When Is It Okay To Share Someone's Photos?

These posts are based on the questions in my guide, (Over) 100 Questions To Ask Your Kids About Sexuality. The guide is free and if you don’t have it, you can get it by clicking here. To watch the video version of this post, click here.  Best practices or "etiquette" around when we should share other people's photos online is a relatively new social consideration. For many of raising kids today, the Internet wasn't even a thing when we were young, so we didn't have to deal with any of this growing up.

When I was in high school, I posted photos on my locker door. The potential audience reach was anyone who happened to wander down the drama room hallway. But when our kids post photos on Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and other social media platforms, when youth share photos of other people, it's possible for those images to wind up anywhere.

One thing we can do in our conversations about online behaviour is to encourage our teens to think about the effect sharing information and images might have on others. I call it “online empathy”. When someone posts a photo online, we can share that photo anywhere, with virtually anyone. But should we?How might sharing the photo affect the other person, particularly if that photo is embarrassing or upsetting for them? How might it affect our relationship with that person? And regardless of whether we know the person or not, how might sharing their photo reflect on us and our character?

Exploring these questions is a chance for your to help your teens reflect on their own values in terms of how they want to treat others, and to think about how they want to live those values through their online behaviour.