Elementary School Kids and Social Media: A Dicey Proposition

If you think kids as young as 6 years old aren't posting and chatting away on social media, better think again.

The article "Does Instagram Put Kids at Risk?" in the June/July issue of Scholastic Parent & Child magazine takes an eye-opening look at just how young some users of this particular social media app really are.

Writer Sharon Duke Estroff went on an "undercover mission" for this piece, exploring the potential upsides and pitfalls of kids using Instagram, a photo-sharing app owned by Facebook that's increasingly popular among school kids. Estroff posed on Instagram as a "fun-loving 10-year-old girl with an affinity for Justin Bieber and all things adorable," she writes. And some of what she discovered might stop parents in their tracks.

"I saw little boys tossing around four-letter words like footballs; I followed young girls who asked me to 'like' their pictures if 'you think I look sexy'; I viewed popular posts that included an alleged paparazzi pic of Zac Efron's private parts," Estroff writes. All this on the accounts of elementary school children.

Technically, you must be at least 13 to use Instagram. It's clearly stated in the app's "Terms of Use." Facebook, Snapchat and other social networking services have the same age requirement. They have to in order to comply with the federal Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA), which makes it illegal to collect, use, or disclose personal information from anyone under 13 without parental consent.

But as Internet safety expert Larry Magrid writes in Forbes, COPPA is about preventing the collection of personal information, not about online safety. "COPPA compliance in no way means that the site is safe or appropriate for young children," Magrid writes.

And the age cutoff certainly isn't stopping kids from signing up in droves. In a study by McAfee released last month, 85% of kids ages 10 to 12 admitted to having a Facebook profile. Last year, a study by Ipsos on kids and social media found that 29% of all kids ages 6-12 had an account on a social media site.

Facebook was by far the most popular site among kids in the Ipsos study, and statistics show that there are millions of users under 13 on Facebook. But the popularity of Instagram and Snapchat among elementary school kids has soared in recent months.

Statistics on underaged kids using these apps are hard to come by, but in her Scholastic Parent & Child article, Estroff describes a world in which 8-year-olds are using Instagram like old pros, posting photos, sharing comments, collecting hundreds of followers and "liking" each other's posts.

Estroff's Instagram investigation was triggered by her own 10-year-old daughter complaining that everyone at her school had an Instagram account but her. Estroff eventually "caved," as she says, and let her daughter sign up — but only under close supervision and with strict rules.

When it comes to social media, the "Everybody's doing it!" argument is a powerful one parents are up against these days. And it's a hard spot for parents to be in.

On the one hand, we don't want to deprive kids of important opportunities to be part of the group and to feel that they belong. Through Instagram and other social media services, kids stay connected to each other and can enjoy support and encouragement from peers and a much desired sense of community. What kid doesn't want to be "liked," online or off?

On the other hand, we don't want our kids being "followed" online by complete strangers or accepting requests from strangers to be followed. We don't want them harassed or bullied online, or subjected to posts, comments, photos and videos that are far too mature for their age.

Even with close monitoring and safeguarding, Estroff writes, inappropriate posts still slipped through to her daughter's new Instagram feed: "A string of raunchy jokes posted by a boy in her class who had re-posted them off of his older sister's Instagram; pictures of a friend's older brother funneling beer at a fraternity party; 20 minutes later, the same boy urinating on a car," Estroff writes. We're talking about a 10-year-old's account here. "As a parent, I was mortified," she writes.

And yet many parents find they must weigh these risks against the potential benefits that socializing online might have for their kids. Many, like Estroff, let their younger kids sign up for these 13-and-over services but are committed to keeping track of what their kids are doing on them and to protecting them from possible harm.

Estroff gives a helpful list of "Rules to Keep Kids Safe" using Instagram. These include creating a joint account with your kid; controlling the password; reviewing posts, followers, followees and comments; and setting time limits for using the app, which she calls "highly addictive."

And yes, making sure your child's account is private. This is truly key. Instagram accounts are public by default. Estroff writes that about half of the kids she saw on Instagram had accounts that were public. So it's up to parents to take charge and actively change the privacy settings.

Instagram's Photo Map feature.

