Children emailing. Usually a worrying thing in our household, because it means someone’s snuck onto the computer while we’re out of the room and hammered out a message of random letters to whoever was top of our inbox.

Actually, though, there are a few developers trying to figure out a way for kids to take their first steps into the world of electronic mail through apps, in a safe way. The latest example is Tocomail.

Released this week for iPhone and iPad, it promises “total parental control while providing a real and fun email experience for children”, with an email app that includes drawings, avatar characters and lots of colour.

However, it also makes sure that parents set the allowed-contacts list to keep it to friends and family, with a profanity filter thrown in to ensure your little angels aren’t indulging in devilish language while corresponding with grandma (or, indeed, vice versa).

Each child gets their own @tocomail.com email address, and the app uses push notifications to ping on the iPhone or iPad when a new message is received. There are also two different complexity levels to suit younger and older children, which is a well thought-out touch.

Some of the security features don’t come in the basic app: you can get them by paying £1.99 a month or £20.99 a year. That’s where you’ll find the profanity filter, as well as a quarantine box that stores messages from anyone not on your ‘safe list’ until you’ve checked them.

It looks like an interesting app, and great if your children have grandparents, aunts and uncles or cousins who they’d like to correspond with. Tocomail isn’t the only option. Maily is one app we wrote about back in 2012 that we really liked, for example.

Tocomail is a free download for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store.