Despite the fact that most of us have a pretty high quality digital camera with us every waking minute, most of the pictures you have of you and your children consist of posed snapshots taken on special occasions. It’s the ordinary moments when it’s just you and them around the house or at the park that are most special, but rarely get captured.

These moments are best captured with a good ol’ fashioned selfie… but that can be easier said than done when you’re dealing with little ones.  So, here are a few tips that will help you to get perfect and beautiful family selfies.

1.  Watch Your Back

No matter how wonderful a mother I am, there are times when my home looks like it was just hit by a hurricane made of art supplies, toys and snacks.  This happens to the best of us and it doesn’t say anything about your parenting skills… but it isn’t necessarily something you want advertised to your friends and family on social media.

So, before you start snapping selfies with your little ones, take a quick scan of what will be the background of the photo to make sure there aren’t piles of laundry or stacks of dirty dishes peeking out from behind you and your smiling child.

2.  Burst it Up

Once you get in position for a super cute selfie, take advantage of the few seconds you’ll get your little one to stay still to take a whole bunch of pictures at once.  If you take just one, then take the time to see how it turned out, it might be too late if you discover that it’s blurry or that you blinked. You can use the camera’s burst mode to get as many as 10 shots per second – surely one of those will be a winner.

3.  Use a Selfie Stick

One of the biggest challenges to getting a selfie in which you look as cute as your child is distance.  Your arm probably just isn’t long enough to ensure that you get a photo that isn’t frighteningly close or cuts off you or your child’s face.  Enter the selfie stick.

This smart little gadget lets you take pictures at a reasonable distance all on your own.  This is especially handy if you’re trying to fit in multiple kids at once or if the background is just as worth capturing as the faces.  With just a few extra feet, your pictures will end up being not just Facebook-worthy, but frame-worthy as well.

4.  Let it Go

Your instinct may be to tell your children to smile sweetly at the camera or to look just so, but the truth is that the best selfies are ones that capture unplanned silliness.  So instead of trying to engineer the perfect photo, take some advice from Elsa and just let it go.  Kids will be kids… and when they are, we get priceless photos that truly show their funny and unique little personalities.

5.  Let Them Try

You’ll be much more likely to keep your kids interested and attentive long enough to get a few great selfies if you let them get involved.  These days, our kids know about as much as working our smartphones as we do, so let them take the reins and choose when to snap.  If you don’t want to risk little hands dropping your phone, a selfie stick helps take the risk out of the equation, because you can hold the stick and they can press the button.

6.  Peruse Together

The best part of taking selfies with your little one is looking at them together, so make that a part of the fun.  Let them choose their favorite, print it out and put it in a frame in their room.  Or each of you can choose your favorite and post them both social media to see which one gets more likes.

7.  Be Positive

To encourage your children to have a positive self-image and avoid criticizing their appearance, you shouldn’t let them hear you attacking yourself either.  So when you’re scanning through the pictures you just took together, avoid saying things like, “Oh no, that one makes me look so old,” or “Delete that terrible one with my double chin.” You may be thinking those things, but you don’t want to teach your impressionable children that selfies are about scrutinizing their looks.

Selfies have gotten a bit of a bad rap these days, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be a great way to capture the beautiful, hilarious and unplanned moments you’ll remember with your children forever.  Use these tips to ensure you get the best ones possible. And don’t forget that they make great grandparent gifts!

Danielle Burt is a proud mom, programmer, and business owner.  She and her husband, Brian, are the founders of GoGo Robots, a tech brand that offers fun, innovative products like selfie sticks and other fun smartphone accessories for modern life.  When she’s not building businesses, Danielle enjoys traveling and singing 80s songs with her daughter. To learn more, visit www.GogoRobots.com.