It's also important to never activate the app's Photo Map option, which shows the exact location that a photo was taken, "down to the street number," Estroff explains. (For more on geotagging and kids, see the previous post on this blog. Also see this recent Digital Trends piece on a petition to Instagram to make it disable its geotagging feature and change its default privacy settings. For info on a new parents' guide to Instagram, see this post.)

Staying on top of all this is a lot to ask of parents. The recent McAfee study — which explored the "online disconnect" between parents and kids when it comes to online activities — reported that 80% of parents do not even know how to find out what their children are doing online. The study showed that a large majority of parents — 74% — say they do not have the time or energy to keep up with their children's online activity. They're throwing in the towel and just hoping for the best.

But if parents don't remain vigilant about protecting kids from inappropriate content online, who will? Certainly not the social media services.

In a recent Digital Trends article, writer Kate Knibbs shows how and why social media sites like Facebook and Instagram are failing to keep young kids off their services. Even the new SnapKidz feature on Snapchat for kids under 13, which rolled out last month, won't keep kids off the real service, Knibbs argues.

When kids who are under 13 try to sign up for Snapchat, the popular app that lets users send self-deleting photos, the new SnapKidz mode now kicks in. It allows kids to take photos and doodle on them, but it won't let them send them to anyone. Knibbs calls this new feature pointless — "a meaningless mea culpa that will achieve absolutely nothing." Savvy kids know all they have to do to get the real Snapchat service is plug in a fake birth date. It's what they do on all social media sites that require a birth date to "prove" that you're 13 or older.

"SnapKidz is like a pair of really flimsy, slightly deflated arm floaties," Knibbs writes. "Parents slip them on their kids and may assume they won’t have to watch them swim as closely. But they don’t actually make the child safer."

There's not much Snapchat or other social media services can do to keep underaged kids off without requiring complicated background checks, Knibbs says. And such checks are not likely to happen. So it will remain up to parents and other adults to pay close attention to what young kids are doing online and to keep them safe. A "snap," right? Not so much in today's rapidly changing digital world.

Controlling Your Digital Footprints: An NPR Report

Your child posts an innocent photo of the family dog on a social media site. No problem, right? Not necessarily.

As this recent report from NPR's "Weekend Edition" explains, there are many apps available that can pinpoint precisely where a photo was taken, in effect making it possible to lead someone right to your child.

This is due to a process called geotagging, or adding geographic location "metadata" to photos, videos and other media.

"Today all smartphones and most cameras add those tags automatically," NPR's Steve Henn explains. "It's like writing your address on the back of a photo."

In this report, Henn demonstrates how easy it is to drop a photo into an app that will reveal all of the metadata attached to it. Such apps allow someone to see exactly where the photo was taken — right down to the building, and even where in the building.

"All of this information gets stored, and if you email a picture to a friend or post it on a social network, a lot of that can be out there and easily accessible," Henn says. This data is catalogued with each photo, Henn explains, "unless you go into your phone and turn the location services information on your camera off, which you have to know a little bit to do. But most people, I think, don't do it."

Henn, who has an 11-year-old daughter himself, says some new tools have emerged to help people control their own digital footprints, such as Wickr, an app developed by security and privacy experts that lets you send encrypted text, photo and video messages. It also allows you set a time limit for how long a message is shared. Wickr, which has the tagline "Leave No Trace," boasts on its site that it "flips messaging on its head, giving control to the sender instead of the receiver (or servers in between)."

In the wake of the NSA scandal, at a time of heightened awareness about just how easily our personal information is collected, privacy is on everyone's minds — including concerned parents.

"Perhaps over time," Henn says, "as we continue to have conversations about privacy like this, we'll see more attention in Silicon Valley about making tools available that are easy to use that also allow you to control how your information is shared." And that let you rest easy if a photo of Buster happens to be shared online.

Popular Photo-Sharing Apps Demystified: New Instagram/Snapchat Guides for Parents

It's hard not to notice the growing popularity of photo-sharing apps such as Instagram and Snapchat these days — especially among young people.

Instagram, which launched in 2010, today boasts 100 million active monthly users who send 40 million photos per day. Snapchap, not even two years in existence, saw a threefold increase in users between December and April alone — to over 150 million photos (or "snaps") per day.

