One of my parents was chatting about facebook today. She said that she was really glad that I never make any comments about childminding other than the occasional 'what a fab day I'd had'.
She was telling me that her husband was horrified when one of their facebook friends (who is a childminder) had posted comments about what a horrid day they'd had, children being awful and weren't parents ungrateful so and so's (and a few other choice things too apparently). She observed that because 'it's a small world' and we often share friends/work colleagues without knowing it (cos we're not facebook friends with everyone we know), and it would be very easy for such comments to get back to the people about which they were made IYSWIM. And whilst many parents would not mind their childminder telling them to their face, that their children had been right proper pains etc, they might not want the rest of the world to know. Unfortunately because we know our friends, it is often easy to work out which children or parents negative comments might refer to and this could result in, at worst, a breach of confidentiality.
The parent also said that they had considered sending their child to this childminder but in light of the comments the childminder often made on facebook, from a professional point of view, they were glad they'd chosen me instead.
Add to this the fact that many people have pretty low security on their facebook accounts, allowing friends of friends etc to view things it can mean that negative comments can have a much wider audience than they were initially intended.
So please people please be careful what you post on facebook...it may impact on peoples' professional opinion of you, which could in turn impact on word of mouth recommendations.
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