Sharenting as a Parenting Practice and the Recognition of the Child's Agency: A Transactional Analysis Perspective

Abstract

This article examines sharenting practices among parents in relation to the recognition of the child's agency and the underlying relational mechanisms, interpreted through the lens of Educational Transactional Analysis (ETA). The empirical study employed a questionnaire-based survey of N = 420 parents of children aged 6-15 attending primary schools in Poznań, Poland. Statistical analyses (Welch's t test, Pearson's χ² test) revealed a digital privacy paradox: despite widespread endorsement of children's right to privacy, as many as 61.6% of parents of children aged 6–15 do not always ask their children for consent before publishing their image, or do not always respect their answers. This practice illustrates the discounting of the child's digital sovereignty from a paternalistic life position. Mothers were more likely than fathers to approach sharenting relationally, seeking digital strokes through the Child ego state. Higher self-assessed knowledge co-occurred with stronger concerns about artificial intelligence and with a propensity for corrective action (41.7% of parents had deleted previously posted photos of their child). The shift toward a position that recognizes the child as a subject occurs in response to adolescents' resistance or to parental self-reflection. The pedagogical implications point to the need for workshops on relational digital maturity and for promoting digital consent from the earliest years.