"We all know parenting is hard. I remember hearing that âit gets easierâ and in the back of my mind asking myself When? WHEN DOES IT GET EASIER?
I now have a 5-year-old whoâs really giving me a run for my money. My daughter is very strong-willed and fights with me about everything: not wanting to wear a jacket, eat her dinner, or leave the house and then not wanting to leave the place we go to once weâve left the house.
Itâs often the simplest task that starts the battles: I ask her to do something like eat a bagel or brush her teeth when we have somewhere to be. âI need 10 more minutes,â she tells me while doing her pre-cry whine and running up the stairs to her room like a monsterâs chasing her instead of being asked to follow through on a simple task. âI need chill time,â sheâll counter when I insist she goes to the bathroom before bedtime.
Sometimes I know sheâs cranky because sheâs tired or hungry, but sometimes there doesnât seem to be a reason for her tantrums at all. And as with many young children, she doesnât always have the words to express why she feels the way she does. âIâm just mad!â she says between sobs. I try to remember that adults feel this way too. And after these episodes, she bombards me with affection: âI love you mommy! Youâre the best mommy!â
Iâd never considered a âbehavioral intervention,â so I was skeptical about Happypillar, an app that purports to end temper tantrums. But I felt desperate and burnt out while trying to parent, work, and go to school. My anxiety was at an all-time high because I never knew which simple task would cause her to blow up or how long her negotiations would take. I knew that while her behaviors were not that bad or out of the ordinary, it wasnât working for our household. So I downloaded Happypillar, and hereâs what happened when we tried it for a month.
What is Happypillar?
Happypillar is an app parents can use to learn the skills of a Play Therapist. The app is part of a growing trend of parents seeking alternatives to traditional therapy and turning to technology to aid in child behavioral help.
While earlier generations read parenting books, millennial and Gen Z parents are using to parenting apps to help with everything from tantrums to potty training to gentle parenting techniques. Apps are usually lower cost, more accessible, and less of a time commitment than seeing a child psychologist.
Happypillar was founded in 2022 in Austin, Texas by Samantha Gardner and Mady Mantha after they noted the mounting parental stress in their own lives. They came together to create a tool that utilizes evidence-tested techniques, cutting-edge machine learning, and AI along with the expertise of clinical therapists.
âParents receive personalized strategy and feedback provided via machine learning recommendation techniques and pre-vetted by our in-house therapist,â says Mantha.
Itâs an app that doesnât take much time out of your busy schedule but that allowed me to feel great about working on the behaviors and dynamics that always seemed to turn into one of us crying over something as simple as ice cream for breakfast.
How Does Happypillar Work?
Happypillar uses guided parent-child conversations as a tool to help children build confidence, attachment, and meditative skills, which in turn helps them manage their emotions when they get upset.
Itâs recommended that you use the app every day for five minutes, practicing what they call Happy Time. The idea is that by doing Happy Time effectively and consistently, my daughterâs behavioral issues would decrease, sheâd listen to me more, and Iâd be less stressed. I figured I could at least try it for five minutes a day as often as I could.
I downloaded Happypillar and started the parent onboarding, which provides step-by-step guidance through simple techniques to practice with your child during Happy Time. You learn a new Happy Time technique, or âskill,â every day for the first week or so, and there are quizzes and practice areas to keep your skills sharp. There are NICE skills (Narrate, Imitate, Celebrate, and Echo) and Not Now skills (Avoid Questions, Avoid Commands, Avoid Criticism).
There are badges within the app that can technically be earned through parentsâ usage of the app, but kids can also enjoy knowing theyâre helping to earn virtual rewards. Badges include things like âYou did it 10 days in a row!â and âYou did 10 celebrations!â These badges represent achieving milestones in your treatment/progress designed by Happypillarâs therapist and reviewed by a clinical advisory board. The app is designed to encourage parents to utilize these evidence-based strategies to see actual progress.
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What Happened After Using Happypillar for 30 Days
Every day for 30 days, I sat down and did Happy Time with my daughter. When we first started, she was so excited to press the big green start button before our sessionâthen weâd set the phone aside and begin Happy Time. When the app âdinged,â we stopped our session and she was thrilled to have played with me, sometimes even eager to do more. Later, Iâd review our session and see how well I stuck to the techniques. After a week, she was super excited to see our streak of checked boxes for every day weâd done Happy Time, and she loved gathering badges for the milestones weâd hit. Happypillar has a reminder feature, but it wasnât long before we no longer needed; my daughter became my daily reminder, asking me every evening when we could start Happy Time.
Iâve been using Happypillar for a little more than a month now, and itâs changed our whole family dynamicâwe have fewer fights, my daughter calms down more quickly when plans change or she needs to transition, and there are definitely fewer meltdowns, tantrums, and negotiations.
The other night I said âTime to get ready for bed,â and she responded, âOK, letâs go!â I was honestly shocked. But the best part? Because sheâs fighting me less, Iâm fighting BACK less. I donât feel like Iâm constantly yelling and saying ânoâ hundreds of times per day. After trying Happypillar, I can say itâs definitely worth the effort of taking five minutes out of your day and trying to hit a high score every time. It helps, and it also takes the pressure off trying to change behaviors by making the process fun and organic.
