Kavya is developing an intense desire for online presence.
Right now, she and Anand are really into making videos together, which isn’t surprising, since they love watching Youtube videos with game walk-throughs. She also has multiple short stories in progress. I think what she really wants is her own page where she can easily blog writing, photos, and videos. As one of the first online bloggers, I sympathize mightily with this desire. I never succeeded in keeping a journal until it was a public one; I love the interaction with people. It fuels me, and helped me develop mild interests into more sustained work.
I’m trying to think what I should be concerned about right now. Kavi’s still young enough (almost 9) that I don’t think we need to be having conversations about not posting sexually inappropriate material yet (in a few years, though). I’m not really concerned about anything she might post right now, and if she knows we’re reading it, and if we actually do check it regularly, I think that aspect should be fine.
I don’t know if she’d be happy with a closed community like New Moon Girls — if her school friends aren’t part of it, I’m not sure if it’ll satisfy her. (Also, do they let you post videos? Do they give each girl her own page? Or is it more of a forum space? The community section is unclear to me.) And some of her friends are boys. Something worth discussing with her.
The simplest for me would be setting up a WordPress page — that would easily let her do anything she wants to do. But I think she wants people to be able to comment on it, and even for my WordPress page, I get daily spam that sneaks past the filter that has to be deleted, so it’d be a little bit more daily work for me or Kevin. And there’s also the possibility of an abusive commenter finding her. Of course, at some point, every child must realize there are mean people in the world, and especially on the internet. Is now the time for her to learn that, and start learning how to handle it? I don’t know.
You are a brave Mom. 🙂 Good luck! I am sure this is the first of many online adventures waiting to be navigated with little ones in tow.