That's an awful lot of photos being shared. For parents and other adults who are rightly concerned about protecting the safety and reputations of kids who use these apps, ConnectSafely has come to the rescue. This month, the Internet safety nonprofit released two new guides — the "Parents' Guide to Instagram" and "Parents' Guide to Snapchat" — that walk adults through the apps' privacy and safety features and advise talking with kids about these new favorite tools "with genuine interest, not fear."

The two guides join ConnectSafely's earlier parents' guide to Facebook and to Google+. (You can find all four guides here.)

Each one starts by addressing some basic questions adults often ask: "Why do kids love Instagram?" "What are the risks in using Instagram?" "Should my child's profile be private?"

They go on to cover such topics as controlling your own privacy and respecting that of others; managing profiles (on Instagram) and settings (on Snapchat); and reporting inappropriate photos and abuse. They each offer basic reminders about not sharing embarrassing photos you wouldn't want a college admissions officer — or Grandma — to see. Each also covers what to do if you're being harassed.



Snapchat, which allows users to send photos that can self-delete within 10 seconds, has been criticized as a "sexting" app, a notion its creators are quick to dismiss. And so the new Snapchat guide touches on sexting too (it notes that while sexting is a concern, "it's not nearly as common as some media reports have suggested").

The guide also explains how Snapchat photos don't necessarily delete and can in fact be captured in different ways by savvy recipients. (See these recent stories on Snapchat's not-so-disappearing photos in Forbes and the Huffington Post.) 



Each guide ends with some encouraging words for parents. From the Instagram guide: "... research shows that socializing face-to-face is still No. 1 with teens," even as new apps and services for digital socializing seem to pop up by the minute. And from the Snapchat guide:

"... there's no need to panic every time you hear a media report about something awful happening in social media. The reason the news media cover awful situations is because they're rare. How often do you read about planes landing safely?... Of course kids can get into trouble using Snapchat or any other service, but the same can be said for swimming pools. That's why we teach them how to swim."

So take heart: If you help kids to learn their own critical thinking and media literacy skills, they'll be more prepared to navigate any potentially deep waters.

For more on the growing appeal of Snapchat in particular, see this recent New York Times profile.

For more on the explosion of short-term photo-sharing services generally, and other key Internet trends of 2013, see this new report by Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers from the AllThingsD D11 Conference yesterday. (This chart shows Snapchat's growth from May 2012 to April 2013.)

From the 2013 Internet Trends report by KPCB

Oh, and check out ConnectSafety's post from earlier this week on the release of the 20th anniversary edition of "Child Safety on the Information Highway," a booklet on Internet safety first published when "the Information Highway" was a phrase people actually used. Written by Larry Magid, co-director of ConnectSafety and founder of SafeKids.com (and co-author of the new Instagram and Snapchat parent guides), the updated "Child Safety" guide (found here) covers harassment and bullying, online privacy and security issues, and more. Another great tool at your fingertips for keeping kids safe and savvy online.

Teach Online Privacy Early, Say Google Execs in "The New Digital Age"

Never mind the birds and the bees. It's the "online talk" that kids need to hear first.

That's what two Google executives write in the new book The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations and Business. 

And when top guns at Google say teaching kids about online privacy and security should come even before sex education, you might want to listen. They know a thing or two, after all, about collecting personal information online.

"Whether you're in New York or Saudi Arabia or a part of Asia, educating the next generation as they're coming online young and fast is going to be important, regardless of what kind of society it is," Jared Cohen, director of Google Ideas, told NPR's "All Tech Considered" this week.

Cohen, a counterterrorism expert and former State Department adviser, teamed up with Google's executive chairman and former CEO Eric Schmidt to write The New Digital Age, out today. The book lays out a vision of what the near future will look like in an increasingly "connected" world.

"Parents will have to talk to their kids about online privacy and security *years* before they talk to them about the birds and the bees," reads a post on the Facebook page for The New Digital Age. "Online privacy and security will be taught alongside health class."

Schmidt and Cohen say that kids today are part of a generation unlike any that came before it when it comes to virtual identities and permanent online profiles.

"The parent sits there and says, 'There's really no delete button for what my 10-year-old or 11-year-old is about to post, and I really don't want this following them for the next 50 years,'" Schmidt told NPR.

