Children as content? Singaporean ‘sharenting’ videos stir privacy, mental health worries
While sharing children’s exam results may serve to document life’s journey, it may also expose them to danger, counsellors say
Alex Lee, a Singaporean parent-blogger who has spent years documenting his children’s lives online, recently posted a video of his 12-year-old son opening the results of his Primary School Leaving Examination (PSLE) – a high-stakes test that shapes most pupils’ secondary school paths.
In the clip, which has now drawn more than 3 million views, it cuts from his son, Daken, looking at his scores to him in his father’s arms as Lee asks, “Not as good as you expected?”
Daken agrees as his father tells him, “But you’ve got to try harder in secondary school, OK?” The video then cuts to Lee addressing the camera and sharing some details about Daken’s scores before he asks his son how he feels about his PSLE result. Daken replies he is “a little bit disappointed” and agrees when his father asks if he now understands the importance of doing his homework.
Lee’s clip, posted on Tuesday, has set off a wider debate across Singapore about “sharenting” – the growing trend of parents posting about their children’s lives online – and whether such content might expose children to unwanted scrutiny or emotional harm.
At the heart of the debate is a simple question: where should parents draw the line between documenting family milestones and protecting a child’s privacy?
Psychologists told This Week in Asia the answer was increasingly fraught amid rising comparison culture, fast-moving digital norms and the permanence of online reputations.