'Sharing Is Caring': But Here's Why Parents Might Regret It Later When it Comes To Their Kids

Many parents might like to share stories of their families online via photos, videos or other forms of media. However, new findings by the University of Michigan Health System show that this could actually do some emotional damage to their children. This rather modern trend that researchers are referring to as "sharenting" appears to do a bit more harm than good.

"By the time children are old enough to use social media themselves many already have a digital identity created for them by their parents," said Sarah J. Clark, associate director of the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children's Hospital National Poll on Children's Health and associate research scientist in the U-M Department of Pediatrics, in a news release. "Sharing the joys and challenges of parenthood and documenting children's lives publicly has become a social norm so we wanted to better understand the benefits and cons of these experiences. 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."

A recent poll showed that close to 70 percent of the parents of the children aged 4 and under said they used social media to get advice from other parents, while 62 percent said the practice helped with some of their worries. It's not the intial sharing that seems to be the issue, according to researchers. However, they found that some of the photos or videos could be embarrassing or, rather, "too personal" for some of the children later in life. And determining what was inappropriate was oftentimes not always so clear cut.

"Parents are responsible for their child's privacy and need to be thoughtful about how much they share on social media so they can enjoy the benefits of camaraderie but also protect their children's privacy today and in the future," Clark concluded.