The Scene:
In a social media community group of about 13000 members, a parent asks for recommendations for mental health professionals, for her teenaged daughter. Many people provide recommendations, often prefaced with “This person helped my child...”
Enter a 22yo poster who reminds folks that perhaps said kids might not want their personal medical experiences made public. Another person disagrees saying mental health care should be destigmatized and therefore sharing that our kids have therapists is cool
Enter K1, who points out that destigmatizing mental health care is separate from sharing children’s personal healthcare information without their consent.
CHAOS ENSUES.
Please hop across the story break for some thoughts, and a request for yours.
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I am going to spare you the long, long comment thread that ensued, because it was on a private forum. I am not going to spare you the maternal pride I feel at my child right now.
What the comment thread boiled down to was K1 standing her ground on the concept that children’s personal medical information should not be shared without their consent. And another poster insisting that sharing the fact that a child needs mental health care (a) isn’t sharing their personal information; and (b) is important because it destigmatizes mental health care.
I’m unwavering on my belief that once we’ve progressed beyond cute baby pictures, information shared on public forums (ie, places where the information will live on in perpetuity) should be done so only with the consent of said child. Physical and mental health issues, academic prowess or struggles, relationship status… you name it, if I post it I’ve obtained consent to do so. I believe that too many adults don’t take the privacy rights of children seriously, whereas they’d never do so to another adult. The example that came to mind: would posting that you had a recommendation for a doctor who works wonders with men experiencing erectile dysfunction or premature ejaculation be OK because you didn’t explicitly say it was YOUR husband who saw the doctor, and besides, sexual dysfunction needs to be destigmatized? Yeah, I thought so.
While YOU may think that whatever you’re sharing is ‘cute’, ‘normal’, or otherwise OK, that same tidbit may expose your child to taunting, bullying, or embarrassment. YOU may think that the fact your kid needed speech therapy is no big deal, your child now facing teasing because one of their classmates found this out likely disagrees.
I asked K2 about this issue on our way home from soccer practice tonight. He said he trusts me to share things responsibly. I replied that because he trusts me and I don’t want to lose that trust, I ask for his consent before sharing things (yes, I asked before posting this).
So, what say you? I’m interested in your thoughts. After you peruse tonight’s Top Comments, Mojo and Pictures, of course.
TOP COMMENTS
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TOP MOJO
Top Mojo for yesterday, December 13th 2020, first comments and tip jars excluded. Thank you mik for the mojo magic! For those of you interested in How Top Mojo Works, please see his diary on FAQing Top Mojo.
TOP PICTURES
Top Pictures for yesterday, December 13th 2020. Click any picture to be taken to the full comment or picture. Thank you jotter!
There will be no Top Pictures tonight. The process that leads to generation of a collection of images generated “STANDARD ERROR STREAM” instead. No, we can’t fix it. Sorry. Have a gorgeous peaceful winter song instead: