Pen pal for a 12 year old?

My son is about to turn 12, a month from tomorrow in fact. Today he asked if he could have a pen pal, and wanted to write his friend from school. I told him a pen pal should be someone you don't see every day at school, someone usually far away. I asked him if he wanted me to find him a pen pal, and he said sure.

Does anyone on here have a child near his age (boy or girl, I don't think it matters) that would be willing to let them write back and forth? I'm talking with pen and paper, not email. He struggles in writing and spelling, and I think this would help him out a lot. I'd like his pen pal to be someone close to his age so that they have things in common to write about. He LOVES Pokemon, video games, and drawing, but not much into sports (he does like soccer, though).

If I don't find anyone here, I'll ask on another forum I go to, but I come here the most so I thought I'd ask here first. Thanks!!

swap-bot.com has a lot of penpal swaps all the time! You may want to try there, sometimes they have ones for kids! Just an idea

I would just worry about something like that. I trust almost everybody on here, but I'm afraid some place like that (where I don't know anyone) would get us a creepy pervert pretending to be a 12 year old. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I worry about stuff like that.

Originally Posted by kara_leigh

I would just worry about something like that. I trust almost everybody on here, but I'm afraid some place like that (where I don't know anyone) would get us a creepy pervert pretending to be a 12 year old. Maybe I'm paranoid, but I worry about stuff like that.

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I agree I would be careful where you find a penpal. Unfortunately there are a lot of creeps out there. I had a penpal at 12 we wrote for several years. I really loved it. I have a son 13 but he doesn't communicate well. we are having him tested for autism.

My neighbor has a 12 year-old autistic son, she might be interested in getting him a pen-pal to help him wiht his communication skills.... I can ask if you would like!

Edit: I should add, he LOVES video games and drawing too

Originally Posted by sillyitiliangrl

My neighbor has a 12 year-old autistic son, she might be interested in getting him a pen-pal to help him wiht his communication skills.... I can ask if you would like!

Edit: I should add, he LOVES video games and drawing too

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I have a good friend with a son around that age as well... she's in Corvallis, OR... I can ask her as well...

Amanda

Pen pal is so old school though. If it were me, I'd setup a machine in a public area of the house w/ parental controls, and sign him up for a strictly moderated forum for kids relevant to his interests. Online social networking is more rewarding IMO and develops useful skills for this day and age.

Originally Posted by Ducman69

Pen pal is so old school though. If it were me, I'd setup a machine in a public area of the house w/ parental controls, and sign him up for a strictly moderated forum for kids relevant to his interests. Online social networking is more rewarding IMO and develops useful skills for this day and age.

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I am of the opposite opinion. I think it's good to try and develop our most basic of skills...writing and printing!

Techonology will always be there to help us out, but I think it's important for kids to develop printing and writing skills. And a handwritten letter is way more personal than an email.

Originally Posted by Trouts mom

I am of the opposite opinion. I think it's good to try and develop our most basic of skills...writing and printing!

Techonology will always be there to help us out, but I think it's important for kids to develop printing and writing skills. And a handwritten letter is way more personal than an email.

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I agree with this too. I did three years of accounting at University and we did everything by hand before we were even allowed to attempt to use the calculator to work anything out. It is highly important to communicate via letter writing IMO.

Originally Posted by Trouts mom

I am of the opposite opinion. I think it's good to try and develop our most basic of skills...writing and printing!

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I totally agree with that! The basics seem to be getting lost with technology. When you write/print, you tend to use the whole word and not some dorky leet speak abbreviation that you see in texting etc.

I had a pen pal when I was 12 years old. She lived in Ontario just outside of Toronto. It was part of my grade 6 class. We even went on a field trip there and I got to meet my pen pal's family. We stayed with our pen pal's family unless of course your pen pal was the opposite gender, then you stayed with someone else's family.

I was sooooo homesick! It was my first time being away from home for that long. I cried and cried. I remember Brenda's brother coming to see what was wrong. I told him. The next day he drove me to town, bought me a post card and we mailed it to my Mom! It made me feel so much better. Visiting her is one of my most fond childhood memories.

Perhaps you can talk to your son's teacher and see if they can do it as a class with another class from another Province? Make sure you indicate that it's actual pen and ink, not computers.

The letters were mailed from school to school, and each class was given 15 minutes or so once a week to write their pen pal a letter to be sent off. When mail arrived, the letters were handed out in class by the teacher to the students. You could include pictures, poems, drawings.... it was great fun.

