What age an email account

[NettleTea]

What age is considered appropriate for a child to have their own email account? Until now my DD has given my email to people, but she has been asking to have her own account - she is just 11 and in year 6. What security measures should I consider? Its a sticky line between privacy and making sure that stuff is not inappropriate? I have a vague worry about her dad, as he is only allowed supervised contact, so i am concerned that he will get the email. She says she wouldnt give it to him, and to be fair she has side stepped questuons about where we live/home phone number, etc. She doesnt have a mobile, as i dont feel she needs one at the moment and its only because 'other people' have them.... Though I am astounded at kids her age being given iphones!! She has her own profile on the computer, and she is allowed to browse online although i am usiually pretty near so can see what she is up to. mainly girly make up games or watching silly clips on youtube, or cbbc catch up programmes. one of her friends was extremely inappropriately connected to a very dodgy bloke a couple of years back (think web cams), and ended with the computer taken by police and a trap set. the guy was prosecuted. She thought it was horrific, and she isnt at the 'chasing boys' stage yet. She isnt allowed a tv or computer in her room, though she sometimes borrows a potable DVD player to watch films in there with her friends.

I have organised an email account for DC aged 6 (year 2). She has never used it after the one time it was set up. However if she asks to use it and when she uses the computer I monitor what she is doing.

She has her own profile on the computer

You mean her own login? Or something like her own FB page?
I am wrestling with the same questions, OP. Especially when DD gets her own phone (soon). And next year DS will be 13 & I may go on FB. I don't want the faff of having to regularly check everything on their phone/accounts, nor do I want to invade all privacy, but I'm not keen on no supervision, either. Since they could in theory delete things before I had a chance to see it, maybe the only strategy is to talk about open communication between you & them, and what kinds of dangers there are in making yourself so accessible. That any daft thing they put in writing (or a picture they take & distribute) could follow them around forever, and that any so-called friend can impulsively say something horrid, or easily misunderstood, they didn't mean or they would never be say like that to your face, at least. And because it's out there in cyberspace it can become permanent. I am guilty of those lunacies, too, not that I'll necessarily tell DC!

In practice, DC1 has had his own web site (our own) and email addy since about age 8, but we don't have non-resident parent or similar issues. DH checks the email sporadically & screens any comments. I increasingly suspect that most young people don't now use email, they use Facebook or text instead.

dd has just turned 11 and she has one but it is hardly ever used - notices from scouts/sport/music teacher. I know the password and I check it when I check my own mails.

She has her own log in - it has no password so i can go in there, I think she just wanted her own picture on the opening window. she is most definately not going on facebook, despite the fact several of her friends have accounts.
dp works in computing and he said that if they (DS is only 5 ATM) get to the point where they do have computers in their rooms, he will connect them up so they go through a main computer, which would allow you to just check in now and again. he feels that it wouldnt actually be necesary to do it more than once or twice, but they would be aware of whats permitted and whats not, and that we trust them to behave themselves.
I do think its very difficult now - they want to be involved in everything which is so new and exciting, but whereas our parents only had to worry about the dodgy gang at the corner of the street, they potentially could be exposed to the whole bloody world without leaving their home. I am probably overthinking, and I probably have trust issues, especially around phones, due to having been in a very EA relationship with her dad, where the phone was paramount in his everyday dodgy activities, and kept glued to his side at all times........
Will speak with DP about it later. She probably IS old enough, so long as it is accessable to us.

Well.. my dad had Playboy magazines I could look at any time I liked (and I did, from the age of 5), so I am never too sure about this whole "the dangers they face now" malarky...
but, I do know, most of them will go looking for "sex", human curiousity and all that. And most of it is a lot more graphic than they meant to find, and so much of it, and most way more explicit than my dad's 1970s Playboys. So I think it's worth having some kind of filters operational, hopefully the new "Opt in" scheme for Porn will really work. But that won't stop their mates from sending very dogy pix around to friends (sigh).

I've just read a book that talks about this stuff, especially hammers home the message about giving our children the tools (self-esteem) to deal with the stuff we can't screen out.

Can I ask that when you do get an email address you choose something sensible? You won't believe the amount of cv's I get at work from sexysuzy or biggyuptopbecs
So unprofessional!
Firstname surname@'something please!
Oh a diff note, I have set up my dc email addresses as above. I email them pics of themselves as babies or birthdays. When they are big enough.... Voila! History

DC both have their own email accounts and logins on the family computer, and have doen for years now (they are 11 and 9). DH has set them up so there is anage apropriate blocker on the login, and any email the children receive automatically get copied to our emails - the children know this. TBH most of the time it meant we could prompt the kids to log in if grandma had emailed them. I don't read DS's emails, but might have a glance if it was a name I did not know. This will change as DC get older I am sure.

Once DS is 13 I am sure he will have FB, but with us as friends to keep tabs on his useage. Computers will always be in famkly rooms not bedrooms too, and his phone does have internet access but is deliberately slow!

Though at least a couple of years off for my child, I am far more minded to give them the tools to deal with it rather than try to act as some idiotic censor.

Whilst protection is necessary I think there is a greater overall danger from wrapping them up in cotton wool and turning them into lard bucket, social retards with over sized Play Station fingers.

I'm not even sure there are more wierdos today than decades ago, just we are better informed.

Before you set up the account, profile or whatever, please have a look at www.thinkyouknow.co.uk or www.kidsmart.org.uk. DS's school held an evening about staying safe online. I thought I was pretty well informed beforehand but I am way behind.

The speaker recommended these sites and said there are things for kids of all ages to do on them as well as for adults to read so that they learn to use technology sensibly and realise when things might not be quite right. The basic message was don't put any pictures/information online that will identify your child (uniform, certificates hanging on wall in background of photo etc), report immediately any contact that seems inappropriate.

A Dad at school said at the talk that he'd just set up an email account for his 10 yo daughter and already, within her circle of friends, there had been a dodgy approach from someone who turned out not to be who they said they were, but luckily he'd talked to his dd and she knew to tell him.

My niece has just got one at 9, my brother currently holds the password and logs her in when necessary but she only writes to me!

I've got one for dd who is only 3 but it's because I wanted to grab one of her nicknames. By the time I hand it over email will probably be obsolete!

Mine has had his email account since the age of 5. There are only a few people in the address book and emails get forwarded to my email. He knows the password and log in, can go to settings and choose different things. So, email is fine but we would not create him a Facebook account.