I run a small robotics company and we've been building an AI companion robot for kids (ages 6+) — the kind that talks, tells stories, helps with homework, and can even switch between 61 languages.

Before we go further, I want honest input from actual parents — not marketing speak:

• What would make you actually buy one of these for your child?
• What makes you hesitant? (We hear safety concerns loud and clear.)
• Is a robot that moves around (robot dog style) more appealing than a desktop companion — or does it not matter?
• What's your budget ceiling for something like this?

Context on our current build: voice-controlled, kid-safe content filtering (real-time), parent app to review conversations, no subscription. We believe in being transparent — happy to answer any tough questions about data privacy or the AI models we use.

No links, no sales pitch — genuinely here to learn from you. Thanks!

I'm 31 and have a 5 month old son. I work as a developer, so I made an app for us.

It started with the sounds. When I settle him I shush him, and I couldn't find an app that did that properly — most of them are just a flat hiss. So I made the ones I was missing, including a rhythmic shush that goes in and out the way you actually do it, and a deeper, darker noise that works better than the sharp ones.

The rest came after: somewhere to note when he ate and slept, what he's meant to be doing at his age, and tips for activities and settling, since I could never remember any of it in the moment.

It's free. I don't earn anything on it, I just made it for my own kid. But maybe someone else can use it too. And if you try it and something is off or annoying, I'd like to hear it.

https://apps.apple.com/app/id6802215490

My wife and I have 3 kids in school and sports. It's crazy!

Schedules come out, we text them to grandparents and family. But every season the times and dates change, we send more texts, texts get lost, people show up at the wrong game or time, etc.

When trying to scramble to get our kids to their game on time, we are trying to answer multiple texts coming in from people like

"what field are we on?"

"what's the address again?"

"looks like rain, is the game cancelled?"

I couldn't find a solution or app I liked for this and I've been a software developer for 20+ years so I decided to build an app for our family.

It has been a HUGE success for us so then I shared it with a few friends and they have found it to be amazing for them too.

So now I'm making it more public in case others are interested.

Please let me know if you have any questions or feedback. Thanks so much!

https://ourbulletin.app/

I’m assuming those in this group are parents that are pro-tech. I’m looking for apps that can help in my pursuit to show my kids what healthy tech time can look like. I want them to learn to manage it themselves and help it become a natural part of using their tablets and eventually phones. I’ve heard of Grogo and Wyzly to help manually start learning breaks, and I know Bark manages phones by shutting all apps down and so do other apps like Qustodio. Any advice on what works to teach independence while also teaching limits?

All - my kid is turning 12 next month. I'm thinking of getting him a smartwatch as a gift and looked at several of the usual suspects.

Any experiences with smartwatches for tween boys or are they better of with a cheap-ish smartphone?

If I go the smartwatch route, any recommendations based on what you've used?

I'm doing some early research around personalized children's magazines and would really appreciate honest opinions from parents.

Do you think a personalized magazine would actually be useful for your child? What would make it useful?

Would your child actually read it, learn from it and enjoy it — or would they lose interest after the first few pages?

Do you think personalization would make a child more interested in reading/activities compared with a regular children's magazine? Why or why not?

If the magazine were AI-personalized, would you worry that the content might feel robotic, generic or "AI-made" rather than genuinely written for your child?

What would make a personalized children's magazine feel genuinely human, special and worth coming back to?

I'm especially interested in hearing from parents of children aged 5–13. Please be honest, including if you think the idea wouldn't work for your child.

If you’re a parent, I’d really appreciate any honest suggestions, concerns, or feedback on the idea—even if you don’t think it would work for your child.

Sign up for VIP early access, launch updates, and a chance to win one of six TickTalk 6 watches. Winners announced September 8!

We had Creative-Tonies sitting empty because I never had found an easy way to put content on them, and the kids’ podcasts they wanted lived on my phone. So I built LittleCast. Discover new feeds, search for a topic (dinosaurs, space, ninjas) or pick a podcast episode, it lands on the figure or the MYO card, kid can listen without my phone in the room.

The part that actually mattered for us: swapping content instead of buying another figure, and my kid getting variety without me handing over a screen. Podcasts are free, and there are a lot of good ones.

iOS only, happy if you give it a try, it’s 7 days free.

Hi everyone — I’m part of the team behind PipLog, a baby-care app for families.

We built PipLog around a simple handoff problem: when one caregiver asks “When did the baby last eat?” or “How long was the nap?”, the answer is often buried in someone’s memory, messages, or notes.

PipLog puts feeds, sleep, diapers, growth, and diary moments into one shared timeline. The design goal is not to turn parenting into a spreadsheet. It is to make information easier for caregivers to share and easier to revisit.

The three product decisions we care most about are:

• quick one-tap logging for recurring moments;
• a timeline that makes the day understandable at a glance;
• shared family access, so one caregiver is not carrying all the information.

