Carrots&Cake

Carrots&Cake is a kids’ screen time management app designed using science-based solutions. Built by parents and developed with doctors, teachers, and scientists, Carrots&Cake helps kids build healthy digital habits that make screen time more beneficial and less addictive.

With Carrots&Cake, kids learn first and play later. We apply the oldest parenting technique to screen time: “Do your homework before you play.” In other words, “Eat your carrots before your cake.”

After downloading Carrots&Cake, parents select their favorite educational apps (anything available in the AppStore. When kids turn on their devices, they will have to complete the educational apps — what we call Carrots — before they are rewarded with free screen time — what we call Cake.

Carrots&Cake follows an approach grounded in behavioral neuroscience, psychology, and cognitive science.

Behavioral Neuroscience
Carrots&Cake promotes healthy screen use by reducing the firing of the brain’s reward pathway. Dopamine levels stay steady. This helps kids remain in control of devices and reduces tantrums when it’s time for kids to come off.

Behavioral Psychology
Asking kids to complete Carrots — learning apps with a high cognitive load — first, results in delayed gratification. This builds resilience & grit. Kids learn to self regulate. Motivational interviewing is used to help kids identify their intrinsic motivation and improve behavior.

Cognitive Science:
With Carrots&Cake, kids focus on learning without distractions. Through micro-learning, kids compound knowledge with small but consistent daily effort.

Carrots&Cake was developed in response to growing concern around screen time-related issues that families face. Kids aged 5-8 spend an average of three hours on devices daily. Anxiety and depression in kids have increased, and self-confidence has decreased.

Traditional parental controls do not address the root of the problem. They set blind time limits and trigger reactance, a negative behavior caused when children are ordered around. Kids become determined to engage in forbidden activities. They bypass restrictions and hack out of the controls. Kids suffer tantrums because allowances aren’t made for their developing brains.

Carrots&Cake provides a healthy and balanced solution to the screen time dilemma. Kids benefit from technology, they utilize the cutting edge educational apps on the market, and they get to maintain their agency during fun free time. Parents using Carrots&Cake have reported a 200% increase in their kids’ daily educational app usage, with a 50% reduction in their overall daily screen time.

With Carrots&Cake, kids no longer spend mindless hours watching Youtube and playing Roblox and Minecraft. Screen time becomes healthy and balanced. Kids develop skills to become good digital citizens, and families are able to reclaim quality time.

Available online at: https://apps.apple.com/tt/app/carrots-cake-parental-control/id1589481560