Emails are mainly used for business and personal purposes. An email account can be created hassle-free using personal details. Anyone can sign up free and create an email account by entering a name, surname, username with a password. Many people create multiple email account with more than one username.
Email accounts can be accessed with a password only. Hence, if someone is locked out of an account, they have to follow a few easy steps to access their account once again. The mail exchange through an account can only take place if the user has access to their account. Securing an account with a username and password is a primary requirement for email account creation. Also, people of all ages can make their email accounts with Gmail. Gmail is a preferred email sending and receiving tool, available free in every region.
Gmail accounts for children
Normally, anyone can sign up with a username and password to create a Gmail account. The ease of account creation makes it a sought-after tool, though several restrictions require to be followed to be safe in the internet world. Gmail, as a sophisticated email sending and receiving a tool, restricts the age limit to create a user account. Anyone 13 years of age and above is allowed only to create his or her account. However, the age limit is applicable as per the region.
Parents can create an account for their children below 13 age and can also monitor it remotely. In this way, parents can introduce the features of email to their children, as well as keep a check on their activities while they learn to use the email tool. In several countries such as Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Poland, Netherland, Romania have limited the email account creation age to 16 plus years. While in countries like Peru, Venezuela, Spain, South Korea, Austria, Cyprus, the age limit is set at 14 plus years.
Benefits of the email account for children
An email is a useful tool for usage in the digital age. There are multiple benefits of using Gmail for children. Learning to send an email at a young age helps the children become digitally aware of their surroundings.
Some of the benefits of using Gmail by children are:
1.When children start using Gmail, they can gain knowledge of new-age digital tools and the world, out there. The set up required to create the account help them understand how mail setups work
2. Email sending and receiving through Gmail exposes kids to the knowledge of digital communication.
3. Kids can learn to understand how to write an email and send message via digital devices.
4. Gmail works in a sophisticated way, thus, encouraging children to learn about other tools and software.
5. With usage of Gmail, children get a hands-on experience of internet technologies, including the pros and cons.
Parental guidance for using email should always be there. In Gmail, thus, parental controls have been implemented, especially for monitoring accounts of underage children. Overall, the creation of a Gmail account for less than 13 years of aged children is permissible by Google, only under the supervision of their parents.
Supervision of child’s Gmail account
Supervising every account that the children operate helps control safety and privacy concerns. Gmail as a popular email sending tool provides parental control to restrict hours of usage across all types of devices. While allowing kids to use internet tools like Gmail, it also tracks the kid’s activities and monitors their browsing on the Gmail platform.
As per the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, the age restriction has been set and with several other kinds of privacy limitations. On such underage accounts, Google doesn’t allow ad sense advertising, and also no promotional emails are sent. The accounts of underage kids are kept under complete privacy.
However, the account of an underage child cannot be created without parental intervention. If an under-age child tries to create a Gmail account, the Gmail support team blocks or disables the operation of such accounts. Gmail only allows family linked accounts for under-age children below 13 years of age.
Family link for child’s Gmail account
Children can be vulnerable and easily victimized by offenses in the internet world. Privacy is always a concern when browsing and usage of the digital tool are involved. Since children are more interested in using the features than think about the cons, Gmail has control their children’s accounts to parents through the family linking feature.
The Internet world offers excellent tools and software to enhance your children’s knowledge, but it also comes with a good share of drawbacks. Fears of phishing, identity thefts, and virus attack make internet surfing challenging too. Exposure to each and every online aspect can make their accounts unsafe and expose their identity to vicious sources, which can use the information for mischievous purposes. Therefore, controlling Gmail usage via the family link app is allowed and advised by Google.
In case, if the family link app is not available in your region, then, active manual supervision is recommended. While teaching the usage of Gmail, parents should educate the children about online safety concerns. Share information each time about virus and malware attacks. Also about responding to only trusted information and email Ids.
Downloading family link
The family link app can be downloaded from the Android Play Store and App Store. After downloading the app, tap on the Add button top right, and follow instructions given to add the child’s account. The service may be paid and hence, before signing up do check the necessary information. The set up is easy and can be quickly completed.
To ensure added safety for the child’s Gmail account, parents should create hard-to-crack passwords with a combination of several letters, numbers, and special characters. Educate the kids not to reply to untrustworthy email id, which seems suspicious. Also, teach them how to identify emails that can be spam or malicious in nature.
