WeFeel
Research
Problem Statement
An issue related to personal health and wellness that children face is misunderstanding adults when children express their emotions. Adults often think that children are too young or "they don't know what they are talking about."
We think it would be fascinating to build a new form of relationship between parents and children regarding mental health and emotions. This way, children learn about their emotions, adults learn more about their children and potential issues, and both parties will hopefully grow together.
Background Research
Our target population for this research project is children between the ages of 5-11 (Elementary School). We chose this as our target population. After all, children are often neglected in terms of their emotional expression because they assume they are “too young”(Morris, 2017, pg. 2). However, other stakeholders in the process may have some interactions, such as parents who may want to oversee the child's progress.
To cater to our population, our application will have a bright and interactive UI that is intuitive for children to use. This means that font-size, font-choice, and graphics are paramount in the experience as children may be attracted to different elements than adults (Räsänen, 2017, pg. 12). However, if there are too difficult elements for children to understand, our application will also have an adult counterpart that will help children through the process. This will hopefully address issues of usability and attention issues.
To address our research project's sensitivity, we will consider the ethical ramification of the information that we will gather. As children are still developing and are sensitive to the environment around them (Morris, 2017, pg. 2), the information we gather will only be used by our party to minimize the risks surrounding the collection of children's data. This also means that our data collection will only be relevant information used in our research to improve emotional expression and mental resilience. Also, as children may not want to share their personal stories with their parents, the information will only be released to their parents at their discretion. The application should be a safe space for children to vent their emotions and to express themselves.
However, our project's scope may not necessarily address how to solve internal conflicts within a family. To do this, our application will try to offer potential local children therapists that parents can connect with.
Target Population
1. Children aged 5-11 (elementary school)
2. Parents/Guardians
Emphatizing and Understanding Target Population
To grab a better understanding of our needs for our target population, we decided to look for some blog articles and Youtube. With the blog articles, it will allow us to get an inside scoop from the parent's perspective of things they are doing or should do. Where Youtube was able to provide us with a more educational approach that is based more on science and facts.
Quora: What are some common mistakes parents make that could actually hurt their children’s mental and physical health in the long term?
- Eva Glasrud, a Psychologist and Recreational Biologist, answered this question in great detail. They went into great detail about things that parents do to/for their children that really hinders their life skill later on. They described what helicopter parents are and how children with these types of parents will most likely have mental health issues later down the road.
- Codes:
1. Overprotective - You cannot shield your child from failure or any “bad” feelings.
2. Not acceptable - They need to be able to experience failure or else the parent sends a powerful social signal that failure and the feelings associated with it are unacceptable.
3. Removal of problems - If the children do not experience failure, they lose the opportunity for learning how to cope with their failure. The space is not given for them to question what they did and where things went wrong.
4. Independent resilience - Protecting your child is a must in some circumstances, but it is important to give the space for your children to experience these situations or emotions.
5. Problem-solving - Making things easier for children buffers their learning experience which they are bound to encounter eventually.
YouTube: Exploring Feelings | Adventures in Learning | PBS KIDS for Parents
- The video talked about how children can learn how to share their feelings better through journaling. The video talks about the benefits sharing emotions can bring to both the parent and child.
- Codes:
1. The benefits of sharing feelings: Helps viewers understand how journaling their feelings can help benefit the child explore their emotions and help the parent understand his/her child’s emotion
2. Express happiness: Gives examples of how children can best showcase their happy emotions on paper (ex: smiley faces).
3. Express frustration: Gives examples of how children can best showcase when they feel frustrated on paper. Also talks about how the children can deal with feeling frustrated (ex: play with their dog).
4. Words of affirmation between parent and children: Reminds the children that journaling their feelings will help not only the children but the parent as well.
Competitive Analysis
Existing Solutions:
1. Baby Emotions:
- This is an app that is mainly geared towards toddlers. The app has functions that include baby faces portraying emotions, which can be happiness, sadness, etc. This allows children to practice identifying emotions in others as well as themselves. Parents of toddlers can also use this app to identify emotions in their babies and toddlers.
- Cons:
a. Only available on the Apple store: Difficult for parents of other phone systems, such as Android, to access.
b. Paid App: Parents who have lower incomes may find it out of their budget, even if it is considered inexpensive to most.
c. Features Limitations: In some reviews, parents stated that the children must be literate to be able to use the app, which requires parental guidance at all times.
d. To improve this problem, there can be a section where children are able to have independent learning, even though the app is designed for both parents and children.
