allume

real light living

Blogger Beware: Keeping your Family Safe in the Online World

By

As the wife of a detective/police officer, we have dealt firsthand over the years with safety concerns, both on my online space and my front doorstep. Deciding what to post online, both in the social media and blogging realms, can be a slippery slope. Here are a few guidelines to help you determine what to share with the world:

library4

 

Location is Everything

Many people “check in” on facebook or twitter, revealing their current location, whether it be a park, restaurant, or picking their child up from school. This is dangerous in a thousand ways. If you are playing at the park, your husband is at work, and the internet world is aware, then they also know that your home is empty, leaving a prime opportunity for a break in.

Another online danger is sharing on social media or your blog when you or your husband will be out of town. When I went to the Allume conference last year, I blogged for weeks about attending and how excited I was. My husband dropped me off at a hotel room the night before my early morning flight, taking my vehicle back home. While I was away, a burglary case my husband had been working on broke. The thieves confessed to a break in of a home, closing his case. They also confessed to something else: casing our home for a break in while I was gone that weekend. They described our home to my husband, including each vehicle we had in our driveway and revealed what time they were watching our home.  If my husband had not solved the case when he did, we could have been the next victims.

On the other side of the coin, do not reveal that you are home alone with your children while your husband is away. Tweets such as “I sure miss my husband! Can’t wait to see him on Friday!” is a huge indicator that you and your children will be home alone this week. We had a separate incident where a man called after midnight, angry, and threatened our family. He knew that my husband had been called out a few hours prior, and that he was back home.  He knew where we lived and knew when we had left that day and what time we had returned. Needless to say, our second shift officer friends spent a large amount of patrol time on our street that night.

Remember, location is everything. So, keep your current location as private as possible!

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Deciding what photos to post online is key to your family’s safety. Never post pictures of the front of your home, your house number on your mailbox, and crop out the license plate number of any vehicles in your family photos. I have plenty of pictures on my blog of the inside of my home–but they are never of points of entry or of any valuables we may have. I know many mothers that do not feel comfortable posting pictures of their children online. When I started my blog in 2008, I named it after my daughter and it was basically about her. Then two boys later, we are still posting heavily about them. I figured being from a small town, everyone already knew who they were regardless. Would I change that if I started a blog today? Not sure. Times are always changing.

If you are uneasy about your children’s faces being online, be sure to check your social media privacy settings and always ask permission of other mom friends before posting pictures of their children online, either on your blog or social media. I have found this to be good practice with birthday party photos, and the mothers very much appreciate it!

In addition to photos, simply the basic info on your blog needs to be in check. Do not list your home address, cell phone number, or any other type of work contact that is easily accessible for readers.

Blog At Least a Week Behind

When it comes to vacation photos, date nights, birthday parties, camping trips, and the like, I am always at least a week behind blogging them. This is purposeful. I love sharing our family adventures, but only when we have returned home and settled, and never from the actual vacation site. Again, if people know that you are having an amazing trip overseas, they also know there is a good chance you are not home (Unless you have a friend house sit, which we have done in the past).

Just remember: what you post on the internet is there forever. Sharing your heart online can be the most humbling and rewarding experience. Your blog is a controlled creature; carefully selecting your content is a safe way to share your story online.

Comments

  1. Great tips! I would also add, don’t post pictures of your kids naked or in their underwear or in the bathtub. There are plenty of sick people who get off on seeing your kids in those situations.

  2. Great tips, Christie! Good to know my instincts on not showing my location were spot on. I really like the idea of blogging after the fact, too. We are still able to share, but after we are home, safe and sound.

    You live in East TN? I LOVE that area, and plan to move there this year! Among the wonderful places we got to see, we visited the Museum of Appalachia-it was amazing! Have you ever been there?

    • How exciting that you are moving to East TN! It is one of the most beautiful places on earth, with the friendliest people ever. Yes, we LOVE the Museum of Appalachia!

  3. How scary that those things happened to you, Christie! Surely God was protecting you. I have thought a great deal about this topic. Right now I’m not using my kids’ names or pictures on my blog or specific location information. It takes a bit more consideration to blog about motherhood without these specifics but totally doable.

    • Very good point–one CAN blog about motherhood without using their children’s info. I have a friend Sarah that does a great job at it! Her blog is girlgrowsup.com.

  4. Thank you for this post! I have been blogging for years for my close friends and family to keep up with us, but only in the last few months started sharing it with a wider audience. That really got me thinking about the personal info I was sharing. It actually scared me so much I unpublished five years of stuff until I can sift through and make sure I’m not sharing more than I wanted. I appreciate your post because it validated my thoughts and encouraged me that I wasn’t just being paranoid!

    • Laura, you are totally NOT being paranoid! Great practice to really sit down and see what we have shared in past posts. The longer I blog, the more aware I am of what I am posting!

  5. Great tips! Our next door neighbors’ house were recently burglarized, and it’s giving my 6yo heebie jeebies know that someone has been watching our neighborhood. More than half our neighbors are either home most of every day, or in and out of the house all day, so for sure they have been watching us come and go. I have a whole story about this, but anyway…I’m not a fan of friends and family posting that they are leaving on vacation, etc. And I recently saw someone post a pic of their new big screen TV, which could be an invitation to go take it. Oh my!

    • Aww 🙁 I always hate to hear when kids are afraid of home burglaries. Makes it hard to sleep at night. And yes, my husband was the first to point out the “do not take pics of personal belongings” bit. Yikes! So unsafe..

  6. What a helpful post! The tips and info you share definitely give me someone to keep in the back of my head when I’m writing new posts. Thanks for sharing!

    • So thankful you enjoyed! I honestly did not really think much about this topic until we began having trouble with criminals through my husband’s job. Then I realized the importance of screening every thing I post!

  8. Hello Neighbor…I’m in southwest VA, just a short distance from you. Great post and am sending it to my nephew so he can have a heart to heart with his wife. He’s deployed several times a year and she’s all over social media talking about it. It makes me more than uneasy in this frosty ole world.

Categories

Archives

Google+