Built with React Native/Expo and Firebase. The trickiest part was designing the UX to be simple enough for kids with minimal distractions while giving parents enough control – ended up with a task-definition system that lets parents create weekly schedules with daily toggles instead of duplicating tasks across days
It's on the App Store now after a few months of dogfooding with my family. There's a 1-month free trial, then it's subscription-based. Would love feedback from other parents dealing with similar challenges
Any ways, just because you have some "structure routine" in your day doesn't mean you don't also have many hours of free play time.
I'm pretty sure a top level comment is effectively "asking OP". As for sheeshing it off, why can't we have both?
I remember Windows Phone had the feature of "unlocked apps", which you could run without having to unlock the phone: think calculator, browser, games. It was called Kids Corner[1].
Have any other OS (iOS/Androind) copied anything similar to that? This app will (or at least in my case) live in a place like that, where they do not have access to the whole platform.
[1] https://www.windowscentral.com/kids-corner-windows-phone-8
You can set down times for the whole phone and lock it remotely which is of huge benefit for bedtimes!
I don't want (yet, but it will come) for them to have their own device that I control as you explained.
i don't think multiple account is an /e/OS feature, but must be coming from lineage/ASOP so other ROMs should have it too (unless it was intentionally removed)
Android may have alternate launchers you can install (they are just apps) which you can customize how you need. One of the best features of Android imho.
I tried helping a friend with their kids Amazon tablet and left the experience wanting to wipe it clean and just define what 4 buttons parents can put on the screen.
Other tech:
Apple has a guided access feature which locks it to one app (except it's handed to them).
We're holding off on personal screens for now until the information diet can be tamed and managed. Looking for a smartwatch with a phone with physical buttons and no screen. Seem to be some options.
I still think the tile based UI was underrated. Live Tiles felt like a smart idea that never quite got the support it needed. It's one of those "what could have been" stories in tech.
Maybe this could be handy.
All my communication and banking apps are protected.
I don't want to lock my browser, photos, maps, etc. behind FaceID. I want to hand my phone knowing they will only use one or two apps and the fun stops when they hand me over the device.
The concept of a task management app for children is dystopian. It's treating them like office workers from the beginning, and considering the example given is the typical chess, piano, Chinese lessons, it's just overloading the child for exhaustion.
Parents should be parenting their children. Limiting their exposure to things, including screens and the internet, and disciplining a child to study or work are part of a parents purview. I can't see why people even have children if they delegate all of their parenting responsibilities to screens and software.
Welcome to ADHD management. At its core, its an executive function deficit. My wife and I both have it (my case is worse) and so do most of our children. External systems and environments have a huge effect on our ability to manage life, and that's not something that can change. The solution is to learn to work with it and tune our environments.
The problematic thing is kids spending endless hours just absorbing rather than playing or interacting or doing stuff. It culminates in kids (and adults) who cannot mentally handle being bored- they must have the screen to relieve the horrors of the idle mind.
If achieving these same goals is easier without an app for you and your kids, then by all means, do that. But an app on a screen is a very powerful tool to structure and organize things. My daughter is still a bit young for this one, but I can see how useful it will be when she's a couple years older.
That's totally true, but it's not the only point. Here we are also teaching kids that they need apps for anything they do. They should be able to do that themselves, before using an app to assist them. Otherwise they wont develop capabilities that they wont be able to acquire so easily at a later stage in their lives. If we take this approach to the extreme, why bother learning to write and do maths, when a computer can do it for you?
https://www.childrenandscreens.org/learn-explore/research/?t...
What is screen time any way? Spending 3 hours playing candy crush and 3 hours reading moby dick on the kindle app are both screen time. What's the commonality between them?
The demo video (which does showcase the app well), includes things like chess and piano and homework. Does the child like doing any of these? Have you vetted the homework as worth the child's time?
Missing from the list are things that translate to adulthood, like physically training every day and performing useful tasks like chores in exchange for something like money. You have to exercise as an adult even if you don't want to, it's part of the human condition. If you don't become accustomed to conditioning as an adolescent and only exercise through sports, it can be difficult to stay fit as an adult. You have to perform useful work because we live in a world of scarcity, but doing hobbies that don't interest you because they impress people or your parents told you to do them as a child is absolutely nuts.
I should add: I'm not criticizing your parenting decisions, obviously I have none of the relevant context, but I thought I would convey a sentiment that may exist in your market demographic, which you maybe don't share.
If the homework isn't worth the child's time, what do you suggest? Don't do it and get a bad grade? Parent does it for the child? Ask AI to do it? (That would still take time and thus should probably be on the schedule.) Talk to the teacher to ask it not be done?
If the child is old enough, you could explain that the homework is not useful to them, and try to turn it into a teachable moment about manipulating systems for one's advantage. Then delegate the homework to AI, or lookup the answers online. I would be very cautious about doing that with a young child, there's a lot of nuance. Dishonesty towards friends and family is always bad, towards bureaucracies is okay.
