In the old days, children's poems, stories and paintings were stuck up on the fridge door. Nowadays, they can be stuck up on the net for the whole wide world to see. And that's the size of audience that will inspire even the most lackadaisical children to do their very best.

There are dozens of sites in the USA and Britain keen to publish contributions. For example youngwriters.co.uk is on the look-out for poems and stories. So, too, is Kids on the Net which also publishes children's reviews and letters. Budding journalists will want Kids News to hold the front page and young artists can hang their masterpieces in The Global Art Gallery.

Instead of having to rely on any of these sites, children could go one better and devote some of their creative energy to building a website of their own. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) usually offer subscribers free web space, so if you have a gigabyte or two going spare, why not hand them over to your children? Web authoring is good fun, surprisingly easy, improves children's ICT skills and, above all else, it will give them a sense of having a stake in cyberspace. For a step-by-step guide to how it's done, visit BBC Webwise.

The BBC is not responsible for the content of external internet sites