“These parents live vicariously through their kids” is exactly correct. I’m not sure why I hadn’t realized it with this team. While we’ve been around travel sports with different kids in a variety of sports for years, this team has a bunch of newbies. I don’t want to be the buzzkill, know it all parent ruining the “fun” parts of the experience. However, I will tell them to not post any individual recognition of my kid.

I'm also very averse to social media promoting. In the end, the only option for you is to tell the team manager (who normally runs these pages and is a parent) that you don't want your child to be in individual posts. These parents live vicariously through their kids.

OP I'm with you that identifying information (happy birthday with name and picture is a ton of personally identifiable information linked) is where I'd draw the line. Yes facial recognition stores all of this and has been mined to create AI already - and will be moreso. But this is basically just sticking the kids' identities out there even for things that aren't designed to harvest data - just why?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, if you’re on any type of competitive team, parents will insist that this is necessary for college recruiting starting in middle school. and it’s not. But good luck pushing back on it, I’ve tried.

I’m familiar with this trend and argument as well. I think having a parent run Instagram account featuring and promoting your kid is different than a team posting on social media trends and individualized birthday messages. I don’t really like the Instagram accounts either, but that’s a family choice. College recruiters are not looking at 11 year olds Instagram pages.

But the team social media is typically run by parents. It’s not the coaches.

Correct, its the parents and they want the team’s page to be followed by other teams pages, and liked by other teams, and national organizations, and companies that make equipment. It’s just ridiculous. None of it will actually help their child get recruited, but they think it will and they are in this rat race for “likes.” They all also have individual pages for their children and have had them since very young.

It definitely is a rat race for “likes” and desire to be followed and impress other team’s pages. Locally, there’s one other same age group team in their sport and it appears like a competition for posts and attention. It’s not why my kid plays sports and I’d rather not get wrapped up in it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, if you’re on any type of competitive team, parents will insist that this is necessary for college recruiting starting in middle school. and it’s not. But good luck pushing back on it, I’ve tried.

I’m familiar with this trend and argument as well. I think having a parent run Instagram account featuring and promoting your kid is different than a team posting on social media trends and individualized birthday messages. I don’t really like the Instagram accounts either, but that’s a family choice. College recruiters are not looking at 11 year olds Instagram pages.

But the team social media is typically run by parents. It’s not the coaches.

Correct, its the parents and they want the team’s page to be followed by other teams pages, and liked by other teams, and national organizations, and companies that make equipment. It’s just ridiculous. None of it will actually help their child get recruited, but they think it will and they are in this rat race for “likes.” They all also have individual pages for their children and have had them since very young.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, if you’re on any type of competitive team, parents will insist that this is necessary for college recruiting starting in middle school. and it’s not. But good luck pushing back on it, I’ve tried.

I’m familiar with this trend and argument as well. I think having a parent run Instagram account featuring and promoting your kid is different than a team posting on social media trends and individualized birthday messages. I don’t really like the Instagram accounts either, but that’s a family choice. College recruiters are not looking at 11 year olds Instagram pages.

But the team social media is typically run by parents. It’s not the coaches.

Anonymous wrote:Also, if you’re on any type of competitive team, parents will insist that this is necessary for college recruiting starting in middle school. and it’s not. But good luck pushing back on it, I’ve tried.

I’m familiar with this trend and argument as well. I think having a parent run Instagram account featuring and promoting your kid is different than a team posting on social media trends and individualized birthday messages. I don’t really like the Instagram accounts either, but that’s a family choice. College recruiters are not looking at 11 year olds Instagram pages.

OP here - I don’t think my kid will be punished or anything for not participating. I expect more of a “oh why, not these posts are so fun and bring the kids and team recognition” response from the assistant coach and manager moms running the social media.

I haven’t heard any other parents expressing concern, but I also haven’t talked to many of them. Social media was barely discussed at the parents’ meeting and I haven’t stuck around to watch practices. It could be a vocal minority are all about it. I’m glad at least one other person out there finds it a bit much and not interested in having your kid featured!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

. . . They rarely identify the kids . . .

Facial recognition will identify your kids. All of the information is stored and saved. Forever.


No, I am not joking.

Your concerns for your children’s disappearing privacy are legitimate.

And AI is about to make all of these issues exponentially worse.

Yep maga idiots brought us government overreach .

Tell them you don’t want your child in the posts but they may not care.

Also, if you’re on any type of competitive team, parents will insist that this is necessary for college recruiting starting in middle school. and it’s not. But good luck pushing back on it, I’ve tried.

This is a horrible trend and I agree with the concerns. Teams are doing this younger and younger with “getting to know so and so” type posts which provide a ton of insight into the child. I’m so sick of people saying these are cute. It’s harmless. Only the grandparents are watching because it’s simply not true. However , as a parent if you push back on this type of thing, your kid will not play on these teams.

Anonymous wrote:

. . . They rarely identify the kids . . .

Facial recognition will identify your kids. All of the information is stored and saved. Forever.


No, I am not joking.

Your concerns for your children’s disappearing privacy are legitimate.

And AI is about to make all of these issues exponentially worse.

I know I’ll get pushback if I tell them not to recognize my kid.

That's a big problem.

Have any other parents expressed concerns? Even if not, you should talk to the coach.

I would not let them feature my kid in that way either. There are way too many creeps out there. A photo is one thing (not that I like it) but a photo + name + team details? No. That's not okay.

My teens/tweens have played travel sports for many years. Most of the organizations have had some sort of public social media (Facebook/instagram) mainly to provide registration/tryout information, recognize sponsors, announce teams and an occasional team recognition post.

I’m fine with my kid being in pictures of these posts. They rarely identify the kids and when they do I think it’s kind of like having your name in the newspaper.

However, a new team that my tween joined posts a ton on instagram/facebook. They post after practices, games, social media challenges, etc. To me, it’s too much, but my kid has no interest in being featured or interviewed so has mainly avoided it.

They’ve started doing “happy birthday” posts recognizing the birthday kid, their likes/dislikes, pictures and what reads like an AI written post. I find it creepy and a bit too much to post about a kid turning 12. It’s a public post about a tween. Am I being old and out of touch? I know I’ll get pushback if I tell them not to recognize my kid.

I am guilty of happy birthday posts on my personal FB page, but that’s limited to my 200 or so FB friends only, so doesn’t seem as intrusive.