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Kids and Email

Recently I read of a novel gift to give your kids.  The suggestion was to open up an email account for your child when he or she is born.  Then, every so often, email your child little letters, photos, memories of special occasions and so on.  On his or her 18th birthday, give him/her the password to the account.  What a fantastic way to chronicle your child’s life privately – and to reserve a decent email address for the future!  But what about kids and email today?  With so many stories of entrapment through email, scam artists, and solicitation, is it advisable to give young kids access to their own email accounts?

HHM - kids and email I think there is merit to the arguments that discourage individual email accounts for younger kids.  The family email address is good enough for the little messages they may send.  Everyone knows that the family account can be read by everyone, so accountability is out there in the open.  Mom and Dad can keep an eye on the comings and goings and discourage misuse of email.

But, despite these good reasons, I’ve chosen to give my four kids their own email addresses.  In fact, long before Gmail required age identification, I set up separate email accounts for every member of my family.  Then, as they got old enough, I gave each one access to his/her own account.

Why?

I wanted to create an environment of ownership and a vehicle for learning.

Having their own email accounts gave my kids an exciting sense of responsibility.  They would write their birthday gift thank you letters from their own accounts with far greater motivation and dedication than they ever did before.  Emailing grannies, aunties, and cousins across the ocean is fun and exciting.  Best of all?  All the learning that happens!

The deal is simple – until I am happy that they can write coherent emails that utilize decent grammar, spelling and punctuation, they have to bring their emails to me before they press “send”.  Would you know? It’s been one of the best vehicles for teaching the basics of language arts!  What would sometimes take an hour of reluctant feet-dragging in their language arts notebooks would take all of five minutes to do in Gmail.  Revision of grammar, spelling and punctuation goes quickly and painlessly.  It’s almost an entirely joyful process as I prompt them to look for capital letters and misspelled words.  The race to press “send” means no grumpy kids and, before they know it, their spelling has improved in leaps and bounds.

Requiring the kids to bring their out-going emails to me also allows me to check that they’re not sending gratuitous emails left, right and center.  Sometimes the kids like to send silly photos or one-liners to a friend on a family account.  Rather than clog up the family’s inbox with repeated Hayes family nonsense, I can keep my kids’ enthusiasm in check.  But for their friends who also have personal accounts, there is a little more leeway and they get to enjoy nurturing their friendships online, in a safe, non-social media environment. kdisandemail

All the joys of a personal email account do not come without certain safe-guards that I feel are imperative. I want my kids to grow up with the adage that those who have nothing to hide, hide nothing.  That means that we have complete access to their accounts at all times. They have a shared password that we all know, our accounts have full control over their accounts and every mail that comes to their accounts is forwarded to my inbox for accountability purposes.  Mostly, I glance over the incoming emails to check that they’re from trusted sources.  Sometimes I pick up on things that need to be addressed and these can be approached with openness as the kids know and accept that I would have seen the same emails they received.  Oftentimes I don’t address the exchanges that I see.  My eldest daughter is allowed to email her best friend without my checking her grammar, so their exchanges flood my inbox most days.  Like notes passed during study hall, their chatter reveals a lot about their friendship.  At 11, their friendship has its hiccups, but mostly I don’t interfere.  Part of my responsibility in our family’s agreement around email is, I believe, to allow my children to figure out their relationships with a certain degree of independence.  While I do step in to offer advice advice at times, it’s when the kids figure things out on their own, with growing maturity and grace, that I feel the most proud.

While we do encourage transparency in our home, we are very much aware of the dangers in the cyber-world.  For this reason, in addition to excellent web-protection software, we have stripped their accounts of social media and search engine functionality to ensure maximum privacy. They may not give their email address out to any website or individual without our permission.  And they may not abuse any of our rules without running the risk of losing the privilege altogether. So far, the three oldest, who use their accounts daily, have gained far more than they could lose.

Aside from greater independence, I’m loving that something as simple as a personal email address has seen their writing improve dramatically with nary a grumble!

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How does your family handle the “kids and email” question?  Feel free to drop a comment with your answers or to let us know what other “kids and…” questions you may have.

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2 Comments

  1. Both of my girls (10 & 11) have their own e-mail addresses. It’s easily setup through gmail for them and allows them to e-mail us with requests, reminders and stuff so we don’t forget at times. It also allows them to learn the basics of how to actually use e-mail including proper spelling and no “text speak” cause that’s unprofessional and shouldn’t be encouraged. Both girls have had access to their accounts for quite a while, but just like you all messages they get are forwarded to me so that I can see everything that’s coming in. I also know their passwords and they are not allowed to change them without my help so that I can ensure that I have the correct one at all times. I think it really is an important skill for kids to learn and I’m glad they are learning while in my house and under good supervision instead of when they are grown and nobody is there to help them learn properly.

  2. Gmail accounts have been great for my oldest two kiddos. They now have moved into using google drive for some of their school since they have to hop from computer to conputer to tablet depending on who is using which device. Their documents are anywhere they can log in. Even at grandma’s while we’re house sitting. This is very helpful to us

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