Neopets

Users can play games. take care of pets, travel around Neopia, and chat with other Neopians as well. On the forums, though, there are people who try to get passed the filters and put characters or use acronyms to sneak in curse words. Users can report inappropriate content to TNT (the neopets team) and users who break the rules are banned from Neopets. The games are entertaining and colorful, and you can earn Neopoints (the currency of Neopets) and buy things from other user's shops, auctions, or the trading post. There are many educational games such as typing, spelling, and mathematics. There are many scammers on the site who would fool people into giving them account info such as passwords, a PIN, email addresses, etc. TNT is very strict about the rules and, depending on how they broke the rules, can "freeze" (disable) the account, or just send a warning through the neomessaging system known as "neomail". All in all, it's a great site for kids, tweens, and even teens.

I love it

I'm only 12, but I've been playing neopets nearly since it came out, so I started playing it when I was about 5 or 6. Neopets is a great site and teaches kids to care for pets while also teaching them money smarts (the virtual money can be spent wisely so you can become rich with great pets or you can spend it on random junk and become broke). Although you can buy real-life items from the site, you need a credit card and few little kids have their parent's credit card number memorized, so I really isn't a huge issue. Although some of the neopets games have gambling, the gambling ones like the slot machines and keno can only be played if your account says your age is over 18 (and mine does; my sister created it a while back and then gave it to me). I don't know if there is an age restriction on the stock market, but I sure didn't understand it when I was younger, so I pretty much kept away from buying and selling stocks. I doubt many little kids would be interested in it anyways. I say this website has some educational purposes. When I was in third grade, my class would play maths nightmare on the smartboard (before it became updated and hard to click on the bubbles) to study for our mad-minutes (1 minute to complete 100 basic math problems). In school last year (5th grade), my applied tech teacher suggested the game typing terror on there to help with our typing before our test. My mom and I also enjoy playing the word games together like word pyramid, spell or starve, and word poker (the last two are fine for kids, mind you). Neopets, clothing wise, is FINE for children; the worst item they have is 'My sister's frilly skirt', given out by the advent calendar in I believe y8 or so. I've heard countless arguments over that item, but I feel it's fine as long as you don't have a bad mind. Chatting is fairly safe; there are a lot fewer spammers than there use to be, mainly because viacom has decided to start issueing IP bans more often. Also, if you try to curse or post bad things, the neopets filter now automatically blocks the post and doesn't let it go through. Although you can post off-site links, the link is taken down a few seconds afterward and you get a warning sent to you from TNT. Yes, you can talk to anyone from anywhere in the world, but basically any chat thing you can do that. TNT has moderaters swarming the boards 24/7. Although some things on neopets are hard to figure out, most people start to understand them not long after starting. There are great, kid-friendly guides all over the internet, too (on-site and off) and it's fun if you have friends that play too so you can find out stuff together. Just the other day, I showed one of my best friends who's been playing neopets for a few months how to earn 30k from just playing a few easy games and also how to use the shop wizard to find low prices on food. I think this game is good for anyone, whether they are 6 or 60. I've found many adults who play neopets (they have their own guilds that they create and create their own boards to find other adults usually) and I know a few little kids in real-life that play neopets. I would suggest this game to anyone who wants a break from real-life and a chance to care for a pet and play games.

A couple years ago, Addison found one of the olllllld Neopets plushies I got a few years ago from McDonald's, and insisted I look it up on the internet for her. (She wasn't very good at typing.) I did, and she fell in love with the site the first time she saw it. Addy quickly made an account, and created a wocky, one of the many species of Neopets. (Wockies look kind of like cartoon kitties.) Honestly, I'd say that the site is perfect for ages 8 - ... Well, you're never too old to have some fun! There are a lot of fun, active members, and the neomail system they have up is amazing. (Neomail is like an email system within the site.) There are about a thousand games - Literally. Most are educational in some way, and it's a very safe, child-friendly site. There are art and writing competitions, and it's a lot of fun to participate in these. (Addy loves the writing ones - She's always writing something or other!) She loves to dress up her pets with the wide variety of clothing available for them, and is extremely creative. (Her pets have been everything from rodeo clowns to Bugs Bunny to Brittany Spears!) I think it's a great site, and I would certainly create an account on Neopets if I had the time to actively play on it! I do, however, advise keeping your very young children off of this site - Some of the members are... Less than friendly, and sometimes they can use a bit of language I wouldn't allow Addy to use. Most of the members are at least twelve, but the older ones are generally very friendly to the younger ones, and the new players/players that have been on hiatus for a while. Overall, though, I love it and would recommend it to anyone!