[TriLUG] OT: at what age would you setup email for a child

[Kevin Hunter Kesling]

At 1:37pm -0500 Fri, 28 Nov 2014, Ken MacKenzie wrote:
> As in their own email account.  Gmail has managed accounts so I was
> thinking this direction first.
>
> First time I had an email account was college, and that was 1994.
> Things are a bit different now.  My oldest is 9 right now.

As you allude here, context is everything.  Context, context, context. 
I got my first email address through Hotmail when I was 11.  My parents 
had little understanding of "this internet thing", and I apparently 
understood the power of having an email address at the time.  So, I 
signed myself up, and my parents gradually found out when it came up in 
conversation months (years?) later.  No big deal.  My brother?  It 
didn't even occur to him to have an email address until he was given one 
in college (when he was 27).  (And yes, he's a tech-type who most 
definitely needs email.)

In my case, 11 years old was the perfect time: I was clearly asking (in 
a manner of speaking) for it, and I was generally aware enough of the 
world to be aware of certain types of dangers if they had ever come up.

My suggestion?  Other than as a rough proxy for a child's maturity, I'd 
ignore their age.  The larger issue is their understanding of the world 
as judged by you, their primary caretaker.  Are they able to put 
situations in context?  Are they able to think critically?  If they can 
do this, then they are ready for an email address.

Put differently, my parents never read my postal mail, and I will not do 
so for my children.  It is /their/ mail.  Why should email be any 
different?  If something is amiss, it will be apparent, and you can 
start a conversation.

Kevin