Managing your child’s on-line reputation. If not you then who?
So it’s half term here in Lancashire, and it’s pretty safe to say that a fair few young people are entertaining themselves on-line.
Do YOU know what they’re viewing and sharing?
Gabe O Neill the President of Kids Are Heroes wrote ..
“It is my contention that many if not most parents have no clue what their teenager is up to on-line. What they don’t know definitely can hurt them and their teens’ reputations.“
The last decade has seen a big change to UK culture. We have developed a fascination for living publicly – Big Brother, Made in Chelsea and the Only Way Is Essex….. We all know it’s cheap TV, but love it or hate it, it’s popular and we can’t ignore the influence that it has.
Facebook, twitter, youtube, instagram….. these have all enabled, if not encouraged, us all to share everything. Many adults chose to not participate, but our young people have been raised in this culture.
In my opinion, we have a bit of a double standard going on in our society right now .
As a social media and sales trainer I obviously meet business owners who, rightly, understand the importance of managing their on-line reputation, and further more are clear that they will check the social media presence of job candidates.
At the same time we have parents posting photos of their children without permission, adults use their child’s photo as their twitter and Facebook avatar, new babies have their photos on-line within minutes of being born, and parents are even bad mouthing their children on line.
Whilst researching for a policy video, it became clear to me that many adults still don’t understand what is and is not acceptable to share. So how we can expect our young people to?
We understand that it’s important to know about our children’s offline life, so we should want to know where they’re going and who they’re meeting on-line too, but for many of my generation, things have just moved too quickly for us to fully comprehend the implications. I meet many parents who say that they don’t know about their children’s on-line activity, whilst for some young people their parents and carers just choose not to not get involved in this part of their life. But whilst our young people are perhaps technically savvier than us, it does not mean they are worldly wise and if we do not take the time to understand, how can we protect our young people?
Social media is a great communication enabler, and I believe it is positive for young people when managed well, but without parental guidance we are allowing our young people to ruin their reputation before they even get out of school.
My back ground is in fact in youth work, so I get that this is pretty important and that it’s not enough to just say that we don’t understand!
So for everyone that would like to know more about this, over the next few months I will be posting tips for on-line safety, reputation management and privacy, so that we can guide our young people to be safer and more thoughtful on-line.
I would love to hear your questions and stories, so please feel free to leave comments below, or leave me a message on facebook.
This is such an important topic Jane. I have 4 children, from 9 up to 17, and they all picked up the skills to use the internet seemingly without me knowing. I blame school! (Well no I don’t really.) This needs to be discussed.
Thanks for your comment Paul. I think many parents are very concerned that they don’t understand it all but haven’t a clue where to start.
eResponsibility is a very important topic. It often doesn’t matter what is said in the playground or in the pub because the moment passes and the audience is limited, but by publishing online the effect can be widespread, amplified and come back to haunt those involved. It wasn’t until I took part in a European eSafety Project Workshop that I realised just how easy it was to get into sticky situations or hot water using Social Media… And all with a right mouse click!
Hi Johnny. Thank you for taking the time to leave a comment. I was very inspired by the European work you do around e-safety. Isn’t it interesting how we have embraced this technological shift without understanding it!
Hello Jane,
I have read your news page with great interest and I think it is fantastic that you are going to be giving out information to help keep our children/young people safer online. I fully agree with your comment with regards to parents/carers being concerned about their children’s safety but not knowing where to start, unfortunately this is reality and with technology moving at such a fast pace, unless there are some fundamental changes put in place this situation will not change.
Educating children/young people themselves would be a start at least then they would have some choice as how to deal with this ever increasing problem.
Keep up the good work!
Hi Val.thanks so much for sharing your thoughts, and yes I agree skilling up our young people is essential, and I’m hoping that parents and carers can take an active part in that 🙂
Hi Jane,
As you mentioned I am also passionate about this subject. Many parents are so concerned about internet safety that they overlook reputation management. In my mind the latter concept will affect far more teenagers, although I also advocate for the safety of our kids.
Many people are starting to talk about what teenagers post can have an adverse effect on their futures. I like to add that by being respectful, avoiding profanity and being positive teens can actually boost their online reputations.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I look forward to trading stories.
Hi Gabe. Thanks for your comment and yes that’s a great point about enhancing one’s online reputation. Looking forward to talking to you more 🙂
great blog Jane and agree with it all – as well as many parents not knowing or understanding the risks of social media, the whole subject is pretty much ignored in schools with teachers understanding even less!
Thanks for your feedback Jane. Its becoming pretty clear that I am not the only one who sees this as important. I’d better get on and write those tips then! 🙂
Thanks too Jane for raising the issue of our own responsibility to consider the impact of what we post as adults about our children 🙂
Yeah thanks Kristie, I think that is often missed by most of us. Thanks for taking the time to read and comment 🙂
Well done Jane, brilliant idea, train the parents so as to train the children. I agee whole hearted with your blog and all the comments which have been made. I look forward to reading more.
Thank you Janet, I really appreciate your comment and encouragement 🙂
Good points.