Quality time with kids: Now, an app to improve parenting

So here is Totto Parents App that lets people understand the early childhood development stage and helps parent better. Early intervention and early learning are the key aspects.
The team behind Totto Parents app
The team behind Totto Parents app

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Say you have a toddler at home, and you need to connect to experts to help analyse why the child behaved in a particular way, or whether the child’s cognitive and social skills are at par with age. So here is Totto Parents App that lets people understand the early childhood development stage and helps parent better. Early intervention and early learning are the key aspects.

Totto Learning – a Kochi-based startup incubated with the Kerala Startup Mission -- has come up with the unique app, and a special campaign, to help parents connect better with kids. “Parents are the most undertrained and underprepared teachers the child will get at an early age,” says Jofin Joseph, the founder and CEO of Totto Learning. 

An interface of the app
An interface of the app

“Kids at that age learn from experience, not from the screen. And it is a continuous learning experience. With the app, parents will get tips on a plethora of aspects and also get activities to engage in to understand the development of the child. The whole idea is to make parenting a delightful experience and to give a richer childhood experience.” 

The app is tailormade for parents with children aged between one and a half years and six years. The focus is on the period when a child goes to school, Jofin says. “The social, cognitive, emotional, and many such skills develop before the child is six years of age. It defines the life of a child, and so the period is crucial. We have developed a range of activities and parenting tools that can let one monitor the development of a child,” he says.

The Totto Parents App, which was being test run for the past two months, was released on the Google Play Store and iOS platforms on Saturday. The app is available free of cost and has found over 1,000 takers in a day. As part of the launch, the startup has associated with parenting magazine ParentCircle to run a campaign titled  ‘#GadgetFreeHour’ – started by the magazine -- for 14 days. 

The focus of the campaign is on spending quality time with children away from the screen, says Jofin. Each day, parents will get a scratch card that will reveal the activity they should indulge in with the kids. “It involves sessions with the child and comprises offline activities. The challenge, unlike the app, is open to parents with children of all ages. They can then post the feedback and share their experiences in the app,” says Jofin.

Anyone who downloads the app can join the challenge, which began on the day.  The app helps on three fronts – awareness, parenting tips and personalised engagement tools. Besides understanding the child’s development better, parents can also connect with a lineup of experts including psychologists, paediatricians, dentists etc.

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The New Indian Express
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