This can, and indeed should, be a problem for parents - not just unschoolers. Most parents who use social media, will, at one time or another, feel the urge to post about their children for any number of reasons: from connecting with others, to sharing news, to seeking solutions to problems. In the UK Unschooling Network, unschooling parents will often need to ask questions which are unique to the child and it often seems almost impossible to do this without revealing a lot of detail about the child.
However this means parents are publishing often very intimate details about their children to a large audience. Even if people post privately, the FB policy makes it clear that information may become public. And information, even when deleted, never goes away. Memories abide, there are almost always other backup copies, screen shots may have been taken, and depending on how a system is run, there may be archives or other types of copies. This information is highly likely to be there forever.
And it isn't just a problem of permanence. It is also a problem of respecting the privacy of others. This is where unschooling parents may be well placed to be thinking about and dealing the issue, and this because in every other part of life, unschooling parents strive to take heed of their children's opinions and to enable their children to live in a way that makes everyone in the family happy. If an unschooled child says that they don't feel like going to the climbing wall, an unschooling parent won't force them to do it. And yet, it may be that the parent has just posted something about their child that the child would proscribe if only they knew about it.
Parents (unschooling or otherwise) should therefore seek the consent of the child when they want to post about the child. This is the respectful thing to do and a reliable way to maintain a trusting relationship.
And it must be informed consent too. The parent must help the child understand the pros and cons of the information being out there. For example, the parent should help the child consider how the child as an adult could one day feel about the information being shared now, how this may impact on their future selves, job applications, (employers nowadays do FB searches on potential employees), future relationships, etc.
And in the likely situation that the child does not want the parent to post about them, what then? Well, there are solutions:
Either the parent could one of the admin team or another member who is known to them to put up an anonymous post. This is probably the easiest solution.
Or the parent could try to frame the question hypothetically, since the principle behind solving one problem may well solve another. However, this may be difficult when there is a very particular problem that requires a unique solution.
It may also be possible to try to post the question directly, but in a way that means that the child is happy to consent to it. The parent must try to find a way to post as respectfully as possible, treating the child as a worthy human being and not referring to or about them as if they are one of their needs or characteristics, but instead using these concepts and labels only if relevant to the conversation and on the presumption that any labels are simply descriptors of the child's challenges and characteristics.
Whatever way you and your children choose, please do think about it. Your children will thank you for it!
