photo on the internet’. It’s all done with the best of intentions and no malice intended but us adopters and foster carers know a darker implication to innocently posting a photo or video.
We know that birth families are out there, and some are actively looking for the child they had removed. My boys foster carers have been followed to their homes, been confronted in public and chased down streets, complete with buggy, by birth parents. These are people that for whatever reason can’t look after their child, but also don’t agree with them being adopted. They want their child back.
Birth family see a photo on social media, they recognise the school or area – what could happen next? What does every adopter fear?
Even if you haven’t adopted or fostered, if you have a biological child, do you really want their image on the internet – forever? Do you want people you don’t know looking a them? Looking at them inappropriately? Seeing from jumpers or blazers which school they attend? We don’t live in an ideal world where everyone is ‘good’ and everyone is ‘nice’. I wish we did.
So please, whatever protocol your child’s school has for events, and this happens not just at Christmas, think of those times when you’ve wanted to take a quick photo, think who else is there, in the background, next to them.
If you want a photo, take your child to one side and do it when they’re on their own, when it’s just about your family and not someone else’s. Because you don’t know what damage your innocent snap could do.
I know it’s sad and it is frustrating but what’s that compared with keeping our children safe?
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