As school becomes increasingly more technology-based, all of my children have school email addresses. They are under the school district domain and can only receive and send emails within the district. They use this address to log into their laptops at school and if they have a virtual school day (#thankscoronavirus), sometimes the teacher will email them to let them know where to find their assignments.
As our tween son inches toward teenagehood, we have decided to purchase him a laptop and introduce him to personal email. Quite a different landscape than the safe and secure environment of his school email. As always, we approached it from a very intentional place because bringing children into the digital world is scary and overwhelming (both for us as parents and for them as new digital explorers).
The thing is – I totally could have just said, “dude, you need an email and me and dad can email you now – cool” and our son would have probably been able to figure it out. He has some experience through school email and he’s a kid from the ’10s, I swear those kids are born with swipe fingers. But without open discussion and guidance, it sends a message to your child that they should be able to figure it out on their own or there is something wrong with them. It sets up a wall between their questions and confusions and you as their parent. If you don’t talk about, they believe it must be something we just don’t talk about and then they are left to make assumptions and guesses on their own.
But if you introduce personal email in an intentional way, it opens the pathways of communication about questions or uncertainties as they figure their way through presenting themselves online through email.
Personal email is a big step, please don’t minimize and brush it off. Email is such a integral part of our current society and holds a lot of expectations, consequences, and potential hazards. It will benefit your child to have an intentional introduction and an open line of communication for future guidance as they use it and become familiar and confident.
Introducing Personal Email to your tween
- Create a sensible email address
Although it is hard to imagine when you look at the face of your tween, soon they may be corresponding with employers and potential post-secondary opportunities. Their email should be respectable and easy for them (and others) to use. Some good suggestions include: first initial, last name (tstuder) or first name, period, last name (tabitha.studer) or last name, first initial (studert)
- Set up the contact list to include important “practice” people
The first email your child sends out should go to someone that is safe and familiar – a great person to practice correspondence with like a grandparent, aunt/uncle, or a parent.
- Guide them through various scenarios – go slow!
You might forget because email is so common in your everyday life, but it is actually pretty overwhelming. Get them familiar with clicking to open, responding back appropriately, and sending messages to their ‘safe contacts’. You’ll need to work on opening attachments, adding links and photos, and forwarding messages. Each of these things can be guided and then practiced on their own by your child.
- Discuss weird email stuff
Things like junk mail, promotions, spam/fake email, inappropriate forwards, virus links, and unsolicited craziness. When you start to think about all the weird stuff that makes it into your inbox and then your child getting that and thinking that maybe a real prince from a foreign country does actually want to do business and share their millions…..um, no. The communication needs to stay open between you and your child about things that might feel suspicious or too good to be true.
- Email expectations and consequences
One of my favorite reminders about email etiquette went something like, “Email like it might someday be read in court.” It’s something that is often forgotten in today’s digital world – but a great reminder for you and your child. There is no space that is completely private or deleted on the internet. Even if you think you are just messaging back and forth with friends, it should not be permission to post anything that you’d be embarrassed to be read in front of your grandmother. Be kind and respectable in person and in email!
