Reasons not to include children in your photos

We understand that if you have children, they are an important part of your life and, as such many parents are keen to include pictures of their children in their profiles. However, before adding a photo of your child or a friend’s child to your profile, it is important to consider the following:

Your main photo should only include you – Your Main Photo should be a clear head and shoulders shot of you and you only. Having a child in the photo will be distracting and will draw attention away from you.

Your child’s anonymity – The internet is a public place and anyone over the age of 18 can join a dating site. This means that if you put your child’s photograph on to a dating website you will not be able to control who looks at the photo.

Please note that photos from Muddy Matches do not appear within search engine results, but many other dating sites do not offer this protection and as such your photos including children might end up in people’s image searches.

Your own safety – If you reveal details about your child such as where they go to school or which social groups they belong to, people may be able to find out where you go at certain times. For example if you upload a picture of your child in school uniform, someone could go to the school at pick up time and see you there.

If we see a school uniform or identifying logo within people’s photos we will use a box to cover the logo to protect your identity, but some websites have automatic approval, so this would not occur.

It can be embarrassing for children – Children have no say in whether their picture appears online and older children especially, it can be embarrassing if they see that their photo is appearing on their mum or dad’s profile. They may worry that their friends, their friend’s parents or even their teachers may see the photo.

Your ex-partner may not agree – In some cases, your ex-partner may spot that you have uploaded photos of your child to your dating profile and may not approve, which could lead to disputes.

Get to know each other first – When you start to date someone, you are unlikely to introduce them to your children straight away, so you may wish to wait to get to know someone better before showing them photos of your children.

What to do if your favourite pictures include your children

If you have children, you are likely to have hundreds of lovely photos taken with you all together. If you wish to use a photo that includes your children, but do not wish your children to appear online, you can crop the photo so that only you can be seen in it. If you are a Muddy Matches member you can email us and we will crop the image for you.

This blog post is for guidance only – at Muddy Matches we do allow you to add Additional Photos with your children in but we think it important that you are aware of the implications and risks of doing so.