Question: My 10-year-old daughter is absolutely nuts about writing. She wants to start a blog online. I keep saying no because I think she is too young to be online. Plus, is it really safe for her to do this? -- Wants to Blog
Answer: Writing a blog can definitely help children develop their writing skills, because they are writing for a purpose. There are a number of free blog sites (WordPress, Blogger and Edublogs) that make it very easy to begin blogging. Of course, you will definitely want to talk about Internet safety -- especially focusing on decisions about using her own name, address and the name of her school. The accounts can be restricted when you set them up.
To give them ideas about what to blog about, children can look at the kid blogs on Sports Illustrated for Kids and National Geographic Kids. Their audience is likely to be other kids and relatives. For most children who like to write, blogging is a lot of fun.