We had the opportunity to review the Annual Subscription by KidsEmail.org.
This review opportunity was an answer to a request River has been making for the last few years.
River: “Now, may I get an e-mail account.”
Me: “No!”
A couple of months later. . .
River: “Now, may I get an e-mail account.”
Me: “No!”
A little more time after that . . .
River: “Now, may I get an e-mail account.”
Me: “No!”
I do not know how you feel about e-mail accounts for children, but the idea absolutely disturbs me. You ask why? Well, when you look at the options available to the general public and see the filtering capabilities or inabilities, which allow a lot of junk (offensive content, even to me) to come through, I do not like it. If you are anything like me, an Annual Subscription from KidsEmail.org may be the answer you give the next time your child ask. That was my answer.
We had the opportunity to review the Annual Subscription by KidsEmail.org. I do not know if my children were more excited or me. I knew River was happy, but Lily surprised me with her excitement too. I guess it must be the writer in her.
Setting up their accounts was easy, but there are a lot of questions for the parent to answer. The questions pertain to the parental controls that will exist on each child account. Taking the time to set up each account accordingly is time I had.
KidsEmail.org addresses many of the concerns I have about e-mail subscriptions. There are some great parental control options. Yes, your child may still enjoy the e-mailing opportunity without a “Big Brother” type of experience. Some of the really neat features include the ability to:
Monitor e-mail – I can control what they see as well as what is sent to them. There are no worries about them accidently seeing obscene images or reading bad language.
Approve sent/received e-mail before released – I may see e-mail content before it hits their eyes as well as read what they are sending.
Manage e-mail contacts and blacklist – I can add, delete and block e-mail addresses.
Restrict time of use – I can set the certain times of access and receive a message if access is attempted outside of those approved times.
No advertisement – I don’t like advertisement with my e-mail and my children will not have to be subjected to that either.
Customizable e-mail folders – You know how an e-mail box can get full. Your child has the ability to group their e-mails for easier access to content they want to read when they want to read it.
Read more about the features. There is even a GPS tracker, which is a free mobile app that allows parents to monitor the places their child has been. They may even use cute custom templates with a variety of designs.
I set up three accounts, one each for River, Lily and Canyon. There are different controls, depending on the age of your child, from which to choose. There are regular controls, which allow more parental monitoring, for younger children. There is also the more grown up version with less controls and an e-mail address that ends in “kmail.org” instead of “kidsemail.org”.
Once I set up their accounts, Lily started e-mailing every family member she knew. I sent a text (I know, really?) to those family members to let them know to look out for e-mail coming from my children. We are still an e-mailing family, but texting is often easier, quicker.
Lily was she able to write e-mails and draw her own pictures in the body of the e-mails she sent using the Kidsemal.org Drawing Board. That is totally cool. Your children may also attach pictures.
A nice feature for your early or struggling readers is the Read It Feature. The feature reads an e-mail to your child, so your younger child is not left out of the e-mail fun and opportunity. I absolutely love this feature, because Canyon was able to use KidsEmail.org too. He is an early reader and the feature allowed him to type his own e-mails as well as read the ones he received from family.
I will agree that e-mail over texting may not always win, just as physical letter writing over e-mail had its challenges. River still loves texting over writing anything. Regardless, e-mail verses texting still has its advantages (more writing and viewing area for writing just about anything), especially for those people who really enjoy the writing experience.
If you are looking for safe e-mail option for your children, KidsEmail.org is definitely what you may want to use.
KidsEmail.org Annual Subscription is available for $38.95. There are also monthly and bi-annual options.
You may read more reviews of this item by fellow crew members.
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