Kids and emailing ...

Both my girls have their own email accounts. They have had then since they were babies. That way their grandparents, family etc overseas can always send them a birthday, Christmas message, etc. and I could show them, cause they were of course to young to use it themselves.

Just in the last couple of years they have started to use their accounts as they've now gotten friends that they have made that don't live nearby (I have heard them swap emails with a Canadian girl they met whilst we were up North on holidays), or may have shifted, etc.

Agent Smelly often swaps email addresses with her friends and they write back and forth often. Mostly they are just simply a single sentence back and forth with the occasional report on a trip one of the kids has been on. It's quite good for her typing, grammar, spelling, etc. and she just loves it. Agent Smelly also has her little poetry club going on. She writes the most funny little poems, almost limericks and sends them out to people.

The Fashionista doesn't have as many friends that email and has been complaining that no-one ever writes to her. Co-incidentally even though they live in the same house, the girls email each other along with me on occasion! So recently I obtained some new "email" pen pals for her. Just children she corresponds with via email, no snail mail, although I have suggested she may want to post a Christmas or birthday card to them. She has two in the United States and one in Queensland, Australia. She is having the most awesome time writing back and forth to them.

Now my girls do not spend all day on the computer emailing friends and family (otherwise we'd never see Agent Smelly again who loves the PC), they earn 30 minutes technology allowances (PC, apps, wii, etc) for doing well with their school work, helping around the house and such. They are also aware that they may only have their email accounts if I know the password as I do check their accounts every now and then (I know a violation of privacy and all that but I really can't stress how safety conscious we all need to be with children and the Internet!) to make sure nothing untoward or inappropriate is going on. Kids can say the wildest stuff after all.

I am pleased to say that so far I have found nothing to worry about, although many times their correspondence makes me laugh. This is the latest comment, to make me chortle, in an email to one of their Aunties in Australia, written the last day of school holidays by The Fashionista, who is in no way dramatic of course ... "Tomorrow I'll wake up in the depths of despair because I'll have to do school work."  Seriously girl ... the depths of despair???? 

Well I best be off, to set up for another "despairing day of homeschooling" ... ;)