"From birth till your death now, going forward, your online profile will be shaped more and more by online events, what people say about you, and it will be very difficult for you to control that," he said. "And so the reality is that a child growing up today will find more and more of the things said about them and the things they do accumulate over time. We'll all, of course, deal with that as a society, and there will be a change in social mores. But the fact of the matter is that our generation never had this problem."

From The New Digital Age Facebook page

Cohen said he and Schmidt met with parents across the world as they conducted research for their new book. In the process, they came to a greater appreciation of the importance of teaching online privacy to kids.

For more on The New Digital Age and the authors' forecasts, both bleak and hopeful—and on Google's own troubles with privacy (they've been sued repeatedly over privacy concerns)—see this Huffington Post review. 

And for more on the authors' journeys to various autocratic regimes, and what might happen as 5 billion more people log onto the Internet in the coming decades, joining the 2 billion already online, listen to this second discussion with "All Tech Considered." The authors explore such questions as What will the Internet in Burma look like? and Will North Korea ever really be online?

Sneaking a Peek: Is It OK to Read Your Kids' Text Messages?

When does parenting become spying? It's a question that comes up often in this age of mobile kids with virtual social lives. But the answer is rarely straightforward.

A parent recently asked Common Sense Media (CSM) if it's OK for parents to read their kids' texts to make sure they're not getting into trouble. The response, by CSM's parenting editor Caroline Knorr, was a bit nuanced.

In short, Knorr wrote, it's essential to discuss responsible cell phone behavior with your children — and do this in the beginning, when you first hand a child a phone — and to set consequences for breaking the rules. And yes, you need to keep an eye on their cell phone behavior. But as far as outright reading their texts? "There's no absolute right answer here," Knorr wrote. "It depends on your kid's age, personality, and behavior."

Some behaviors will set off louder alarm bells than others. Changes to a child's appearance or actions could mean something is up. If you suspect that your child is going through something bad but won't talk about it, Knorr says, you may have "probable cause" for peeking at texts.

The links throughout Knorr's piece to other CSM articles offer further advice about sexting, responsible texting, setting cellphone use rules and deciding what devices to give your kids when — do they really need a cell phone with texting? At what age? Knorr's "Parents' Guide to Kids and Cell Phones" is a great place to start for help with these questions and many more. See the CSM article "Are You Spying on Your Kid?" too, on walking that fine line between protecting your children and invading their privacy.

And read what some kids had to say in the comments sections, too. "Parents, it's true that we do treat phones like diaries," writes one 13-year-old. "If you go through them without asking, it offends us a little that you don't have trust in us." This young person said it's OK for his or her parents to read texts as long as they ask first. "I love them, but I'd rather they not just read them whenever they feel like it."

Then there's the 11-year-old who simply answered the "Is it OK" question with, "NOOOOOOOO!" No ambiguity there. Other kids who had their own phones at as young as 6 and 8 years old weighed in on the issue, too. Not surprisingly, they had something to say on the matter. 

"This Is Part of Raising Children Now": TV Report on Monitoring Kids' Online Lives

There's no excuse for not staying on top of your children's online activity, experts said in a recent TV news report from WRAL in Raleigh, Durham and Fayetteville, North Carolina.

WRAL reporter Amanda Lamb talked to social media experts who agreed that parents must educate themselves about the media platforms their kids are using, and educate their kids — from the very beginning — about the various pitfalls involved. (See the TV report here.)



Lamb spoke with some kid experts, too. Twelve-year-old Kalyse Connor said social media is a "huge" part of her middle school life. Even her 7-year-old sister, Kaiya, is online, using sites like National Geographic's Animal Jam and doing Facetime with her mom.

But Kalyse and Kaiya's parents closely monitor all of their online activity. "Our girls cannot go on any social network without our permission," said Angela Connor, who manages social media for a communications company. “I think we have to be involved as parents," she said. "It's not OK to say, 'Oh, I don't know. We didn't do that when I was a kid.'"

A top concern of many parents is kids posting things that will get other people, or themselves, in trouble — now or down the road.

