can you recommend safe email for children?

[tinawoman]

i am concerned with my daughter having a safe email option, vs all the spam and porn garbage i get via mine. plus i don't want her to have to use outlook or have to figure out the webmail for my website (she's not 7 yet, although she'd probably easily figure it out)...

so i know there's a ton of email options for children online and i wondered what anyone here has used and what you could recommend for a 6yr old? (will be 7 in nov)

[HarperRose]

I just set my 7 yr old up w/ a yahoo account. It required parental set up, parental age verification, and parental yahoo email address! I set up his address book w/ only family members (5 of them, incl dh and I) and those same ppl are on his yahoo IM list. His list is set up that he must verify if ppl add him or want to be added and dh is a computer guy so he was able to set it up so ds doesn't download anything, go anywhere except his chosen sites, etc.

I don't know everything about it, to be honest, but so far we have had a good experience w/ yahoo email for him.

[Maggirayne]

I love gmail, Google's email. It doesn't show images unless you allow them from known email address, does have char built in, not an extra download. Inever get Spam in it. Okay, maybe twice, really!, in 3 years?
HTH

[Quinalla]

Yes, I would set up the e-mail so she only receives e-mails from people on her list. Everything else is deleted/rejected before it gets to her mailbox. That should work for pretty much whatever e-mail address you want. Also, in general, don't post the e-mail address anywhere public online so that when/if those restrictions are removed, she will at least get a lot less junk mail. Most of the really crappy junk mail comes from having a e-mail address where anyone can see it and they automatic "bots" find it and add it to their spam list.

[tinawoman]

great recommendations...

and i will check this stuff out, thankyou!

my concern also is to have a child-friendly interface though...and i feel like most of the ones out there designed for adults are just too busy and confusing...i'd like something really simple for my child, if that makes sense. she probably would be able to figure out the yahoo, hotmail, etc interfaces, but i was just thinking it would be easier if i found something that was specifically for kids. kid-friendly.

i googled and found a ton of choices, so i was wondering if there was anyone that had tried any of them?

[Nature]

Gmail, hands down. You can set the account up UNDER your own account. And you can have any messages that get sent to them forwarded to you, or ones they write forwarded to you. Also, no images if you chose, and spam and junk automatically goes into its own folder. I never see it.

My 9 yo has a Gmail account and its worked great for us so far.

[tinawoman]

thank you all! i think, for now at least...i'm going to go with zoobuh... www.zoobuh.com ...they have the child-friendly interface i was looking for. and all the safety features y'all mentioned too.

i'll let ya know how it goes. so far it looks pretty darn good. they even have 2 interfaces...one for more experienced users and one called "easy" for little ones. pretty awesome!

[DarkHorseMama]

DH just sent the link (independent to this discussion) for ZooBuh as we have been discussing getting our 6-year old DD an email account. It's a buck a month, but that is worth it IMO. I'll pay for good service.