Penpals for kids

[AyeDeadOn]

My children, despite the exorbitant cost of stamps, have decided they want penpals. I have no idea how to go about finding them some safely, or how to ensure they dont end up writing to would be groomers passing themselves off as 10 year old girls. Has anyone any suggestions?

Where do they want them?
Do you know anyone with children living somewhere else who could write to them?
Or does your school have links with any other school where people might like to write?
One of mine used to write to a boy we met in a playground who was visiting the area from a few hundred miles away. In fairness, it petered out quite quickly.
I'm still in touch with one of my penpals, we started writing when we were 11.

Oh that's so lovely that you are still in contact with your childhood penpal. I think they'd be happy with a penalty from anywhere but no the school doesnt seem to have any links and they're both quite shy girls so they dont tend to make friends on holiday. There are websites that offer the service but some reviews say there are creepy men pretending to be children so I wouldn't chance it.

My daughter made a penpal on the flight to US many years ago . Ten years later they were still in touch but by now it's insta . It was a lovely time and still remember the excitement.

I honestly don’t know if I would let mine do this these days when they could be contacted online by someone who saw the letters.
Obviously it’s up to you but the reason I’ve such trepidation is because I found a pen pal through a magazine when I was a kid and we exchanged letters. After a while the kid’s “older brother” sent me a letter asking if I wanted to be his pen pal too and maybe meet up sometime plus some other really dodgy stuff.
I was about eleven. Thankfully I was wise enough not to reply or write to the original pen pal again but I didn’t tell anyone til years later. Tbf whoever it was spelled his own name differently at the beginning and end of the letter which was immediately suspicious.
It gave me an awful fright at the time and I stopped with the whole pen pal thing.

Yeah its the risk of something like this that puts me off. Its such a shame kids cant have nice things cos of creepy men.