Is sharing my children's art killing their creativity?

An honest chat about how photographing and sharing my children's art on social media affected their love of creativity.

For those of you who have followed my Instagram account MINI MAD THINGS for a while, you may have noticed my approach to sharing art project ideas has changed over the years.

When I first began my business MINI MAD THINGS about 6 years ago, I had only ever shared 1 image of each of my children on social media; a photo of them just after they were born. My husband and I had no intention of ever sharing any more images, that was until I started a business based in selling products for children. It was a very small business which I started with pretty much zero budget. I needed children to model the products I sold and to create crafts that I could share as content on social media. It made sense to use the very cute children I had in front of me.

For a few years I continued that way, sharing photos of my children making art and using the products I sold. It was an easy, convenient and low budget way to create content for social media. However, it quickly progressed from me just snapping a few cute photos to something more toxic.

There are two issues that became problematic for me. The first, the sharing of my children’s image and life story as content on social media began to make me feel deeply uncomfortable. This phenomenon, which I recently heard called ‘sharenting’, is an issue that we are only just beginning to understand the full effects of with the children whose parents have posted about them on social media since before they were born just now reaching adulthood. If you want to delve deeper into this topic, Devorah Heitner’s book, Growing Up In Public, provides an interesting insight.

The other issue, the one that I want to discuss further in this article, is the sharing of my children’s art. I’ll be honest, I totally killed their enjoyment in creative projects. I ruined for my children the very thing that I was hoping share with others; a passion for creativity.

Painting wall that I ‘fixed’ to look more beautiful after the kids had finished painting.

I would set up projects for them based on social media trends or ideas that I thought would get me more likes without thought of my children’s interests. I would ‘correct’ their art work to make it more ‘Instagram worthy’. I would make them pause in their creative flow to pose for a photograph. I hovered over their shoulder trying to snap a good image while they were making. I shared photos of them online without their consent. I used the excuse that it was all for the good of our family. I was trying to make money to support my children.

It is quite difficult for me to admit now, but I feel ashamed of how I behaved.

Gradually over time, my children were less and less interested in making art. I could see that my actions were destroying their love in the very thing that I was advocating for others. My son would get sad when he noticed I had altered his artwork. He would get cross at me for taking photos of him without asking. My daughter would shout at me that I was ruining the fun by taking photos all the time. She said the projects I wanted her to make, the ones that I thought would get more Instagram likes, were boring.

Rainbow birds I altered to make the colouring neater and more colourful.

I can’t blame them for being cross at me. The way I was treating them was disrespectful. If someone treated me in the same way, demeaning me by ‘correcting’ my artwork, photographing me without my consent and manipulating my interests all to sell products and make money, I would be pretty cross too!

As my daughter got older, she began to vocalise her dislike in the whole process very clearly. It was during this time, about 3 years ago, that a started to question my approach to parenting and read about unschooling. Through this research I delved into the idea of child-led learning and consent based parenting. I began to see how far I had strayed from that initial idea that we were never going to put our children’s images on social media until they were old enough to decide for themselves. I felt so much sadness that I had killed for them the very thing that I loved so much; crafting and making art.

Fortunately, it is never to late to change. These days, my approach to sharing art projects on social media is a little different. Often I will just create a project myself and share a tutorial without my children’s involvement. If I do share a photo of something my children have made, I will ask first. If they agree to me sharing a photo, it usually only includes their hands or the back of their head. I have totally given up trying to manipulate my daughter into making something I want her to create, her creative choices are her own. I don’t share stories about their lives that are personal. And I will never alter any of my children’s artworks again to make them look better for Instagram. It’s still not perfect but their love of making things has returned. My daughter is an avid crafter of all things, 100% on her own terms.

Joyfully child made and unaltered by me. They were so proud of their creations.

I’m so proud of my daughter for being able to advocate for herself and for telling me that I was wrong. I hope she never loses her fierce independence and willingness to express her opinion when she feels something us unjust.

It gives me so much joy seeing her enjoying making art again.

RESOURCES:

• An interesting article about the impact of sharing our children’s lives on social media, aka ‘sharenting’.

• Read about ‘sharenting’ in the context of sharing home education information online.

• Growing Up In Public by Devorah Heitner is a super interesting read about coming of age in a digital world.

• Read more about Unschooling in the article below:

How to live as if school doesn't exist

• Read about consent in the context of parenting:

Chapter Two: What is Consent and why do we need it?