The kid wants a blog.
I am reluctant for a couple of reasons. One, she's eleven, and two, she's given, as I may have mentioned, to long bouts of existential angst.
So, well, the first time she gets a comment from some lout who tells her she's a loser, yikes.
Or worse, what if she doesn't get comments! (I've been around the 'sphere. Billions of blogs get no comments at all.)
Or what if she gets comments like HEY U GRATE SUX NOW?
For all these reasons, I have told her she has to be twelve before she can have her own blog -- only she really wants one now, first, and second, I sense that the heyday of blogging is peaking now, and that if we wait another year, well, blogs will be out with roadsters and eight-track tapes.
So what do y'all think? Should I give in?
8 hours ago
5 comments:
Couldn't you screen her comments and delete the ones that you think would hurt her, so she never sees them?
I don't think so, not unless I was her co-blogger. Probably not even then -- she's mighty quick.
I think waiting until 12 makes sense. I kept journals and poetry in my angsty pre-teen years. Now, I would die if anyone had read that stuff. Giving her a few months to think about it seems smart.
What about not allowing comments until she's ready to handle them, or making the blog private?
Wait until 12. It's a deal already made, it will give her time to anticipate and think deeply about what she has to say, and it will also offer practice in that essential delayed gratification thing. Turning 12 will also have tremendous importance for her the rest of her life. She can post her first entry on her birthday. That she's already exceptional at 11 is beside the point. -L
JP has his own blog. It's private only a handful of people know about it and comments have to go through moderation. That said, he's 6 1/2, he only posts artwork and pictures he's taken and I'm the gatekeeper.
Would she concede to a journal and maybe doing a guest post on your blog when she feels very strongly about something?
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