How to Make E-Mail Safe for Young Children

For most young children, we put restrictions on their web access and email access for their own safety; not to prevent deviant behavior on the part of the child. An older child who is overly restricted will simply set up his/her own email account on a free site, without parental knowledge.

There are some basic steps to take to accomplish reasonably safe email access for a young child. There are several paid services available specifically for children. In this article I show you how any email system can be used for reasonable security. In most email systems, the child could change account settings and undo most of the below steps you have taken. I want to acknowledge that, although that situation is beyond the scope of this article.

1. Most Important: Only Allow e-mail from Approved Senders (White List)
The most important way to keep children safe in email is to only allow the account to receive messages from certain pre-approved people. Many programs, including Windows Vista Mail, have this specific setting in the junk mail settings - even higher than the highest spam filter, you will only see email from white listed people. If your email program does not have this setting, you can still accomplish the same thing. Write a rule to delete messages unless the sender is in the address book. If that is not possible, you may need to write a long rule that deletes mail unless the sender is ... and then specify each person you want to allow. Every major email programs allows you to create rules (sometimes called filters). Check your online help within the email program if you need more specific information.

2. Make sure junk mail is immediately deleted
Literally, my daughter's first question was if she could see what was in the junk folder. You might actually be making it more attractive by moving the objectionable email to "junk" and leaving it there.

3. Check your "send" settings
By default, most email programs add to your address book any addressee of email you send. You need to verify that this setting is not selected, or your child could unwittingly have a person added to the address book, and thus white-listed.

4. Receive a copy of all incoming mail
This doesn't change what your child is receiving, but let's you monitor what is going on. If you own your domain, this is easy to do. Gmail is one of several programs that allows this setting in options. If you can't find it, you can write a rule that will forward a copy of every new email to your email address. Note that this will be transparent to all but the newest email users, since it will show up in the sent items folder.

5. Talk to your child!
Talk to your child about the fact that people will try to send tricky email, just like people try to trick them in other ways (tv commercials, banner ads). Make sure your child only gives his/her email address to real people he/she knows and trusts - not forms on web pages. You cannot use technology to control your child. Just use it to help supervise and teach your child appropriate behavior now. You will have even less influence each passing year, for a while.