kid-safe email??

[Lisa L from MI]

I want to make DD an email acct but want it to be "safe". I have cable now...but don't want her going into mine. I wondered what was a free email thingy out there that I could make for her and it would be "safe"

Thanks for any suggestions.
Lisa

 

[worm761]

i have cable internet but use AOL still for the email. so DS has an address with them.

have you tried yahooligans? it is yahoo for kids. i dont know if they have email though.

 

[disneychrista]

What exactly are you worried about? Both my kids have an email account and have no problems that I am aware of. I have tought them they are NOT to open any emails that they do not know who the sender is. They are actually not all that interested in it right now.

 

[Pam]

disneychrista,
She might be afraid of smutty emails that have a habit of popping up in email accounts - specifically hotmail accounts. Unfortunately my teens hotmail accounts get bombarded with emails for porn and viagara on a routine basis. And they have the preferences set for no junk mail. They delete these messages unopened and block the senders, but more come from new addresses.

 

[Lisa L from MI]

Thats is exactly Pam...I really don't want them even to read the subjects of some of these that come through....let alone open them up....

I am gonna see what my one friend did for her DD's email acct........

 

[oddball27]

...is what I use. I never get anything weird or anything mentioned above. I get email about stuff like imagestation crap since I use it, but it pops up in a different mailbox. Its the Bulk box. All of this is free and real easy to get. Well, hope I helped!!

 

[Pam]

I don't blame you one bit, Lisa. I just about died the first time one of those messages popped up on my kids' account!

Heck, they pop up on my regular email account, too! Even the business one!

 

[Princess_Aurora]

Umm...yeah, hotmail doesn't work for kids. I tried it. They even make you get your parents permission for kids under 13 and you have to give them your credit card number so they can verify that you're an adult and it STILL doesn't work. My DD is only five and she likes to send her nannas emails every now and then and you would think that since hotmail took all those precautions they'd find a way to keep all the sexually related email out of a kids' inbox...but they can't. I mean seriously, why would a five-year-old want to take viagra???

I would go with hotmail. It's so much better when it comes to the spam and any spam that does try to get sent there can usually be caught by the spam gaurd that they use. They only email you will get is the email that you sign up for...and the spam guard on my yahoo account is so high that even some things that I have signed up to get end up in my junk mail

 

[kendall]

One: depending on the age of your DD, use hotmail and work with DD to understand the concepts and ideas behind unsolicited and junk email. Compare to your regular postal mail - how you have to sort and discard (often without reading), how you receive mail you didn't reqest, etc. This can help her begin managing and assessing content. Of course, help her understand that occassionally she may open an email that has either inappropriate content or contains a virus. Help her solve the situation should this arise - what to do (close windows, immeidately delete, etc) - because it will happen eventually.

Two: try www.catholic.org - there is free webmail available, and they have a pretty tight privacy policy and spam filter. Both my kids have email through that site for over 2 years now, and so far no problems. Of course, their email address is xxxx@catholic.org - obviously there is a religious aspect to that email address -something to keep in mind - I don't know if that may bother you or your kids...

 

[Nutsy]

Yes, hotmail is a NO GO ZONE!!!

My two boys both have a hotmail account & you should see the rubbish that comes in. We've got it set to no junk mail & delete what is there, but like a couple of you said...........more & more appear.........

It's a vicious circle out there for kids

I'd be interested to find somewhere better for my two also.

Somewhere where all the smut & porn doesn't get through

 

[holycow]

I second the Yahoo account...I've had mine for quite some time and have never received porno emails...now for the hotmail account we ended up dropping it because it became so bad! Really horrible!

 

[Lisa L from MI]

Thanks everyone for your replies. I know...I also have a hot mail/msn account and it is TERRIBLE!!!!!!

I tried to do Yahoo, but that scared me too.

Kendall.....thanks for that link...thought that was going to be it but it is down know for some reason to get an email address.....but I will keep it in my FAV's. Hey, where in MI are you???

DD is only 9, but all her friends "supposedly" have their own email addresses.......guess it is time!!!!!!!!

Thanks you guys!!!!!!!!

 

[montessori]

Doesn't AOL have that setting where you can only receive emails from the addresses you enter? I would think other providers have it too.
I haven't checked it out in a long time but I'm tempted to use it myself sometimes!

Here's a site about online safety.

http://www.getnetwise.org

 

[kendall]

the webmail area is being upgraded right now. The direct link is webmail.catholic.org - that will take you to the main mail screen. The site has added a popup window about 4 months ago that initially loads, but it is easily closed.

Lisa L - we are near Lansing, MI!

 

[onemichelle]

We were having a lot of problems with porn pop-ups, somehow one of the kids even managed to hit something that made our homepage a porno site! We have recently subscribed to bsafe. It is an internet filter and they also have email. It isn't free, but DH and I found it very worth the money and the filter seems very good. Good luck finding something!

 

[Toodles524]

One more vote for Yahoo. They do an excellent job of screening the email before it goes in the inbox. I've had an account for over a year and have yet to see a smutty email in my box. I've have heard a lot of complaints about hotmail. If Yahoo can keep it clean why can't Hotmail clean up their problems?