Raising teenagers in an online, digitally interconnected world is a challenge, especially if you’re not very tech-savvy. But today’s parents have no choice. You must learn about the technologies your teen is using, so that you can protect them from cyberbullies and other online predators. In addition, you have to take an active role in protecting your teen’s online reputation.

Why? You might ask. Your teen’s online reputation could be the single factor preventing them from getting into the right college. That’s right – college admissions officers don’t just look at a prospective student’s grades, test scores, or extracurricular activities. They also look at your teen’s online reputation – their social media profiles, photos, and videos they post online.

To help protect your teen’s online reputation, there are five things you must learn how to do:

1. Set Up a Google Alert – To help protect your teen’s online reputation, you must keep track of what’s being published or said about your child. Google Alerts, a free service, allows you to get email updates whenever Google finds a new link related to the search query you provide. The search query can be your teen’s first and last name, their nicknames, commonly used screen names, and other related terms. Google Alerts  allows you to keep tabs on your teen’s online reputation. If you happen to find negative information about your child, you can take proactive steps to get it removed from the Web.

2. Keep Track of Your Teen’s Online Activities – Teens are impulsive, and they don’t always make the best decisions when it comes to sharing information. Your teen may think it’s OK to share a photo of them partying, or writing lewd comments on their friends’ Facebook walls. To keep your teen’s online reputation clean, you need to know what your child is doing online. You need to regularly monitor their online behavior, including what they are posting on social networking profiles. Inappropriate media should always be removed immediately. Ask to be your teen’s “friend” on Facebook, and follow them on Twitter.

3. Use Social Networking Sites – If you don’t know how Facebook or Twitter works, you need to sign up for an account and learn the ropes. You should also take a good look at the site’s privacy controls and how the settings work. Work with your teen to ensure that their Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking profile is available only to “friends” and people they know. If your teen is intent on making Facebook or Twitter a sounding board for personal thoughts and information, you need to teach your child how to keep this information private and available to only a select group of individuals – not for the prying eyes of the all the world to see.

4. Get Damaging Information Removed From the Web – When browsing the Internet, or searching for your teen’s name, if you find damaging information about your child, you need to act immediately and learn how to get that information removed. This can be a tricky process that requires thorough investigation. If the website lists contact details, send a friendly email asking the owners to remove the harmful information.If that doesn’t work, you can use Whois Lookup to find out the personal contact information of the website owner, including their mailing address, phone number, and email. Whois Lookup also gives you the name of the web hosting company. After calling and emailing the website owner and getting no response, you may want to contact the web hosting company to see what they can do to help.

5. Be Vigilant – When it comes to your teen’s online reputation, you need to take charge and learn how to be vigilant. With your child’s help, you need to work together to keep their online reputation clean and positive. This will not only make your teen look great for college applications, but it also keeps cyberbullies away. Without negative information available, it makes it harder for cyberbullies to harass and embarrass your teen.

AUTHOR OVERVIEW

Lisa Shaw Senior Director, Child Online Safety and Protection at SpectorSoft

What do five kids ranging in age from kindergarten to high school, a Harvard MBA and years of protecting kids online get you? It gets you Lisa Shaw, COO of her very busy household, and a Senior Director at SpectorSoft, the number one leader in monitoring and protecting your kids online. She's an expert on the technology and trends that you need to arm yourself with to be the best parent you can be in today’s digital world.

Tags: parenting advice, teen online reputation