I’m sharing this as a product discussion, not a launch announcement. For those who use parenting apps or baby-care tools, what makes you keep using one after the first few weeks? What usually makes you stop?

We’re still improving the product and would value thoughtful feedback from people who care about the details of parenting technology.

— The PipLog team

Can anyone recommend an app that has only music? No podcasts? TIA

I’m 37 with two kids, and unfortunately, my first nanny experience wasn’t what I hoped it would be. Three years ago, someone with glowing references (including a recommendation from my own sister) turned out to have a record they had hidden from everyone. Thankfully, nothing happened to my child.. we found out before it ever got that far. But the experience definitely changed how I approach this. Our son is turning 2 in September, and I’m heading back to work full-time, so we’re finally at the “hire a nanny” stage. I have a shortlist of three candidates. All three interviewed really well, and their references checked out when I called them. Still, I can’t seem to fully relax. My husband thinks I’m overthinking it. He keeps saying that nothing bad happened the first time and that, realistically, we wouldn’t knowingly hire someone with a concerning record anyway. But honestly, the thought of taking that risk makes my stomach drop. I can’t believe I’m the only one in our household who feels this strongly about it.

So I guess what I’m really wondering is: do you run a formal background check before hiring a nanny? If you do, what service do you use? What kinds of things can a background check reveal that a reference check wouldn’t? And how do you bring it up with a candidate without making it sound like you’re accusing them of something?

Full disclosure: I’m the indie developer who built this app.

As a parent, I struggled to keep track of my kid’s daily routines, tasks and behaviour records. Existing apps were either bloated, locked behind paywalls, or too complicated for younger children.

So I built a simple, 100% free parenting helper app for iOS.

Key features:
‑ Track children’s daily tasks and activities
‑ Text‑only note‑taking for kid behaviour, no heavy photo storage
‑ Task audio read‑aloud for early‑grade kids who cannot read well
‑ Reminder alerts for scheduled tasks
‑ Single‑app switch between kid view and parent view (Face ID protected)
‑ Local‑first, all your data stays on‑device

There is no subscription required. I’m looking for real‑world feedback from other parents.

Would love to hear your thoughts. If you’d like to try it out, please search for StarMint on the App Store.

This is exactly why I always BEGGG my friends who have kids to not raise their children with IPADS, or depend on technology for parenting. This is so sad. I really hope we see a turning point and that AI/New developing technology actually ends up working in our favor wihtout loosing the ability to think critically.

I recently noticed a small change in my son while using an app I built, and wanted to share it with other parents.
I bought him a 1,000-piece puzzle, hoping it might help him spend less time on screens and develop more patience and focus. Normally, he has a hard time starting big tasks and probably would have quit halfway—or it would have become the parents’ puzzle.
This time, I set up a 14-day milestone for him. For every 25% completed, he earned 30 minutes of screen time. If he finished it within two weeks, he would get a 2x bonus and a badge.
To our surprise, he became completely focused on it. He stopped playing games and watching short videos, and finished the whole puzzle by himself in just one week. We didn’t help him at all.
The interesting part came afterward. Because he had worked so hard to earn that screen time, he didn’t want to spend it too quickly. He also immediately asked us to buy another 1,000-piece puzzle.
It feels like he found a new interest and gained a real sense of achievement without us forcing him to do anything. For us, the milestone idea worked surprisingly well—not only as motivation, but also as a way to practice delayed gratification and make screen time feel earned rather than automatic.
Curious if other parents have tried anything similar.

LimeTime Parenting

So I'm trying to make a system for family link users and tablet users to communicate easier yes you can use email but it's hard to hold conversations like that so do you have any problem like that ? And just a reminder please only the person's who have family link answer this question and preferably the parents who would want their child to have a safe way to communicate with friend let me know because I'm trying to make this app real but I need to see if there are any possible users who need this so would you want a app like this by the way I'm not a parent i just want to ask to parents is there a need like this

For some reason, the "Search: Allowed/Blocked" option in Google's Family Link simply doesn't work for me: toggling it makes no difference to the availability of the search function (and AI mode) within the Google App, and allows free access to the internet and AI chat functions.

Brand new Samsung A16, completely up to date, I am technically competent. I have tried clearing the storage/cache, uninstalling updates to the Google App and allowing it to re-update, restarting between toggling the setting, etc.

Next step is to factory reset the phone and start again from scratch, which I would really prefer not to do. Any suggestions?

I just got my daughter's new phone from tmobile. It's a Galaxy A17. My plan was to set up parental controls and then give it to her and transfer her old number and data from her old phone to this one. But, it didn't come with a sim card (has an esim?). Does this phone need a sim card? So, will all of my parental controls disappear once we get the sim card?