KudoKids A brief for pediatricians · Spring 2026

i

A concrete answer
to the screen-time question
families ask at every visit.

KudoKids is a children's digital wellbeing app for ages 3–12. We're asking pediatricians for an honest read before we hand it to the families in your practice.

Ages 3–12

Joseph Yelle, founder · joseph@kudokids.org · kudokids.org/partners/pediatric

Cosmo · the free companion

§ I What pediatricians keep telling us

02

The gap at the well-child visit

Fifteen minutes. One screen-time question.

The screen-time conversation is the one parents almost always bring up — and the one pediatricians have the least time to answer well. "Try a chart" is not an implementation. A referral is six weeks away. Between visits, there's nothing to hand them.

Well-visits are too short for behavior. Anticipatory guidance gets squeezed by acute concerns and growth-chart review.
"Try a chart at home" doesn't get implemented. Most families don't have the bandwidth to design a system from a one-line recommendation.
Between-visit follow-through is missing. You screen, you advise, and the next data point is six to twelve months away.

We'd rather hear "here's what I'd do differently" than "looks great." That's why you're getting this brief before parents do. — Why we wrote this for pediatricians

Editorial still life: analog clock + half-filled well-visit clipboard

Higgsfield still life — coming

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 02 / 16

§ II What the product actually does

03

The premise

Earn. Spend. Grow.

Kids earn Kudo Coins for completing routines and tasks their parent set up. They spend those coins on screen time, in-app stories, companion customization, games, or real-world rewards. Every interaction touches a developmental domain — responsibility, financial thinking, emotional wellness, learning, or social skill.

01

Parent-set steps · Coin values per step

02

Companion-spoken affirmations · 5-min meditations

03

Tap a feeling · companion validates · offers choice

KudoKids child home screen — companion, Kudo Coins balance, routines

Premium ($5.99/mo) unlocks 19 additional companions and customization. Everything else — routines, mood check-ins, affirmations, meditation, 60+ music tracks, sleep sounds, stories, family messaging — is in the free tier.

§ III The between-visit hero

04

The wellness flow

The bridge-to-parent moment.

When a child taps a hard feeling, the companion is not the intervention. The companion is the bridge that helps a kid find the words to tell a grown-up — the same loop you'd hope a chart at home would create, except it actually gets used.

i

Child picks a mood Happy · excited · loved · worried · scared · angry · sad

ii

Companion validates "Some days are harder than others." Kid earns Kudo Coins for naming the feeling.

iii

"Want to talk?" Pre-set list: school, friends, family, just feel this way, don't want to say.

iv

"Tell a grown-up?" Yes → parent notified. No → no notification. The child controls the bridge.

v

"What now?" Breathing · meditation · music · game · just stay here. Companion offers; child picks.

Design principles

The child decides whether the parent is told.
The companion routes the feeling — it does not resolve it.
No "I'm proud of you" from the companion — validation reflects the child's own achievement back.
No evaluator framing. The companion notices; it does not grade.

Where we want your read

Whether the language at each step lands the way we think it does — particularly for kids you'd screen positive on a behavioral or developmental tool. This is the slide pediatricians push back on first; we'd rather you push back here.

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 04 / 16

§ IV Three positions we hold on purpose

05

Three design choices that aren't accidents

The questions pediatricians keep asking us.

Three places where we made specific calls — and where we'd push back on the assumption a kids' app naturally drifts toward.

01 · AI

No AI in the child experience.

Companions speak pre-recorded, human-vetted lines. Mood check-ins are deterministic flows, not language models. We use AI to build the product fast. We don't ship AI as the thing kids talk to — and we won't for years.

02 · Engagement

Designed to dry up.

Kudo Coins are finite. Games cost coins to play. Activity windows can lock features. The win-state is a kid earning a real-world reward, putting the device down, and going outside — not staying in-app longer.

03 · Motivation

Extrinsic, on purpose.

The literature is clear that extrinsic rewards can crowd out intrinsic motivation for activities a kid already loves. So we use them for the opposite — things kids resist (transitions, brushing teeth, naming hard feelings). The Coin economy fades as routines become mastered.

