How much should parents post about their children?

If any Minnesotan understands the power — and drawbacks — of social media, it's Lorna Goldstrand Klefsaas.

When her son, Sivert Klefsaas, was 12 years old, she had an idea that materialized during a nonchalant chat in her kitchen: She promised to pay him $1,800 if he stayed off social media until he turned 18 years old. Last year, he reached the goal and earned the cash. Local news headlines became national TV stories and then led to an appearance on "Ellen."

"Ellen gave him money," Lorna Klefsaas, of Motley, Minn., told me. "She paid for his freshman year of college. It's just an unbelievable blessing. So many good things came out of it, but I didn't love it. You know what I mean? I feel like people are chasing that experience. And I loved things about it, but I did not love it in general."

I contacted Klefsaas after I was involved in a Twitter spat last week. I was upset when a guy posted his complaints about his teenage daughter's angry reaction to a punishment for eating in her room. He had not considered her vulnerability.

The stories we post about our kids are often relatable. They can draw laughs and an "Amen!" or two within our circles. But I also wonder if we — the first generation of parents charged with navigating this level of social media exposure — might one day face a conversation with our children about consent and the complicated moments we've shared for our pleasure, sometimes without their permission.

Klefsaas learned the beauty of social media after a TV appearance magnified her family's profile overnight and people began to praise her for her experiment with her son. But she also witnessed its worst aspects, as critics challenged her tactics and even questioned the validity of her son's social media abstinence.

She said she has always shared information about her kids, who are now adults, on social media because it's her way to help family members around the country stay in touch. If she had started that social media journey right now, however, she might have been more cautious, she said.

"I'd be informed and I'd be intentional," she said. "I would understand the risks more. … I would understand how the platforms work, how people can pick it up and share it, how to get my settings on private [and] shrink my social media footprint a little bit."

I have friends who post multiple, joyful and humorous updates about their children each day. I know other parents who treat social media like a family photo album in real time, a useful tool for those with family members and friends spread across the country. I also know people who post minimally about their children.

I'm in the latter category. I'm mostly private about my kids on social media. I shared more when I was younger, but today I try to keep them separate from my daily timeline. I always worry that some of the vitriol I've experienced in my career might somehow land on them. I don't want that.

But that's not the only reason. I worry that social media has compromised our possession of family memories, which seem to belong to anyone who reads our Facebook feeds. Twenty years from now, however, I'd like to be able to laugh about the moments that we experienced together, the moments that never made the timeline. I also know I might be wrong about this.

My approach to social media with my children could also yield challenges in the future. Yes, the children of parents who seem to share too much will have to answer for the impact of those decisions.

But I wonder if my privacy and limited social media details about my daughters' lives will one day compel them to ask why I did not post more about the most important people in my life.

Oversharing and undersharing could both prove to be problematic one day for this generation of children.

Still, I'd like to believe we can all agree on a set of rules when we post about our kids.

My Twitter nemesis last week seemed to believe he had the right to share private messages from his daughter that came in response to his decision to ground her for two weeks after she had eaten multiple meals in her room, a violation of his family's rules. He told me he thought it was funny. I worry that his daughter, in the future, might not see the humor the way he does. And if that's the case — not just for him but for all of us — what is the line between innocent posts about our children and exploitation for likes? What are the boundaries?

Klefsaas and I couldn't answer those questions in our 30-minute chat. We tried, though. And she wished me luck as she mentioned that she had also wrestled with the same questions about her children.

"I would never want to embarrass them or call them out or do something at their expense," she said. "So I feel like I was super mindful about that. And I did make a few mistakes. Once in a while, my kids would say, 'Well, that [post] was super embarrassing.' [Maybe] they had won an award and I posted it and I was just proud. But if it was embarrassing to them, then I certainly took it down."

Myron Medcalf is a local columnist for the Star Tribune and a national writer and radio host for ESPN. His column appears in print on Sundays twice a month and also online.