Blogging is not just for adults. Report by WiredSafety.org shows that there are more than 6 million kids blog.
There are many children who are making a difference by voicing their opinion through blogging.
In this blog, we will go through how to make blogging safe for your kids, kids blog ideas and address some of the concerns of children blogging.
We will also look at some of the most inspiring kids bloggers and safe platforms for them to use.
Kids blog ideas:
Here are some ideas for your kids to start a blog:
- Write about a book you recently read
- Write about a movie that inspired you
- What is your biggest accomplishment?
- Write about your favorite animal
- Write about your experience growing up
- What is the best piece of advice you have ever received
- Write about a science experiment you recently tried
- Write about what you can do to help tackle climate change
- What is the one thing you are proud about?
- Write about your favorite hobby
- Write a story that has a happy ending
- Write about things you are grateful about in your life
- What are the 3 things you like most about yourself?
- What are the best way to save money?
- Write about what your dream would look like
- What will you do if you are given an unlimited amount of money?
- Which charity would you like to support? Why do you think their work is important.
- What do you like most about your family?
- If you become a principal in your school, what rules will you change?
- Write about the best birthday party you have ever attended.
- If you can interview the prime minister of your country, what questions would you ask him/her?
- Who are the real heroes during the pandemic?
- Write about what you think your life would look like in 2045?
- Write a story about a girl who lost her shoes
- Rewrite the story of Cinderella from the point of view of the stepsisters.
- Write about your dream.
- What do you want to be when you grow up? Do some research on what it entails to do that job.
- Write a story a frog who discovered some magic beans
- Write a story about a Mushroom that changed the world.
- Write about the best summer holiday you experienced.
- Write about the most fun game you have ever played
- Tell a joke
- Create a video of something you really like
Safe platforms for kids to blog:
Here are some sites that are free and safe for your child to use:
- Medium ( for childer older than 13)
- WordPress.org ( no age boundry)
- Wix ( creating a free site for your child using basic templates)
- Blogger.com (similar to WordPress)
- LiveJournal (targeted for children below 14 years old)
- Kidz World ( Made for children to blog)
Benefits of kids blogging:
- Blogging gives kids a platform to share their ideas, thoughts, and creativity. Allowing them to improve their self-expression
- Children can improve their creative writing skills by sharing their stories with others.
- Blogging also encourages children to have an opinion of their own and they feel empowered by the knowledge they learn from other people
- It also encourages children to read more as they will need to do research on the material they plan to write about.
What are the problems with children blogging?
Many blogging platforms require that the minimum age to blog is 14 years old. But many children lie on their age when signing up on these platforms.
The most popular one used by kids to blog is Myspace.
There are also privacy concerns with blogging. For example, giving out personal information, contact number, and attaching pictures to blog posts.
Children may also be subjected to cyberbullying through comments.
At the bottom of this blog post, you can read how to address those concerns.
Inspiring bloggers under 13:
Jake McGowan-Lowe, Jake’s Bones
Jake McGowan-Lowe, 11, started his blog at the age of 7.
Jake has an interest in bones and started blogging about it.
He has more than 77000 visitors on his site. He researches his topics using books and other websites.
His site is visited not just by other kids but also by professionals. The head of forensics at the Univeristy of Dundee needed a photo of a wishbone to solve a murder case and came across his website.
They found the pictures there were looking for in Jake’s website. Jake was even invited to use the department’s facilities as a way to thank him for helping them solve the case.
Maelo Manning, Libdem Child
Maelo founded the Libdem blog at the age of 10. She has an interest in politics and uses her blog to express her opinions. She even organised a vigil night in London following the rape and murder of a woman in Delhi.
At the age of 13 she has spoken at the Liberal Democrat conferences on subjects that affects youths.
In an interview with The Telegraph she says that her parents respects her political views and allows her to express them.
She gets about 400 visitors daily and spends an hour for each of her blog post.
Holly Fratter, Childtasticbooks
Holly Fratter a 6 years old blog with her father about the latest children books they have read.
Each of them writes a few paragraphs each giving their own perspective of the book. Holly writes her views in a notebook before typing them up.
They have more than 6000 visitors to their site and spend 2 hours a week blogging.
In an interview with The Telegraph, her father said that blogging encourages Holly to think about she is reading.
This gives her the opportunity to be critical in her reading and that her opinion matters.
Safety tips to consider if your child wants to blog :
- Content creation: Read through the content your child has written before publishing it. Think about the consequences of the content and how it can affect other people reading it. Look at whether the content can be seen as offensive or create a potential problem for your child.
- Privacy control : Ensure that your child is not giving personal information online. Such as telephone number, name of the school, photo, and address. Speak to them about the importance of online safety.
- Monitor the comments: Screen through the comments your child is getting from their blog. If you think the comments are not appropriate for a child to read then delete them.
- Communicate with your child: Speak to them regularly about their blog topic, why they are interested in the issue, and what they have learned from it. Be involved in the research process as this can motivate them further. This also can help them identify between credible websites and fake ones. By doing so you will also protect them from coming across inappropriate websites. This also will enhance the educational value of blogging.
- Appropriate blogging platform: Choose an appropriate platform to publish the blogs. Not every platform is appropriate for children. Platform like kidzworld and Kidswirl are designed especially for children.
Here are some other tips to keep your children safe online.
Conclusion
Blogging should be seen as any other activity such as reading or writing.
It allows children to start thinking critically from a young age and be creative writers.
Do remember to not spend so many hours on the screen and maintain a healthy online and offline life for your child.