Online bullying is the big problem of our time. As kids, no matter how bad things got, for most of us when we got home we were safe.

But now, as we know all too well, our kids can be sitting at home, apparently doing their homework or playing a game on an app, and the bullying is going on under our very noses – on their own phones, that we’re paying for!

As human beings, we like to be connected. It’s what we’re all about. And for the first time in history, we now all have the opportunity to be connected with everyone else in the world. It’s fantastic. But it's a new situation and we need to think about how we deal with it.

Because what we’re also doing is leaving a complete record of our lives online for everyone to see, forever. And we’re also doing the same for our kids, right from birth. And our kids don’t get to say whether they want that or not.

It’s this stuff, those family holiday pics, those cute moments, that the bullies will use later on to torment our kids. Especially girls.

So some people are saying we should stop putting pics of our kids online on things like Facebook. In France, they’re even making it a crime. Parents could go to prison for a year or face a fine of €45,000 (NZD$68,000) for publicising intimate details of their children without their consent.

We’re not talking child porn here. We’re talking posting pictures of your kids maybe at the beach, or the funny stories that happen in your family. Anything that the kid might later say they didn’t like.

Well I say there’s nothing like Facebook for sharing your family moments with your friends and family. I love this time of year when you see your friends, at the beach in Coromandel, or at the farm in the Waikato, or kayaking around Abel Tasman, or tramping in the Fiordland, or on the big road trip or hitchhiking to Wanaka for New Year’s. Or if they’re overseas they might even be in the snow.

I love seeing what people are up to. I love people sharing their family moments on Facebook. But the French would put you in jail.

So are you a Facebook user? Do you put your family snaps up on Facebook for your friends and family to see?

Do you think its child abuse, like the French do? Or do you think it’s part of being part of a normal kiwi family at Christmastime and New Year?

Call Matthew Hooton on 0800 80 10 80 to join the conversation