I also had a pen pal and it was a lovely experience.

It's great that you and he want to do it the "old-fashioned" way. We have gained much in technology but lost much more in the basics of reading, writing, spelling, etc. One can almost tell how old a person is just by the way they write and spell. As one poster said, technology will always be there once we master the basics.

A good example of this was when I was in Business College. We were not allowed to use electric typewriters until we mastered at least 50 wpm on a manual typewriter. Yes, that certainly dates me but wow, when we went to an electric typewriter the wpm score went soaring up because we got the basics first.

I hope one of the above children listed will be a good fit for your son.

I've had pen pals most of my life, and still write to one since the 1970s. I used to have dozens of people I corresponded with, I loved it.

One suggestion, if you're concerned about strangers getting your home address, get a PO Box and give out that address. You can get a small one for not a lot of money.

I have 2

Both girls, 14 and 10, Kayleigh will be 11 in July so she'd prolly be the best one. She loves to write, and sure would like a pen pal

Originally Posted by Ducman69

Pen pal is so old school though. If it were me, I'd setup a machine in a public area of the house w/ parental controls, and sign him up for a strictly moderated forum for kids relevant to his interests. Online social networking is more rewarding IMO and develops useful skills for this day and age.

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He belongs to a kids forum, much like this one, so he gets his online skills enough there. He just struggles A LOT in school with writing and spelling, so while this will be fun for him, writing with a pencil and paper will help with those things. That's my biggest concern, mostly. We had him tested for a reading disability at school, and while he tested above average in his verbal communication, he scored way below average in writing and spelling. He has a hard time getting it on paper.

Have you asked his school about pen pals? I remember in 4th grade we had pen pals from China, that we wrote to at least once a month, that whole school year.

My daughter is 9, she has a penpal but she is someone we met on holiday. I would be worried about finding a penpal on a website. x

I personally enjoy personal letters much more so than I do email. My cousin is 17 and she seems incapable of talking or writting without using texting slang and I think in the age of computers and text messages we are missing out on the personal touches of doing things by hand.

Originally Posted by kara_leigh

He belongs to a kids forum, much like this one, so he gets his online skills enough there.

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Oh ok, good deal. Just brought it up since there are few higher paying positions available even today that don't require proficiency in modern information systems, yet alone in twenty years, so a great advantage to those that start out early. Many browsers, such as Firefox, also natively recognize and immediately point out spelling errors, and he wouldn't be ignorant like my late boss asking his employees what "AFAIK" means, lol!

Perhaps a combination of the two. Ditch the pen and paper for a inexpensive tablet. I'm looking into picking up a HP Slate for myself actually, just waiting on a sale.

These use a touch-pen input to transcribe cursive into text, especially useful w/ Microsoft OneNote. They are very popular in schools of late, and many believe will be the next big mobile form factor.

Best of luck either way.

Originally Posted by Tavia'smom

I personally enjoy personal letters much more so than I do email. My cousin is 17 and she seems incapable of talking or writting without using texting slang and I think in the age of computers and text messages we are missing out on the personal touches of doing things by hand.

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I agree wholeheartedly.

I've thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas cards this year, and IMO there is nothing better than finding a piece of mail that is NOT a bill and is just random thoughts from a friend.

Kara: I'm glad you asked, and i think this is a great idea for your son. (and my daughter too )

Originally Posted by Ducman69

Oh ok, good deal. Just brought it up since there are few higher paying positions available even today that don't require proficiency in modern information systems, yet alone in twenty years, so a great advantage to those that start out early. Many browsers, such as Firefox, also natively recognize and immediately point out spelling errors, and he wouldn't be ignorant like my late boss asking his employees what "AFAIK" means, lol!

Perhaps a combination of the two. Ditch the pen and paper for a inexpensive tablet. I'm looking into picking up a HP Slate for myself actually, just waiting on a sale.

These use a touch-pen input to transcribe cursive into text, especially useful w/ Microsoft OneNote. They are very popular in schools of late, and many believe will be the next big mobile form factor.

Best of luck either way.

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Teaching a child with nothing but technology could result in them having a very hard time in the future. Yes chances are jobs will all be moving further into technology, but technology has the ability to fail until pen and paper. If the power goes out, a lot of kids these days may not be able to spell their own name without a built in spell checker.