2. Emotionary by Baby Feelings
- This is an app designed for children as well as adults who need help describing their emotions in words. It can include common words such as joy, sadness, etc., but it also has phrases such as happy as Larry.
- To use the app, the user would first choose a primary emotion such as anger or sadness, and then they would choose a secondary word. For example, if the user chose the word sadness, the category of words that come up maybe “disappointed”, “distressed”, “vulnerable”.
- Cons:
a. Even though the app does help children to identify their emotions, it doesn’t help children to express their emotions to others, specifically their parents.
b. The design of the app is meant for independent usage, but it would be helpful if there was some kind of parental involvement as well.
c. For example, after the child identifies what they are feeling, especially if it is a negative emotion, the app can provide steps that guide the parent to resolve those emotions.
3. Breathe, Think, Do with Sesame
- This is an application tool that allows children to understand the concepts of problem-solving, self-controlling, planning, and being persistent with tasks.
- It creates a safe interactive space for children of young ages to get connected with the character on the screen and familiarize themselves with ways to stay calm and problem-solve to feel better.
- Cons:
a. Lacks any interaction with the parents or legal guardians and their way of being able to help frustrated children. It focuses solely on a child, without the adult’s involvement.
b. Our solution could do better by creating an interactive tool that involves both parties, the adult and the child so that it provides education and resources for adults to understand how to better help their children, and for children to learn to deal with their high emotions and expressions of those emotions.
4. Dreamykid
- This is an app that is more meditation-oriented and creates an environment and outlet for children to calm their minds as they fall asleep or wake up.
- It is used as a supplement to ease anxiety or fatigue for children and allows them to find more inner-harmony within themselves as they start or end their day.
- Cons:
a. Although this app creates peace, it lacks the educational aspect of high emotions and stress.
b. DreamyKid only serves as a filler to help ease stress and anxiety after it takes place, rather than finding ways to prevent these emotions in the first place.
c. Our application would take the state as an educational tool of sorts so that it teaches children how to calm themselves even without an app.
c. It will help children understand when they are stressed or anxious, and how they can express and solve these feelings as an individual and with the help of the adults in their lives.
Ethical Implications
1. Ethical Concerns of Data Usage and Storage
- Data Usage - Improving our application - Parent consent required
- Data Storage - Client-side information - Data is linked between parents and child
2. Government Regulations and Policies
- Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA)
No persistent identifiers (Cookies, etc) used for tracking.
- General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)
Parental consent must be authorized for children under the age of 16.
3. Lack of Medical Expertise
- Cannot provide a diagnosis - Lack of expertise
Inability to facilitate and mediate conversations
- Provide resources where assistance could be found (Therapists, doctors, etc.)
First Prototype
Prototype Features and Ideas
- Parent-Child application
- Diary log with parent oversight
- Visuals, one line diary logs
- Media entries - videos, pictures, text
- Parents could monitor emotions and child entries
Child Version
Parent Version
Feedback:
Overall, your ideation so far is looking good! A few thoughts I had:
1. Children's side:
- Find some way to make the visualizations more interesting or interactive might be helpful so that kids do not lose interest.
- It might also be interesting to have some way for the children to comment or post on the parent's end to make a more dynamic discussion between both parties and not just the parent's side.
2. Also, another thought was if there is a conflict or emotion that is brought up through the app between the parent and child based on what is posted, etc.
- How is the app going to facilitate in that situation or is the app not going that far as to support a resolution if there needs to be one (will the resolution be resolved with a conversation or such outside the app)?
3. Good first thoughts on the prototyping tools!
Second and Final Prototype
Child Version
Parent Version
Final Presentation and Video
Final Presentation
Prototype Video
Conclusion
Benefits
- Endorses communication and navigation of emotions for children and parents
Creates a stronger foundation for the relationships of the child
- Allows children to understand their emotions and act on them
The app assists children to navigate how and why they are feeling what they are feeling
- Educates parents on the necessities of a strong parent-child relationship
- Provides resources to further the support on the relationships
Peer support groups, articles, counselors, etc.
What we would have done differently:
- Create an offline solution to teaching children how to express their emotions
Example: books, a diary
- Add accessibility features