These are the slides pediatricians usually push back on first. We'd rather have the pushback land here than three months into a launch we have to walk back.

§ V One product, three modes

06

Age adaptation

Three modes. One product. The same kid as they grow.

The UI changes shape based on the child's age. Parents can override the group if a child is ahead, behind, or just different.

	Preschooler · 3–5	Child · 6–8	Preteen · 9–12
iTouch targets	80px	60px	48px
iiReading mode	Icons-only · voice narration on	Mixed icons + text	Text-heavy
iiiSaving incentive	"Save 2 days → +10 Coins"	"Save a few days → bonus"	"Save a week → +50%"
ivScore display	Stars	Numbers	Full analytics
vCompanion size	1.2×	1.0×	0.9×

The 3–5 mode is the most opinionated. Non-readers navigate by companion image, not by text — which is why the companion is the biggest tap target on the screen.

§ VI Defaults & the knobs behind them

07

Configurability

Defaults that work. Knobs for when they don't.

Every mechanic is editable per child. We ship sensible defaults so parents aren't overwhelmed — the depth is there when a child needs something different.

Default-on, parent-tunable

Routines, tasks, parent approval workflow
Affirmations & meditation (focus areas per child)
Mood check-ins with bridge-to-parent
Kudo Coin economy & save-for-bonus mechanic
Streak tracking with vacation mode (pause without losing it)
Sleep sounds, music, stories

Default-off, opt-in

Demerit system — Coin removal for missed tasks. Off by default; penalty mechanics require practiced delivery.
Friend connections — Both parents must approve.
Web browsing — Parent-curated allowlist.
Activity windows — e.g., games unlock only after the morning routine, or only during a chosen window.

Gentle by default. The demerit system is opt-in specifically because penalty mechanics can backfire in untrained hands. Visual schedules, repeated sub-step checklists, companion-led check-ins, and per-child pacing are built for families where standard routines don't land.

§ VII The cast

08

Companions

Twenty companions. 3D & AR. One free.

Every child starts with Cosmo. The other 19 unlock with Kudo Coins once a parent has subscribed to Premium.

Each companion has its own voice across the app — routines, affirmations, meditation, story narration, mood check-ins — roughly 1,000 lines of dialogue per companion.

Augmented reality lets kids place the companion into the room, walk around it, and take photos. AR processing stays on-device; no camera frames are transmitted.

Space · Ocean · Jungle · Candy · Dino · Princess · Arctic

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 08 / 16

§ VIII What stays free, on purpose

09

Accessibility

The part that matters most is free.

Pediatricians keep telling us the same thing about the digital wellness category: it tends to price out the families that need it most.

The wellness loop — affirmations, meditation, mood check-ins, bridge-to-parent — is in the free tier on purpose. A family that can't afford a $5.99/month subscription should not lose access to the part of the product where the wellbeing tools actually live.

What's in the free tier

KudoKids meditation library — included in free tier

Routines Mood check-ins Meditation Stories & games

What Premium adds

19 additional companions · skin / animation / aura unlocks · companion customization. Parent-gated at signup; children never see pricing.

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 09 / 16

§ IX When the child lives in two homes

10

Shared-custody continuity

One profile that travels between two homes.

A meaningful share of the patients in your panel split time between two homes. The child's profile, companion, Kudo Coin balance, and progress travel with them. Each home defines its own routines. The two parents do not have to see each other's home — they grant that visibility, or not.

What travels

Companion · Coin balance · unlocks · mood-check-in history · wellness preferences · earned focus areas.

What stays per-home

Routines (each parent defines their own) · approval workflow · optional rewards · calendar.

Privacy default

Parents do not see each other's home by default. Visibility is granted explicitly, both ways, so calendars and routines stay private.

What this does not fix

A co-parent who refuses to use the app. A co-parent in active conflict with the other. We can't solve that, and no app can. But the daily routine — the thing most shared-custody kids reset on for 2–3 days at each transition — doesn't have to be the thing the two of them fight over.

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 10 / 16

§ X Privacy, retention, and what leaves the device

11

Compliance & safety

COPPA-compliant. Apple Kids Category.

