Writing Practice and Blogging--Do you let your teen blog?

[amber in GA]

I was trying to think of ways that I might could get my 13yodd to practice writing that would be fun for her. Do any of you let your kids do a blog? I thought that the idea of someone else in this world reading it might inspire her to work a little harder at being creative and perfecting her little writing snip-its. (of course I would make sure that she didn't post any personal info or pics)

 

Have any of you tried this with your kids? Any ideas for a theme that might be fun and get her creative juices going? Also, what platform do you find the most protective?

 

Thanks!

amber

[laughing lioness]

My older two girls are on facebook and blog; they use blogger. We have asked them to be careful about putting identifiers on their blogs- which they are. You can set the search engines so that not everyone can find them. Facebook seems safer to us than other forums. They see the purpose of Facebook as shallow and self serving- no-one really chats through that forum. It's all about posting your pictures and talking about yourself.

They have also enjoyed Good Reads. My 17 yo really ramped up her spelling and descriptive writing when she began blogging and posting on Good Reads. She also began reading more widely as she wanted to dialog with others about books and show that she was well read:). Blogging gives her a forum to post pictures and be very creative. She is a very private person and it gives us a "window" into what she is thinking without her feeling exposed -kwim?

Our older kids have also enjoyed having cyber friends thorugh email and IM. Some of my kids "pen-pals" they have met through TWTM boards or Veg-source, TeenPact and homeschool camps. They send gift packages, photos, etc as well as emailing and IMing. The cyber world has afforded my "weird" homeschooled kids like-minded friends when they haven't always been available IRl-kwim?

My dd's blog "theme" is God's beauty.

[GSMP]

My 14 year old daughter has a blog. We started it for her when we did NANOWRIMO last year.

 

We have a wordpress blog. We have it set up so every comment must be moderated. Her dad and I are admin on her blog. We keep an eye on the spam and her comments. She knows what she is aloud to do and follows our guidelines.

 

She has enjoyed this and it has been encouraging her to write more....actually getting her to do nano was the biggest push for her.

 

It was closed for engine searches but she and here father worked on a weird April 1st post so it was opened up for broader searches. We haven't closed it yet because we haven't had any issues.

[Kathleen in VA]

Dd15 has a blog through Blogger and a Facebook account. I also have a Facebook account. We keep in touch with our church family through it during the week. I also have a friend from childhood I keep up with through FB - her mom (who was my mom's best friend) has cancer and I keep up with her by checking on her FB account. My daughter and I also challenge each other to matches of Scramble - a boggle like game :).

[Peela]

My dd14 hasnt shown an interest although I have suggested it to her. She has a My Space account, she emails all her friends. At the moment there is an email going around where lots of homeschool kids who know each other here are writing on a particular topic someone chooses- the topic is Regret for this one, and its amazing what they come up with- so they have created their own audience of each other.

I thought I would have my kids do a Nature Study blog but somehow it has never really caught on. I think they have plenty of common sense regarding private information etc on the internet, so i am not worried about safety.