With the advent of social media, too many children have been overexposed online with impunity by their parents for purely commercial purposes, without any type of external control and, above all, without a single euro earned legally ending up in the pockets of the children themselves. From 2026, however, something will change: a law decree, approved by both the left and the right, will require parents who earn over 10 thousand euros a year from the exploitation of their children’s image to pay all the proceeds into a current account in the minor’s name, which can only be unlocked when they turn eighteen. The most important news, however, consists in the fact that, from now on, baby influencers will require authorization from the Provincial Labor Directorate, which will also establish time limits and psychological protections in favor of the minor, ensuring that this form of “work” does not compromise school attendance and, more generally, healthy development.

Compromised mental health

In fact, scientific literature shows how the phenomenon of sharenting (a term born from the fusion of share and parenting) can compromise the mental health of the minor. First of all because it generates embarrassment regarding the exposure of one’s body in a phase of life in which the child cannot be completely aware of what is happening to him and, consequently, cannot give real consent. Some children develop a sense of modesty only after the age of five, and this can inevitably delay their opposition to the diffusion of their image. Always assuming that they are able to challenge the sometimes manipulative parental authority. Furthermore, children do not know how social media works and cannot fully understand how many people can observe them and for what purpose.

Parents’ duties

This task should fall to parents, who however often themselves have poor digital education or, more simply, are totally blinded by the prospect of huge earnings, in a market – that of baby influencers – which has already well exceeded one billion dollars. For all these reasons, sharenting can lead to a profound fracture in the parent-child relationship, which is already extremely unstable and delicate, especially in the adolescent phase. If the minor loses trust in parental figures and begins to perceive them as disinterested in his well-being, he could develop antisocial or self-destructive behaviors, such as social withdrawal. The relationship can also break down due to parental expectations, which in the case of baby influencers often translate into an idealized aesthetic and constant pressure to increase earnings, fueling feelings of guilt and fear of failure in the child when the expected results are not achieved. And even if the minor, once he turns fourteen, exercises his right to be forgotten – that is, the possibility of eliminating all content concerning him from the internet – this, as we well know, is extremely difficult, if not practically impossible, at least for now. The digital footprint is in fact semi-permanent, and this is why anyone who shares aspects of themselves online, including their thoughts, should be fully aware of the risks they face. For a child, all this is simply unthinkable.

The impact of compensation

Finally, there is the economic question. Where does the work of parents end and that of baby influencers begin? In fact, for the parent, the child is often just a tool: why should all the money go to the child and not to the parent? This law may have a deterrent effect on sharenting, but it is still not an entirely fair law. Furthermore, the fact that a teenager, at eighteen, can find himself with hundreds of thousands of euros in assets, which he has not actively earned, raises questions about the impact this could have on his life path. It is easy to hypothesize that in these cases the adolescent may develop an unhealthy relationship with money, failing to grasp its real value.

A relationship that could influence not only the way in which that money will be managed (and squandered), but also his personal motivation in building a career, which is not necessarily linked to his online image, since baby influencers do not necessarily have talent and it is not certain that they develop skills that can be used in the world of entertainment. This law therefore represents an important first step, but it is only the beginning of a process of regulating a world that up to now has remained substantially free of constraints.