“Worried about my kids reputation online – what should I do?”

Our kids are building a reputation nightmare for themselves.  What should we do?

It’s a tough question.  Here are a few tips to consider:

1) You need to understand the nature and the scale of the problem

Unless you understand what is currently happening to all this social media content that we create, how it accumulates, how search engines index it and how other people find it and the way they use it to make decisions, you won’t be able to do anything to help your kids.  Watch this great video from Common Craft for starters!

2) Next, evaluate your own online reputation and behaviour.

Do searches for your name and see what the search engines and social networks throw up.  Imagine you’re an HR manager in a company that you’ve applied to for a job. Dig around to build up an impression of this person (you) based on what you find. Be honest with yourself. What judgments about you might a stranger make based on the content you’ve posted online?

3) Next put your own house in order.

If you want to help your kids protect their future by taking responsibility for what they say and do now, you have to set the right example otherwise nothing you say will be credible. Take steps to ensure that your online content adds up to create an impression of you that you are comfortable with. If you can’t do that, hold your hands up to the mistakes you’ve made (these are blessings-in-disguise as they will be far more persuasive than abstract ideas to help them understand why you’re concerned).

4) Search for your kids online

Look at what comes up and look at what they’re sharing about themselves.  Again, try to see it from the point of view of someone who doesn’t know them.  Maybe you’re that HR person trying to decide whether or not to shortlist them for interview.  Maybe you’re a prospective girl/boyfriend trying to see what they’re like. Maybe you’re a university admissions officer wondering whether to offer them a place.  Whether we like it or not, people use web searches for all those purposes and more.

5) Don’t over-react

The impact of your kids’ uncritical and unconscious behaviour online will have an impact on their future (if it isn’t already).  As a caring parent, it’s not something you can simply ignore.  You can’t change their behaviour but what you can do is raise the issue to consciousness.  And you will only be able to do that when you are able to resist your initial urge to react.

If your kids are anything like ours, you are quite likely to be literally horrified; both by the things they’re saying and by what looks like a complete lack of common-sense about the impact this stuff may have on their future.  In fact, expect both to be beyond your ability to comprehend.  The secret here is not to react but to let it sink in for a while.

It’s an odd thing, but many young people think nothing of adding parents and older relatives on Facebook and then talking in detail about their tastes, activities and exploits in the kind of detail that’s hair-raising. They also add applications, sign up to petitions and competitions, join groups and share their personal data without – it appears – any kind of critical view about the nature of the marketing funnels they’re putting themselves into or the kinds of direct and indirect marketing that targets them as a result.

So when you survey your kids online presence, you may be shocked, disgusted and worried for them. So how do you not react?

The simple answer is to just sit with what you find and what you feel for a while and resist the urge to do anything about it to ‘fix’ it. That’s probably the hardest thing to do – but it is, in my experience, the most useful.  A tip is simply to physically resist the urge to talk about this until you’re certain you’re not coming from a place of reaction.  You’ll know when that is.  And resisting just means feeling the need to say something rising and consciously choosing to say nothing.  It’s simple, it’s hard – and it really works You can do this at any point in any conversation you’re having.  The reason it’s such an effective technique is that, although it’s uncomfortable for a few seconds, once you’ve passed the point at which you would normally react, you’ll find yourself in a different space where you can suddenly see and hear what’s really going on.

It might also help to remember what you were doing at their age. Could it be that the only real difference is that you weren’t able to tell the world about it the way they can? That we were able to have ridiculous views, dangerous experiences and behave idiotically safe in the knowledge that the world would eventually forget and allow us to grow up without it hanging around our necks forever? Just imagine if every stupid prank, hormonal grunt and know-it-all pronouncement you made as an 18 year old was still there in Google to haunt you? Sheesh. Us oldies really were lucky.

6) Ask them what they think and what they want to be known for

When you’re sure that you’re not coming from a position of reaction, talk to your kids about what you’ve learned about how online reputation works; how none of this stuff will go away – and how people do, and will continue to, use it to make judgments about them. Watch the Common Craft video together. Ask them what they think.  Did they know how people find things? Had they ever thought about someone using Google to make a decision about their future?  What would it feel like if something they put on Facebook cost them an opportunity they really wanted?

Don’t be afraid to express your concern for their future based on what they’re saying now.  Maybe they think it won’t matter in the future; maybe it won’t (who knows?).  Either way, if you come from an open and caring place – rather than from a closed place of disgust, judgment and reaction – you will be acting in a loving way.

Ask them what kind of person they’d like to be thought of as. What are the core qualities they’d most want to be know for. Then ask them if they think that’s the picture of themselves they’re currently building up.  If its not, be gentle with them at this point because if they recognise the discrepancy between what they truly want to be like and the impression they’re creating online, it will be hard to deal with and face.