"We don't know what college applications are going to be like in six years," said the girls' father, Derek Connor. "Are they going to Google you? Are they going to go back and look at your Facebook page and see the things you've posted?"

"It's really important for parents to understand that they have to do this," Angela Connor added. "This is part of raising children now."

Watch the full report above, or read the story — which includes an Internet safety checklist for parents from North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper — here.

Edutopia: More Great Resources on Raising Kids in a Digital World

For anyone looking for guidance navigating the digital world of today's kids, the site Edutopia has a great resource page that's a must to bookmark.

"Media and Digital Literacy: Resources for Parents" is an excellent collection of articles, videos, tip sheets and other resources compiled by the editors of Common Sense Media. These carefully curated links contain a wealth of useful information. Learn how much privacy a kid gives up in one hour online. Find out what to do when Facebook photos go wrong. Learn how to create a healthy media diet for your kids.

The topics on this site run the gamut, from keeping kids safe online to the ins and outs of social networking sites. Need help dealing with digital harrassment? Check out "When Texting Turns to Torment." Want to learn more about digital security? Read about the dangers of phishing and spyware here. If you're not too clear on how kids can use digital media ethically for schoolwork, there's a section of resources on hi-tech cheating, digital piracy and copyright law. There are even links on the influence of media role models and why these role models matter.

Edutopia, a site published by the George Lucas Educational Foundation, has as its mission improving K-12 education. The well-organized site catalogs innovative practices in education. Thankfully for interested parents and caregivers, it catalogs articles like the above as well. It's an easy-to-navigate site and well worth a look.

Cyber Sticks and Stones: A New Book on Cyberbullying

Harrassing texts. Private details about one's personal life posted on Facebook. Mean comments and cruel lies spread via Twitter. These are just some of the forms that cyberbullying is taking in today’s digital age.

Emily Bazelon, author of a new book on cyberbullying, Sticks and Stones, discussed how the Internet and social media have intensified bullying for today’s always-connected kids on NPR's Fresh Air today.

“It really can make bullying feel like it’s 24/7,” Bazelon told Fresh Air host Terry Gross. Unlike in the pre-Internet, pre-texting past, today “when you come home, if you’re a victim of bullying, you’re likely to see this kind of continue on a social media site or via texting,” she said. Indeed, a generation ago, kids were able to get a break from bullying when they left school for the day. Today they can experience it alone in their bedrooms at night.

"It's really hard for kids not to look when they think there's some mean thing being spread around about them," Bazelon said. Another difference for bullying victims today? Since the offending words are written down online, the harrassment can feel more visible, and permanent. "The bullying can take place in front of quite a large audience," she says.

Bazelon, a senior editor at Slate and also the Truman Capote fellow at Yale Law School, discussed her new book at length with Gross. (You can hear the full interview here). A main topic was how parents can navigate — and help their children navigate — the ever-changing world of digital media kids are growing up in today.

"Technology use is such a struggle for parents right now," she said. "It's so different than when we were growing up" — without social media, for example. "These sites are encouraging kids to share widely and habitually. That's good for their business models. The more brand loyalty they can build among kids and teenagers, and the more they can habituate all of us to just sharing, the more money they make. So we need to make sure to help kids think about whether they really want to be putting intimate details, intimate photographs about their lives online."

Bazelon also told the story of spending a day at Facebook — which has 20 million American teen users — to learn about a program Facebook is currently working on to help young people deal with bullying on its site.

"Facebook has a lot of influence over kids who are mean," she said. "They know from their own data that when they tell kids that they've posted something inappropriate [and] they ask them to take it down, those kids don't re-offend." The problem, though, Bazelon said, is that Facebook has been reluctant thus far to use its influence for too much good because "it doesn't want to be seen as uncool."

You can read an excerpt from Sticks and Stones on NPR’s website here. For more information on cyberbullying, visit the Cyberbullying Research Center.

"I Hereby Agree to...": Parent-Kid Tech Pacts

From Paul Baier's PracticalSustainability blog

Are parent-kid technology contracts in vogue these days? At least a couple have become media sensations in recent weeks. Earlier this month, a dad posted on his blog a contract he signed with his 14-year-old daughter to pay her $200 if she stayed off Facebook for the rest of the school year. The post, by Paul Baier of the Boston area, went viral in a matter of hours.

