If you’re concerned that you don’t know what your child is up to on social networks like Facebook, you’re not alone.  The news is full of horror stories about kids getting in trouble online.  Most parents didn’t have to deal with these issues when they were young and with technology advancing so fast it’s hard to stay on top of the threats, let alone understand them.

In addition to “cyber-stalking” and “cyber-bullying”, the newest concern is protecting children’s online reputations, which is the sum of all the comments, pictures and conversations your child posts or are posted about him or her to social networking sites.  Kids don’t always use the best judgment and don’t realize that they are building a reputation about who they are from the day they go online.  More and more prospective colleges, employers, even future friends, will run a search on your child when considering him or her; and these postings can cause very real long term damage to their prospects.

Many parents believe that if they “friend” their child online they can stay on top of what they are doing.  This couldn’t be further from the truth. Nearly 30 percent of teens said, if given the choice, they would unfriend their parents, and 60% admit to hiding things from their parents with enhanced privacy settings on Facebook.  It’s easy for your child to change the settings on Facebook so that you can’t see what they are doing, even if you are their “friend”.  And let’s face it, most parents just don’t have the time to constantly scan through their kid’s online activity and many are uncomfortable doing so.

So wouldn’t it be great if there was a service that did it for you?  Well, now there is.  It’s called SocialShield and it was developed by some very smart Silicon Valley engineers.   It’s designed to help parents protect their kids online without having to constantly look over their shoulder or impose themselves in their kid’s online social lives.

The service works by constantly scanning your child’s Facebook  activity and alerting you only when it encounters issues as they arise such as keywords that could signify trouble like talk of drugs or suicide.

It also automatically does background checks on all of your child’s Facebook friends to make sure they are not adults masquerading as children, adults with no business friending your kid or sex offenders.  Kids have an average of 210 friends on Facebook so it’s important to know if they’re friending the right people.

SocialShield also lets you quickly see pictures that are posted by or identify your child on Facebook, MySpace and Twitter.  This helps you keep track of and protect their online reputation as well as call your attention to possible cyber bullying.

SocialShield is incredibly simple and easy to use.  It organizes and highlights the information you need to know about so you don’t have to spend time wading through your kid’s ramblings.

But best of all, the company is currently offering new users the ability to try the product free for 30 days.  There is no contract required, no minimum commitment and you can cancel it anytime.