I want to protect my tween girl from the drama and danger, which often accompany the online world. My solution: Keep her access to the Internet as limited as possible.
And let me tell you. This strategy has worked great.
Until now.
When I was growing up, the end of the school year meant exchanging phone numbers with all my friends. For my daughter (whose group of friends don’t have cellphones yet), it meant exchanging email addresses.
Email addresses? Really?
Then, our girl started making The Sullivan News, a weekly newsletter to send to our far away, family members, and the email question came up again.
And again my response was an email address? Really?
These exchanges prompted me to check out kid-friendly email options, (and to share my new found knowledge with you). I’m not techy, and I craved two things: safe and simple.
What I discovered is there are companies who provide safe email access for your girl by giving her a taste of the freedom she desires and the ability for you to still supervise her online communication.
Here’s a sampling of what I discovered.
Kids Email
Provides parental settings, which allows your children to only correspond with people on an approved contact list.
Scans each message for inappropriate words or images (bye, bye dating and weight loss advertisements).
The ability to carbon copy parent on all ingoing and outgoing mail.
Fee: Kids Email is currently running a special of $2.99 a month for 13 months. 30 day trial version is available.
Maily (for iPads)
Provides parental settings, which allows your children to only correspond with people on an approved contact list.
Allows kids paint, write, take photos, have backgrounds, stamp, and send photos with email. Super fun interactive options.
Fee: Free Although both senders and recipients of email must have a Maily account to communicate.
Zilla Dog
Provides parental settings, which allows your children to only correspond with people on an approved contact list.
Profanity and information filter. Users can communicate with people who don’t have a Zilla account.
Free: Free.
Let’s hear it mamas. Have you given your tween or teen girl access to email? How do you monitor email? Do you use a specific email program or just maintain access to her password?
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