You’re scrolling through Instagram and discover your family assistant has posted photos of your kids at the park. Or a friend mentions seeing your daughter on your family assistant’s Facebook page. Or you find out they’re sharing details about your family’s schedule, activities, or personal life on social media for their friends and followers to see. Suddenly you’re dealing with a serious privacy violation that puts your children’s safety and your family’s security at risk.
This isn’t about being paranoid or controlling – it’s about basic professional boundaries and child safety. Your family assistant does not have the right to broadcast your children’s images, names, locations, or activities to their social media network without your explicit permission. The fact that they think it’s fine or that they’re just being proud of the kids they care for doesn’t make it acceptable. It’s a fundamental breach of trust and privacy.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we’re seeing this issue increasingly in Austin families who employ younger childcare providers who grew up sharing everything on social media. They don’t see posting about their workday as problematic – it’s just what they do. But when your workday involves someone else’s children, you don’t get to share that content publicly without the parents’ clear, enthusiastic consent.
If you discover your family assistant has posted about your kids without permission, address it immediately. Don’t wait, don’t let it slide, don’t worry about being dramatic. This is serious. “I saw you posted photos of the kids on Instagram. You don’t have permission to share images or information about our family on social media. I need you to delete those posts immediately and understand that this cannot happen again.”
Make them delete the content while you watch. Not “I’ll take it down later” or “I’ll make it private.” Now. Deleted. Gone. Content that’s been shared can be screenshot, downloaded, or reshared, so even deletion doesn’t completely eliminate the privacy violation, but it’s the minimum first step.
Then have a comprehensive conversation about social media policies. “You are not permitted to post photos, videos, or information about our children on any social media platform, ever. This includes Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Snapchat, or any other platform. You also cannot post information about our family’s schedule, activities, location, or personal life. If you’re not clear about what this means, ask me before posting anything that might be related to your work with our family.”
Put it in writing. If you don’t already have a social media policy in your employment agreement, create one now and have your family assistant sign it. Be specific about what’s prohibited – images of children, references to children even without images, location check-ins, schedule information, anything that could identify your family or reveal details about your private life.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we recommend families have explicit social media clauses in all childcare employment contracts. No posting about the children or family without written permission. No identifying the family or children in any way on social media. No sharing the family’s location or activities. Violation of social media policy is grounds for immediate termination. This creates legal clarity and makes consequences explicit.
Explain why this matters if they seem not to understand. Your children’s safety can be compromised when their routine, location, and schedule are broadcast publicly. Your family’s privacy and security are at risk when someone shares information about when you’re home, when you’re traveling, what activities you do. Your children have a right to privacy and to decide for themselves when they’re older whether they want their childhood documented online.
Check their social media accounts yourself. You have the right to verify that content has been removed and that there aren’t other violations you didn’t know about. Some families make it a condition of employment that they can periodically review their childcare provider’s social media to ensure family privacy is being protected.
Pay attention to how your family assistant responds to being confronted. Do they immediately apologize and take responsibility, or do they get defensive and act like you’re overreacting? Do they seem to understand why it’s problematic, or do they think you’re being unreasonable? Their response tells you a lot about whether they’ll respect boundaries going forward.
Some family assistants will claim their accounts are private so it’s fine. That’s not fine. Private accounts can still have hundreds of followers including people they don’t know well. Privacy settings change, accounts get hacked, followers screenshot and share content. There’s no such thing as truly private social media, and they shouldn’t be posting content about your children to any audience.
Watch for more subtle violations too. Some people will post things like “Had such a fun day at the zoo!” without photos or names but it’s still identifying information about your family’s activities and location in real-time. Or they’ll post photos from behind where your kids aren’t directly visible but are still identifiable. All of this counts as violating your privacy.
Consider whether this person can be trusted going forward. They’ve already demonstrated they don’t have good judgment about boundaries and privacy. They did something significant without asking permission. Can you really trust them to respect other boundaries about your children and family? Some families decide the social media violation is enough reason to terminate employment regardless of how good the childcare is otherwise.
If you decide to give them a second chance, monitor closely. Check their social media periodically. Make it clear you’ll be doing so. Create consequences: “If I ever find that you’ve posted about our family again, your employment will be terminated immediately. This is your only warning.”
Talk to your kids if they’re old enough to understand. Explain that their family assistant isn’t allowed to post photos or information about them online, and if they see or hear about it happening, they should tell you. Don’t frame it as the family assistant being bad, just as a family rule about privacy.
At Seaside Staffing Company, we see some families go further and require childcare providers to sign agreements that any photos or videos they take of the children are the family’s property and must be deleted from personal devices when employment ends. This prevents situations where ex-employees retain massive photo libraries of your children.
Some families prohibit their childcare providers from even taking photos of the kids on personal devices. All documentation happens on family-provided devices or cameras so the family maintains control of the images. This is stricter but eliminates the risk of images ending up on social media or in the wrong hands.
Think about whether there are circumstances where you’d allow social media posting with permission. Some families are fine with childcare providers posting photos if faces aren’t shown or if they ask first. Others have a blanket no-exceptions policy. Either is fine, but be clear about what your rules are.
Watch for attempts to get around the rules. Posting to “close friends” only. Using accounts you don’t know about. Posting without tagging or naming you so you won’t see it. Sharing through Snapchat or other platforms they think you don’t use. Make it clear that any social media posting about your family is prohibited regardless of platform, audience size, or whether you’re likely to find out.
Consider legal action if the violation is egregious. If your family assistant posted identifying information that genuinely put your children at risk, shared content that was sensitive or embarrassing, or continued posting after being told to stop, talk to an attorney about your options. Privacy violations involving children can have legal consequences.
The bottom line is that your family assistant’s social media habits are their business until they involve your children. Once they start posting content about your family without permission, it becomes your business and you have every right to shut it down aggressively. Don’t apologize for protecting your children’s privacy and safety. This is non-negotiable, and anyone who doesn’t understand that shouldn’t be working with your family.
