One of my lifehack.org co-writers, Chris Brogan, wrote yesterday about Blogging for Kids. We don’t do this at my house — the kids haven’t expressed any interest in blogging, and I’m not going to press the issue — though the two “tweens” have MySpace profiles (customized by mom, marked “private”, with friend adds vetted by us).

Still, it’s an interesting idea. I started integrating blgging into my college courses over the summer, and one surprising outcome was that students started writing better (overall — there’s still some bad writing, but the ones that are basically competent seem to take more care when they know they’re writing for an audience). I would imagine that the same would hold true for younger bloggers — and even if it didn’t, the more practice they get now the better anyway. Plus, as Chris points out, there’s other lessons to be had from blogging, ranging from learning how to plan and research a written work to getting comfortable with the social networking software that is only going to become more important as our kids become adults.

And, of course, blogging is lots of fun. There’s nothing wrong with doing something just because it’s fun, whatever our age!

There’s some safety/privacy concerns, but with a little bit of parental involvement these can be minimized. Don’t let your kids post their email address, phone number (home or mobile, if they have cell phones), or address — and if you’re really concerned, have them post under a pseudonym. Activate spam filters (Wordpress blogs ahve the powerful Akismet filter built in) and disallow links in comments to prevent easy access to pornography in spam comments that do get through. Most importantly, talk to your kids about what they’re posting and what the response is — stay engaged with the process so that you can help them understand and deal with the rough bits.

Like I said, my step-kids aren’t blogging, but if they decide to follow in my footsteps, I’ll be happy to help them get going. What about you — is kidblogging too risky, or super awesome?

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One Response to “Kidblogging?”

1. Emmett Says:
   October 27th, 2007 at 5:41 am

   Nice idea.

   Good advice to use a pseudonym. Since blogging is becoming a way to communicate it is well worth the effort to get kids involved.

   And as you so elegantly stated, a little up front focus on protecting them can open up a world of creativity for them.

   Any time a child can write is a very good way to introduce them to writing and to build up their confidence in sharing their ideas.

   Thanks for some sound advice in your article. It has inspired me today.

   Emmett Pennington, Visionary Step Dad
   http://www.stepdads101.com
   http://www.stepdadsecrets.com

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