Verifiable parental consent at every signup; re-consent on policy version changes.
Per-feature data toggles — emotion check-ins, affirmations, meditation, games, messaging, social all individually controlled.
No behavioral advertising. No ad networks. No child data sold to anyone.
Parent data export in JSON; child profile deletion is permanent.
Data retention caps published in the privacy policy (30 days → 3 years by category).

What gets sent off-device

Service	What it sees
Supabase	All family data, encrypted at rest
Stripe	Parent email + payment only
Apple / Google AR	On-device camera only — never transmitted
Voice / TTS	Generated locally on build machines; bundled with the app

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 11 / 16

§ XI State of the build

12

Where we are

Alpha now. Beta in June. Launch in July.

What's done

20 companions · 3D · AR
Routine + task system end-to-end
Mood check-in + bridge-to-parent
Affirmations + meditation library
60+ music tracks · sleep sounds
Stories · games · social
Shared-custody profile mechanic
iOS, Android & Web builds

What we're polishing

Visual depth of the games
Story illustration consistency
Onboarding wizard
Pediatric partner portal

Where we want your read

Mood check-in language (Slide IV)
Focus-area presets per child
Affirmation copy
Meditation scripts
Defaults for shared-custody families

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 12 / 16

§ XII What we'd love from you

13

The ask

The one thing we're asking for today.

Try the app. Tell us where the wellness language doesn't match how you talk to families. Everything else is downstream of that.

Step 1 — the actual ask

Accept a free, permanent clinician account.

We set it up this week. You log in when you have 30 minutes. You tell us where the language is off, what's missing, what to delete. Direct line to the founder. No commitment beyond honest feedback.

Apply at kudokids.org/partners/pediatric

What could come next, if you want it — not a request, just transparency about the path:

Level	What you do	What you get
2 · Hand-off at well-visits	Purchase discounted 1-year Premium packs (5, 10, or 25) to hand families at the appointment, so they can start the same day. Multi-option framing required — KudoKids is one tool you mention, not a prescription.	Discounted Premium license packs · families start same-day · LOU on file.
3 · Listed & supported	Listed in our public pediatric provider directory; mention KudoKids in practice materials with the required FTC disclosure. No quotas, no referral income — ever.	Public directory listing · practice-visibility from referrals back · direct line to the team.

Many pediatricians can't put a badge on a public website — group-practice contracts, hospital affiliations, state-board rules on endorsements. The LOU has a feedback-only track that requires nothing public.

§ XIII The protections you'd sign under

14

How we protect you

The Letter of Understanding is for your protection, not ours.

No financial relationship. No referral fees, no remuneration of any kind. Discounted Premium packs are a purchase you make.
Anti-Kickback Statute acknowledgment. The LOU includes an explicit 42 USC §1320a-7b acknowledgment.
Multi-option recommendation commitment. You're never locked into recommending KudoKids exclusively — it's one option among several.
FTC point-of-endorsement disclosure. Required in any patient handout, verbal recommendation, or public mention. We supply the language.
Withdraw at any time — we pull your name and listing from every surface within 7 business days.

We'd rather have your real critique than a polished quote — most of what we've fixed in the wellness flow came from clinicians telling us what was wrong. — What we ask of you

The LOU comes back signed digitally before any public use of your name; until then nothing public happens. You remain responsible for compliance with your state licensing board's rules on endorsements.

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 14 / 16

§ XIV Three steps, low pressure

15

Next steps

Three things. Low pressure.

i · this week

We set up your clinician account.

Free, permanent, no card required. Email goes out within 48 hours of this meeting.

Apply now

ii · next week

30-minute walkthrough.

We screen-share, you tap around, we listen for everything you'd change. Bring whatever patient-population context is relevant.

iii · 30 days

Decide what's next.

Premium packs at well-visits? Directory listing? Nothing? All three are fine. We'd rather you say no than yes for the wrong reason.

The one thing we need from this meeting: a yes to Step 1. Everything else follows.

KudoKids · pediatrician brief 15 / 16

KudoKids End of brief · thank you

xvi

Thank you.

We're at the beginning of something we genuinely believe will help families — and we'd rather build it slowly with the right professional input than launch fast and hope.

Joseph Yelle — founder

joseph@kudokids.org · kudokids.org/partners/pediatric