Email account for 11 year old?

No reason to look beyond google in my opinion. That’s what my similar age granddaughter uses.

Google
And set it up to forward every email to you.
Useful to just keep an eye on things.

And set it up to forward every email to you.

or you could just link the accounts and log in whenever you liked.

The other option is to use gmails "alias" feature

if your email address is myaddress@gmail.com then

myaddress+mychild@gmail.com

myaddress+spotifylogin@gmail.com

will all send email to your main account - I find it a really great way of segregating sign up emails and other spam from my main address

I take it that with Google that the small person can't just login and change all the settings?

I take it that with Google that the small person can’t just login and change all the settings?

Funnily enough Thump has never done that.
He's hacked my Googlepay account, hacked the primary school dojo system, set up Debop accounts, set up multiple US bank accounts to get funds from his Debop sales, set up Paypal accounts to get funds from his ebay sales -but never taken control of his Gmail account.

Maybe I set my phone as the OTP?

Google.
Make email address for the child - ours have a variation of thier name.
Then you can either add it to app or forward it to your email to keep an eye.
Kid has email account on their phone or on pc, but the password is saved.

I also set up 2FA, firstly on my biometric and then transferred it to them when they get passwords. That way I could approve access / purchases / keep an eye.

Our kids didn't have passwords to email or accounts for purchases at that age. By 13 or so we started given them access. By 16 they had full access.

FWIW, we did same with mobile phone accounts - set up in thier name but my bank, all control with me until 16, and at 18 they were handed the account and had to pay their own bill.

And Spotify, Netflix etc - a family account is cheaper than multiple accounts, plus they have parental controls.

IIRC, Google and Outlook now allow family email account linking, meaning kids inherit thier own data too at 18.

Same as Matt. Both girls had google emails from an early age. Phones, Spotify, Disney+, Netflix and eventually Multicar were and still are on family accounts. Saved a fortune over the years.
Never needed to and never had a problem with trust and that goes both ways.
If we were to do it again would still go the same way

Google here too.

Set up an account and be honest about their age. Put yourself as the admin. I got notified of any new apps that she downloaded up to the age of 13. Also there is a tracker on it so you can see where they are.

If they have a device with access to the Internet, they probably already have their own email accounts that you don't know about. Or soon will.

Or hotmail / outlook.com? Similarly do family type accounts and handy for when they need to set up their own PC/laptop for gaming/homework/etc.

We went with Microsoft simply because she started off on the Xbox. They've recently released a control app as well which should hopefully make things easier as Microsoft have a horrible habit of hiding things here, there and everywhere (and sometimes duplicating permissions across tabs with exclusive rights meaning you can't get things to work sometimes).

They're all much of a muchness, they have their good points and bad points and tbh none do everything well, we have Google, Microsoft and Apple set up across different devices.

I don't think Gmail allows you to set up mail auto-forwarding on a child's account. Doesn't work on ours.

Info here.

Google Family is pretty good for other stuff though.