Email with training wheels

Bird's question about email made me realize that the carefully constructed protections 

I had created around my children since their birth was going to start getting holes. And they were inevitable and irreparable and *sigh* part of growing up. Bird wanted email and she had done her research. She wanted to know my hesitations so she could talk to her friends and come up with answers. She knew about viruses. She didn't care if I read every email she sent or received. Honestly, if it wasn't for the wrecking ball image in my head, I would have said, "Sure, this email can't be too harmful." 

Instead, I said the more sensible, "Give me until Sunday to think and pray about it." That gave me four days. I called up a trusted friend with four kids. Her youngest is Bird's age. Email was not a big concern to her, especially if I had Bird's password. She said that in the world of tweens and teenagers, texting and Facebook make emails almost obsolete. I started to feel better. Email was a baby step to functioning independently in the world of technology. 

Test #2. Google kids and email. I wondered if there were risks I had not thought of. I had not thought much about spam and the frequently inappropriate content it contains. And Bird had reminded me about viruses (which is usually not a problem on Macs). Turns out there are a few companies who are willing to help parents create a highly controlled email account for kids. Windows Live Family Safety has good parental controls that allows parents to control a kid's email account and monitor where and when they use the internet. Alas, it doesn't work with my Mac. And yes, a blast from the past AOL has a kids AOL. It is downloadable software that comes with web browsing controls, email controls, online time limits, and activity reports. Sounds great, but again doesn't work on my Mac. 

Clearly it is time, based on the interest of my oldest and the number of homework assignments that required internet research, to look into software with parental web browsing controls and maybe time limits. It isn't that Bird can't be trusted  but that even well-informed adults stumble upon inappropriate content or give their email away to a company and end up with piles of spam.  So finding a good web browser with parental controls in on my list of things to do. For now, I decided to tackle email only. 

I ended up getting Bird an account through Zoobuh. It cost $12/year. It gives me choices to approve all incoming mail, view all outgoing mail,  control the contacts list, control what kinds of messages she can receive (pictures, video files, word files, etc.), and block email to or from certain people.

Zoobuh has a kid friendly interface and is easy to use. I know that in a year or two Bird will need a regular email. For now, I want to teach her about Spam, about when and where it is okay to share emails (and other personal info), about how to know if a file is safe to open. 

We set up the account and gave her a few ground rules like no checking/writing emails until homework is done and no signing up for anything online without our permission. But I think Zoobuh is a good start for me Bird. 

...then the technology ball came crashing into us.

Sometimes I get images stuck in my head. Lately they are colored drawing images, like cartoons. Good ones. Like the image of a seed opening up to let the first leaves emerge as I make New Year's Resolutions. Or scary ones. Like the image of a wrecking ball headed straight toward my house. It appeared there 4 days ago, when Bird started begging for an email address.

It was last fall, in September, during Bird's first travel soccer tournament that a similar image of destruction started to haunt me. Up until that point, I had felt insulated from the world. The way other families functioned and parented really did not affect me. And after that tournament I kept imaging a meteor labeled THE WORLD crashing into my house.

Here's what happened. Friday night before the tournament began, the girls on the team went swimming. Then they hung out in the hall with their Nintendo DS game systems. Problem 1: Bird was the only girl without a bikini. Problem 2: Bird was the only girl without a Nintendo DS. Problem 3: Bird's parents were the only ones who thought a girl with 3 soccer games the next day should return to the room before 10 pm.

For the first time, my daughter was distraught at how "weird" the rules of her parents were. She cried and complained. And the meteor started haunting me. I knew this wasn't the end of this story. The meteor was made up of much more than bikinis, game systems, and curfews. I imagined in growing in size in the next several years. Only God knew what other material the world would us to add to its size.

Now, for the wrecking ball of technology. We have technology. Cable TV. Internet. Even an iPad. We enjoy it and have long loved You Tube for the ways it entertains us. I make a reference to an old TV show or song or commercial. The girls don't know what I am talking about. So we watch it on YouTube. YouTube is the reason my girls love Chilly Willy the penguin, "Food, Glorious Food" from the musical Oliver and the old Tootsie pop commercial where the owl bits the pop and can't lick to its center. But the girls aren't old enough to need a cell phone. And we don't have a game system, of any kind. Technology is still something I choose to let the girls use, on my terms.

Game Systems. Texting. Facebook. Cable TV. I can tell you the good and the bad about them all. But getting Bird an email....it feels like opening a door into an unpredictable world: a world I cannot control. But really, that is what I am supposed to do. I am raising Bird so that little by little she can face the world and fly on her own, without mom controlling the circumstances, and hopefully fly straight into the arms of Jesus.

Why my mind is operating with cartoon images of destruction is unclear. But lately as I pray through all this, and ask other more "advanced" parents how they handle technology,  a muscle man with tights and a cape comes and stops both the wrecking ball and the meteor. His shirt has four big letters across it. P_R_A_Y.  So the images have stopped being images of destruction. But they serve as a reminder for the powerful forces that will vie for my girls' thoughts. And they remind me to PRAY. Because Christ had overcome the world (John 16:33).

And while I know some of these technology interactions are inevitable in today's teenage world, I know that I have to teach Bird about how to use it all safely and wisely. Check back tomorrow to see what I did about her desire for an email account....