And everyone had something to say about it. Some folks commenting on Baier's blog — presumably total strangers — called him a wonderful, creative and caring dad. They called his contract "brilliant," "ingenious," and "awesome." Supporters recounted their own parents paying them to do chores or get good grades. But others tore Baier apart, accusing him of bad parenting, bribery and even of forcing his daughter into the agreement — despite his stating in his original blog post, "Her idea which I support fully."

In the days following his posting, Baier told the Boston Herald, and various other news outlets, that it was indeed his daughter, an honor student, who approached him with this idea. He said she found Facebook "distracting and boring and full of nothingness!" She also wanted to earn some cash. (His daughter is not alone in her Facebook hiatus, by the way: A Pew Research Center report released in early February found that 61% of Facebook users have at some point taken a break from the site for several weeks or more.)

Janell Burley Hofmann, a Cape Cod mom, drew the same kind of attention — and fire — when she publicly shared an 18-point list of rules her 13-year-old son had to abide by when she gave him an iPhone for Christmas. "Failure to comply with the following list will result in termination of your iPhone ownership," Hofmann wrote on the Huffington Post, where she shared the details of the contract. Her rules included: "2. I will always know the password." "5. It does not go to school with you. Have a conversation with the people you text in person. It's a life skill." And "8. Do not text, email, or say anything through this device you would not say in person." As of this posting, there were 1,669 comments to Hofmann's original post — many applauding her rules but others dissing them rather harshly.

Regardless of what their friends (or even strangers) may think about it, many parents make technology pacts with their children. Others who would like to but who need some help getting started can find quite a few ready-made contracts available online.

"Online safety cards" from A Platform for Good

Take, for example, these downloadable contracts about gadget usage from A Platform for Good (PFG), a project of the Family Online Safety Institute (FOSI). Parents can use them when giving their child a new smartphone, tablet, computer, cell phone or gaming system. Both parent and child sign the contract. The child agrees to certain limits and restrictions. In return, the parent promises to learn more about the technology and to "not overreact" if something goes awry.

Common Sense Media has contracts too, called "Family Media Agreements," for kids as young as Kindergarten level. (They're broken down by grade level: elementary school, middle school and high school). The kids agree to be responsible and careful, and the parents agree to be understanding and open-minded about the technology their kids use.

Even the U.S Attorney General's office has its own "Internet Safety Contract" for children in Kindergarten through 5th grade. The "Family Online Safety Contract" from FOSI is another contract specifically about Internet safety.

The "Technology Contract" for kids at Yoursphere for Parents is worth looking into, too. "I’ve experienced firsthand that not only do technology contracts provide you the opportunity to candidly talk to your child about what’s safe use and what’s not, they’re also a great way to create boundaries for our children," says Mary Kay Hoal, Internet safety expert and founder of Yoursphere.com. Hoal certainly knows about kids and technology use. In her home, she writes, there are "three laptops, one desktop, one iPad, two iPod Touches, two Wii’s, one Xbox 360, four smartphones, one non-smart cell phone, one Netflix account, one landline and two TVs." Oh, and five kids — all bound by contract to follow the rules.

Respecting Children's Privacy Online

A couple of years ago, a study came out that said 92% of children in the U.S. under age two already had a digital "footprint" of some kind — from photos and albums of themselves posted online to email addresses to full-on social network profiles. The study, by Internet security firm AVG, found that 34% of U.S. children had an online presence even before they were born, thanks to sonograms posted by their parents — a "digital birth" before their own actual births.

What happens when these kids grow up? When they reach tweendom, say, and are old enough to see and understand this online documentation of their childhoods? Will they flinch at the anecdotes their parents shared on social media sites — not to mention all the comments their parents' friends and followers posted in response? Since they had no control over creating these early online profiles (they certainly didn't post those toddler shots of themselves with food all over their faces), how will they feel about them?

In the February 4 TODAY Moms article "Sharing 'Cute' Naked Photos of Your Kids Online: Just Don't", Carolyn Savage tells the story of when she came across naked pictures of herself as a baby — the old fashioned print kind — when she was 11. "My immediate reaction was to hide every last one of the photos," Savage writes. "As innocent as the pictures were, in my pre-pubescent mind, no one — not even my parents — had a right to possess pictures of me with no clothes on. My body was mine and at that point in my life, I wanted to keep my body private."

