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Keeping the slate clean: how to protect your child’s online reputation

March 2025
 by Rudi Moghaddam

Keeping the slate clean: how to protect your child’s online reputation

March 2025
 By Rudi Moghaddam

A child’s digital reputation begins to form long before they fully understand the consequences of their digital footprint. What they post, share and interact with online can have an indelible impact on their future – affecting university admissions, job applications and personal relationships.

In a world where adults struggle to protect their online reputations (and futures), what practical steps can we take to protect our children’s?

Since Elon Musk’s takeover of X, and accelerated by the dawning of the second Trump administration, there has been a marked change in cultural attitudes to online safety among the Silicon Valley giants, illustrated by Meta’s well-publicised recent removal of its independent fact-checkers.

Technology companies are now notably less willing than before to take responsibility for the impact the information on their platforms has on their users. Hence, there is a greater need than ever for parents to guide their children’s behaviour online in the same way they do offline.

Inspired by the techniques we already use at Digitalis to protect online reputations, we have compiled a list of five key practical steps to safeguard your child’s online reputation:

1. Teach them digital awareness and responsibility

  • Explain the “forever factor”: make sure your child understands that what they post online can stay there indefinitely, even if they delete it. Take a screenshot of a photo they do not like of themselves and show them how your device retains it. Saved images and internet archives can preserve content long after it has been removed.
  • Think before you post/reflect before you connect: practice a “pause and reflect” mechanism with them. Go into your own social accounts and suggest appropriate and inappropriate engagements, comments, photos and videos to post on various social accounts and ask them if they think you should do it or not. Discuss what the consequences of doing so might be, how it might emotionally affect the person on the receiving end and even how it might create the potential for account deletion if the post violates platform community rules.
  • Understand privacy settings: help them adjust the privacy settings on their social media accounts to limit who can see their posts. However, whilst this is always a crucial step when setting up a new account, it does not guarantee privacy by any means.

2. Monitor without invading privacy

  • Complete a digital footprint audit and clean: start with a one-off audit of your child’s online presence. For social media accounts, sit down with your child to delete their old and unused accounts, review and cull friends lists, review photo albums and delete what you can. Also address third-party content – asking friends, family and local organisations to remove anything you do not want online.
  • Complete an annual Google Search: type your child’s name into Google and review what appears. As with the audit above, decide what data you want to remove and reach out to the appropriate originator to do so. If you find your child has posted something inappropriate, follow step 5 below.

  • Use parental control tools: implementing Wi-Fi filters, activating parental protection on phones and supervising online activity (both by being their friend on their social media and viewing posting activity via parental monitoring tools) will provide an added layer of deterrence which will help contribute to their “pause and reflect” mechanism.

3. Set boundaries and rules

  • No posting personal information: advise them never to use their full name to set up social accounts or share other details such as their age, home address, name of school, or phone number online, and of course never to share others’ personal information either.
  • Avoid controversial topics: explain the “pause and reflect” mechanism. This should be strongest when it comes to commenting on controversial topics, such as politics and religion, as their views will certainly change with time. Teach them how to report content that makes them uncomfortable, going through reporting processes with them for different platforms.
  • Set screen time limits: research indicates excessive internet use can lead to impulsive decision-making. Setting limits on screen time reduces the risk of your child making decisions online they may regret.

4. Help them build a positive digital footprint

  • Encourage educational digital engagement: look for positive online communities, blogs and social media groups relating to their hobbies and academic goals. Engaging in constructive online discussions nurtures maturity and intelligence. They could even write a blog themselves on one of their interests, helping develop their digital writing skills.
  • Create a professional profile: help children in their mid-to-late teens create a LinkedIn account or professional digital portfolio displaying their skills and achievements to date.
  • Showcase volunteering and leadership activities: higher education institutions, future employers and professional partners value applicants and colleagues who give back to the community. If your child volunteers, holds a leadership role or participates in other extracurricular activities, then consider highlighting this in their online presence.

5. Address and correct online mistakes quickly

  • Teach resilience: talk your children through scenarios where posting mistakes might happen (e.g. inappropriate photo sharing). Let them know that it is normal to make errors in judgement and that they can be corrected, so they shouldn’t panic if they have a negative online experience.
  • Delete and apologise if necessary: if your child has posted something inappropriate or offensive, advise them to delete it immediately and issue an apology.
  • Request the removal of harmful content of your child: if part of an innocent exchange, then connect with the recipient/the recipient’s parents to request that the image be permanently deleted. If it’s an image that cannot be deleted or may have been replicated/saved, use a website like Report Remove to report the image and request its removal. You can also report concerns to the police who will help you navigate next steps.

Whilst time-consuming, this initial investment in managing online content and equipping your child with the practical tools to navigate the online world will serve to establish you as a support figure rather than a critical figure, opening the lines of communication and encouraging them to come to you to help them navigate any tricky online situations.

Furthermore, it will encourage your child to think critically in all their interactions with the multiple layers of technology that have been integrated into our lives. This could not be more crucial given the pace of development of AI, virtual reality, self-functioning machinery and the Internet of Things.

The underlying goal of these steps is to foster empowerment, not fear. Encouraging children to view the internet as a powerful tool for learning, self-expression and sharing their achievements, will allow them to leverage the digital world on their own terms to fulfil their goals and ideals, whether academic, social or professional.

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