Parent Coaching App Helps Parents Make the Most of Their Time with Children, While Juggling A New Normal in the Midst of COVID

BETHESDA, Md., July 27, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Teaching Strategies, the country's leading developer of early childhood curriculum and resources, today announced the release of ParentPal™, a parenting app for families of children from birth to age 5. Developed with the founders of Baby Einstein, the app provides a daily developmental plan for each child, along with access to more than 3,200 research-based activities, data trackers, and memory books.

"Eighty percent of the human brain is formed by age 3, making the early years incredibly exciting and important. But during this unprecedented pandemic, when parents are often navigating their child's development without the support of child care centers, this time can also be overwhelming," said Julie Aigner-Clark, founder of Baby Einstein and co-founder of ParentPal. "We designed ParentPal to take the guesswork and worry out of parenting, and to encourage parents with simple ways to foster the high quality engagement between parent and child that is so critical to development. Together with Teaching Strategies, pediatricians, national early child development organizations, and some of the best minds in early childhood development, we've developed a comprehensive parenting tool for families."

First launched for free this Spring in response to COVID-19, the new app is designed to give parents bite-sized content to make the most of their interactions with their child and get quick, developmentally sound advice. The app uniquely combines the tracking of childhood daily routines like sleeping, eating, and health checks with daily roadmaps for facilitating developmental milestones for babies, infants, and toddlers. It also provides memory books that capture milestone moments. As part of the subscription model rolling out today, parents can grant access to caregivers to help collaborate on tracking routines and sharing milestones.

"In the last several months, many parents have suddenly found themselves without childcare -- juggling parenting, working, and other life responsibilities in new ways. We want to give every parent research-based guidance and coaching at their fingertips, so they don't have to go it alone," said John Olsen, CEO of Teaching Strategies. "As a father myself, I know first-hand the challenges of trying to coordinate basic daily care while also worrying about the development of your child. ParentPal combines the familiar technology of tools like fitness or personal finance trackers with early childhood research to help parents support their child's learning and development day by day, even when the child is with a caregiver."

Through the app, parents and caregivers can access customized daily plans of play-based and learning-centered activities and routines tailored to each of their children's ages and stages of development. Activities cover a host of developmental areas from cognitive, social, and physical to math and language arts. Each of the activities are designed around everyday household objects as well as curated books and toys.

Activities delivered through the daily roadmaps are aligned with Teaching Strategies' research-based Objectives for Development and Learning (ODLs) as well as Dr. Harold "Harry" Ireton's developmental milestones, the gold standard for pediatricians and early childhood educators.

ParentPal is available for download as a monthly or annual subscription on iOS through the App Store and for Android smartphone devices through Google Play. For every annual subscription purchased, a free subscription will go to a family in need. To learn more, visit: www.getparentpal.com.  

About Teaching Strategies: With ground-breaking solutions and a strong belief that a child's first eight years form a critical foundation for success in school and in life, Teaching Strategies has been an advocate for the early education community for over 30 years. Today, Teaching Strategies provides curriculum, assessment, professional development, and family connection resources to programs across the country. Its products, including Tadpoles, the award-winning Creative Curriculum® for Preschool, and widely-adopted assessment solutions like GOLD®, reach over 2 million children each year. To learn why thousands of early childhood programs and many states choose to partner with Teaching Strategies to help ensure children's success in school and in life, visit teachingstrategies.com and follow us on Twitter @TeachStrategies.

SOURCE Teaching Strategies