The crucial adult skill is to not tolerate useless work. If you become complacent with doing work that doesn't help anyone, then you considerably increase your risk of losing employment, or being ineffective when working solo. AI is going to force this lesson on the next generations.
For context: my older son genuinely enjoys chess and piano, and this structured schedule approach was recommended by their child psychologist. We tried paper-based scheduling but it didn't stick, so my wife asked me to build an app to help
Your point about useful adult skills is well taken. The hope is they internalise the habit of planning and following through, so eventually they can set their own schedules. We'll see how it goes
“A growing body of evidence has found that children’s brains can structurally and functionally change due to prolonged media multitasking, such as diminished gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, where attentional control and complex decision making abilities reside, among other really important skills, like the development of empathy and understanding nonverbal social communication,”
There are over 300 studies detailing how early screen use damages children's brains and impairs their ability to reason and relate to others. How engineers ignore this is incredible.
https://www.childrenandscreens.org/learn-explore/research/?t...
Perhaps this is how engineering is forced to change its tune: the irreversible damage to children.
I would definitely use this if instead of the parents as the reviewer it was possible to have a friend/multiple friends approve, rate and comment on tasks and vice versa. Like a sort of social media for mundane routines.
You should try Oh Yah! if:
- Your child struggles with daily routines and needs constant reminders
- Mornings and after-school time are stressful battles
- You've tried reward charts and systems that didn't stick
- Your child needs clear structure but gets overwhelmed easily
- You want to build independence without constant nagging
- You need a solution that works for the whole family
This a simple printed paper stuck near the kitchen for them to just run their fingers on the checklist to see if they have to do for the day of the week. There is no specific time or a deadline but I’m training them to look at in the morning, after school, and before bed. For instance, the before bed routine makes sure we run the dishwasher while we sleep to have fresh washed dishes the next morning.
Besides the usual rewards of extra game-time, chocolates, etc. we have also introduced a “Daughter of the Month” with special privileges.
It has worked wonders. It is not perfect but my two 8 and 10 year old daughters have used it. My 12 year old son, battles me in every way, but I feel like it is a small war instead of WWIII now.
They get a bonus of screen time before school if they get all their chores done. The whiteboard has all those chores. I hate them having screen time before school, but I like that I no longer am fighting with them to get their socks on.
This is a drastic improvement from a few months back.
Photo proof actually was my wife's idea. She wanted to verify the task quality when she wasn't at home - similar to your audit capability
I guess the 12year old battles will be coming for me next.. Not exactly looking forward to the puberty haha
But on the other hand - the world is digital now. I have no idea how to make them learn good habits on finding things on the internet while not falling to the infinite well of doomscrolling etc.
I'm getting quite pissed at the school seemingly assuming every kid has a smart phone that they need to access things for school with.
Having a child be able to call you and say "I'm in the park", "I'm at my friends house", "Can I invite a friend over?" was very good for reassurance.
We still throw him out and say "Go to the park" on a weekend, safe in the knowledge that if we need to know where he is we can call and ask, or he can phone us to say he saw a friend and is going to their place, etc.
I don't love children having screen time, and we set a timer so he's not allowed unfettered access, but giving him a phone? Even a dumb phone? I think its a net positive.
Various definitions of “navigation” I can think of: - no switching tasks in the app - some sort of phone-wide parental control - maps is disabled ;-)
The goal is to keep them focused on one thing at a time without the temptation to jump around :)
What is your pricing model?
Not everything needs to be fun and games in life.
Intelligence is built from various sequences.
1. Path integrations. The ability to test without supervision and coaching movements beyond the scope of eyesight, aided by landmarks, without the use of breadcrumbs or maps.
2. Short-cuts. The ability to use the above to create short-cuts in the unmapped and unsupervised, unaided paths.
3. Vicarious trial-and-error. The ability to learn both from mistakes and idiosyncratic choices that develop unique solutions.
And there are MANY others like this in the motor and cognitive mapping system built from sharp wave ripples.
This software is the equivalent of brainwashing experience into mechanical reproducibility. It's the latests tech horror show.
This is not about intelligence or development of children skills, its about task completion.
Your comment sound pretty rude.
Naming sequences as "tasks" is tantamount to enslavement into an order of roboticism. This sounds like the beginning of a Bradbury story in which children revolt en masse.
Pretty rude? The entire approach here aimed at kids is beyond rude. It's mind-control.
“A growing body of evidence has found that children’s brains can structurally and functionally change due to prolonged media multitasking, such as diminished gray matter in the prefrontal cortex, where attentional control and complex decision making abilities reside, among other really important skills, like the development of empathy and understanding nonverbal social communication,”
What’s been your sons’ reception of the app so far?
So at least it works for my family, and just like you said, it's a huge win by itself :)
I mean my kids have a hard time with routine management, but that's not going to make anything better unless you gamify the shit out of it.
Show them a counter of how well they're doing and reward them when they're done with some animated crap that's different every time, and maybe they'll use it for more than three days.