And these were just her mom's personal collection of family pics. Savage's piece was sparked by a recent outcry over one mom blogger posting a picture on Instagram of her naked 3-year-old in the tub. The blogger has over 20,000 followers, and while some defended her posting, many were outraged by it, citing pedophiles and child pornographers as well as her toddler's own right to privacy. (The blogger has since taken the photo down.)

For many parents, posting naked photos, even of babies, crosses a line. Many understand that once a photo is out there, it's out there, and there's no real way to know or control who ends up getting access to it or what they might use it for. A poll accompanying Savage's article on TODAY Moms asks, "Is it OK to share naked photos of your kids online?" As of this posting, 86% had clicked "No; children have a right to privacy, too," while just 14% clicked "Yes! They're cute, and it's all in good fun."

But nakedness is just one thing to consider. In the February 1 Time.com piece "Are You Guilty of 'Oversharenting'? Why We Owe Our Kids Online Privacy," Carolyn Jones notes that college admissions officers and hiring managers "regularly research their potential candidates online." This could include whatever a candidate's parents might have publicly written about him or her in the past.

Jones also discusses identity theft: "All a fraudster needs is a child’s name, birth date and address — details that can be cherry-picked off unsecured social-media profiles — and they can commit identify theft that won’t be discovered until the child is much older," she writes.

In its "Online Reputation Guide for College-Bound Students," SafetyWeb, a service from Experian, notes: "A digital footprint can last a lifetime unless an individual diligently practices online reputation management (monitoring)." But how can a teen control the online "reputation" his or her parents created years ago? What about the children whose parents regularly blog about their lives, sharing all manner of growing-up stories with the online world at large? All that commentary about what little Amy did today won't go away when Amy grows up.

"The more of our lives we put online from the beginning, the more there is to contend with later on," Steven Leckart wrote last May in The Wall Street Journal article "The Facebook-Free Baby." In this piece — in which he famously coined the term "oversharenting" — Leckart described his decision not to post anything about his infant son on Facebook, including photos. "It's not that I want my son to remain hidden from the world," he wrote. "I just want him to inherit a decision instead of a list of passwords and default settings. If he takes part in social media, he'll eventually do so on his own terms, not mine."

Savage at TODAY Moms asks a simple but important question: "When does a child's right to privacy trump a parent's desire to share?" It's a question each parent needs to answer for himself or herself. Facebook's ever-changing privacy settings may be a pain to navigate, but parents should take the time to understand them and decide what they want to share with whom. Will they share photos of their kids with private lists of close friends and family or with all 500 Facebook friends? Will they post their children's full names, first and last? If they blog about their child's life, will they use his or her real name? The YouTube videos are certainly adorable — but do parents want these to be part of their children's online profiles forever?

These are individual decisions. But they're decisions that could have important consequences, both today and down the road. Facebook has only been around since 2004. It will still be a few years before the first generation of kids who had their sonograms posted to the site are even officially old enough to use it.

Internet Safety Lessons for the Very Young: A New British Campaign

From ChildLine.org

How do you teach Internet safety to a 5-year-old? And should kids as young as 5 be taught about dangers online? The British service ChildLine, part of the British charity NSPCC, says absolutely. 

"We are facing an e-safety time bomb," a spokesperson for the charity told the BBC last week. She said an increased number of young kids are reporting various and new forms of online abuse. Some 250 callers to ChildLine last year said they were being groomed for sex online, for example, the BBC reported. And there was a 70% hike in calls to the number about online pornography, with some callers being as young as 11. 

ChildLine is now holding assemblies in every primary school in the United Kingdom to teach children about staying safe online. Young people can also read ChildLine's "Online and Mobile Safety" tips, with information on gaming, sexting and more.

Continuing the discussion, Parenting.com offered its own tips for handling online safety with children as young as 5 in the February 7 article "How Young Is Too Young for Internet Safety?". "Just like we teach [our kids] to look both ways when crossing the street, we need to give them the tools they need to be safe online," the article advises.