A lot of parents out there have kids who want to blog or have already started blogging. I found some good tips at family.org on safe blogging for kids and thought it might be of interest.

I've had a lot of talks with my daughter about what is okay to put up on her blog. At 11 years old, she knows that the internet has a lot of malevolent folks that don't have her best interest at heart. She also understands that anyone can pretend to be a child or say things that will attempt to gain her confidence.

I have my own safeguards in place for her that go beyond the above suggestions. For example, I monitor her e-mail and keep up on it. Even then, there's no guarantee I can absolutely protect her, and for how long? Do I continue to monitor things when she's 20 years old? At some point, areas I trust her in are going to grow and I'm going to watch it less and less until she's able to manage things on her own. I will trust her more because she and I will continue over time to talk about the situations that come up and I'll offer my advice and she'll learn how to think through things. That's mentoring. That's homeschooling. That's growing a kid into an adult.

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