Children and email

[Miss Chicken]

On another site I visit a grabdmother told us that her 11 year old daughter got a 'disgusting email'. She didn't sat exactly was in the email.

Another member said that an 11 year old is too young to have her own email address but other disagreed with her.

So I am asking people here how old they think children should be before they get their own email address?

 

[Venardhi]

I first got mine at 11 or 12. It seems a pretty normal/decent age to start forging good online habits to me and it will help them with their typing skills. Of course, back then (late 90s) no one I knew had an e-mail account so all I did with it was chat up girls I met in yahoo chat rooms and download pirate software verrrrrryslooooooowly.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

When I first got internet, I was the only one to have an email address. I was about 10 at the time.

I think kids are never too young to have an email address, but they do have to understand not to put their email address everywhere. If they don't understand that, they're too young. But still; the first few years they'll get emails from family only anyway.

 

[Trippy]

My son (11) has his own e-mail address...but I know his name and password so I regularly check it. He doesn't even use it that often anyway...he gets a Lego newsletter and a YTV one and that's about it

His computer is child proofed too...I wind up in there daily having to unblock an innocent site or two.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

^^ Not for long; once they realize, children have a way of circumventing the most rigorous parental-control measures. Assuming, of course, the parent is a computer novice.

 

[Geckothan]

I got an email address when I was 9 or 10, I never had any kind of parental controls on my computer and I didn't turn out disturbed, I used to look up disgusting stuff with my friends for laughs too. I guess the internet has gone way down hill in the last 10 years though, there's way worse stuff out there now than there was when I was a kid.

@Trippy: he willingly gave you his password? I would've just given my parents the password to my fake, secondary email that I never used. I guess parents weren't so tech-savvy back then as they are now though, maybe that wouldn't work so well these days.

 

[DiSiLLUSiON]

There's way worse stuff out there now than there was when I was a kid.

I disagree, I was a frequent visitor of usenet in my pubescent days; there's relatively a lot more nasty stuff on there than there is on the www.

 

[Omnius]

I think an age of 10 years old is a good age to get your first email account. If I was a parent, I'd supervise it until I deemed it no longer necessary, which is about the age of 12-13 or so? Or until they find out how to change the password of course .

 

[FrontLine]

My daughter just turned 11 and Im considering giving her an email address. It will have an obscure name.

 

[Vulcan Princess]

I was about 14 when I got my first e-mail address, but that was back in the dinosaur days when internet at home was still a rare and slow thing. I think when I have kids, I'll let them have their own e-mail address around age 11 or 12. Of course, a lot could happen between now and then, so I'll have to see what the situation is at that point.

 

[sbk1234]

I got my first e-mail address when I was about 35.

Seriously, part of the formula has to be the child's maturity and responsibility.
My oldest is 10. He doesn't yet have an e-mail address, but it's probably coming soon. One component is my wife and I must have access to it at all times.

But that's us and our kid.

 

[Mallory]

My kids all had one by the time they were 12.

 

[RevDMV]

My oldest is nine and he has a Gmail account. We gave him one initially to communicate with a cousin across the country. He also has a classmate that he sent email to on occasion.

He only has access to it now after we check and confirm he has approved mail and make sure nothing else is in the in-box.

 

[Whoa Nellie]

My daughter just turned 11 and Im considering giving her an email address. It will have an obscure name.

That was about the same age I allowed my daughter to have an e-mail account which my husband and I monitor very carefully. Just a small piece of advice here. Only I and my husband know her password. She has to come to one of us to sign her in. This is to protect her from unwittingly revealing her password to someone who might get into her account and abuse it. If she does not know the password she can't give it out to anyone. Believe me, it happens ALL the time especially with preteen and teen girls.

Warmest Wishes,
Whoa Nellie

 

[Kestra]

My oldest is nine and he has a Gmail account. We gave him one initially to communicate with a cousin across the country. He also has a classmate that he sent email to on occasion.

He only has access to it now after we check and confirm he has approved mail and make sure nothing else is in the in-box.

Yeah, I have a cousin that's maybe nine who has an e-mail address. He comes from a family of very tech-savvy people, but I'm sure he doesn't do a whole lot of e-mailing anyway.

It was actually really cute, I got a happy birthday e-mail from him once and it was the most formal e-mail I've ever seen. He even signed off using "Sincerely"! Clearly my aunt was sitting behind him dictating the whole thing to him.

 

[Spot's Meow]

I got my first email address as soon as we got Internet in my house, which was at age 11. My youngest sister, who is now 12, got hers when she was 9 I believe. It just made sense because it was the primary way our family communicated after two of us older siblings went off to college. She still doesn't have a cell phone though.

 

[TGTheodore]

Middle school (junior high school). Absolutely no earlier.

They MUST learn face-to-face communication skills before they're allowed to abandon them and retreat into their i-shells.

--Ted.

 

[Middle Earther]

Wow...both my daughters have e-mail addresses and they're ages 7 and 9. My parents live far away and so they communicate more through e-mail than phone. They also e-mail to relatives and friends.

 

[Alidar Jarok]

I would say somewhere between 10 and 14 depending on the maturity of the individual. As long as they know not to give away their password or reveal personal information to strangers, they should be fine. That being said, if the parents talk to their kid and they agree that, at least at first, they should be able to check in on e-mails to make sure everything is OK, that's fine (provided that, by some point, they get their own private e-mail address free from interference).

Of course, it should be a non-crappy address that doesn't let spam mail in too often.

 

[Mr Awe]

There's way worse stuff out there now than there was when I was a kid.

I disagree, I was a frequent visitor of usenet in my pubescent days; there's relatively a lot more nasty stuff on there than there is on the www.

You're not looking in the "right" places on the web then! Seriously, I've used the internet from the usenet and Gopher days to the present and there is definitely more nasty stuff now, no contest. And with search engines like Google it's extremely easy to find whereas before it was a bit more hidden.

Not that I'd know!

Mr Awe