Published on May 06, 2024
Prasanta R
Mental Health Apps That Help Kids and Families Find Their Focus
It is easy for kids and families to lose their focus in the current digital world. There is just too much information on social media, of which a lot is irrelevant.
Unlike the 90s and 2000s, when parents mostly needed to worry about kids watching too much tv and listening to too much music, today, kids and parents themselves find themselves at a crossroads on what to watch on social media and how not to lose their focus while doing so.
This is why mental health smartphone apps that help kids and families find their focus are becoming increasingly popular. However, there are many such apps for kids on the internet to choose from, which may be overwhelming.
So, here we shall discuss the real importance of mental health apps and some of the top apps that help kids and families find their focus.
Why Are Mental Health Apps Important?
Taking care of the mental health of children is not easy. Mental health apps do not diagnose a mental health condition, nor can they cure any mental health disease. However, what they can do is improve their overall mental health status and get rid of their anxiety and depression of an individual.
Instead of going to regular therapy and spending a lot of time and money on small stress issues, mental health apps can be used for monitoring, supervising, and managing mental health conditions for kids and families.
This 2018 research shows that mental health apps do work to some extent in improving the mental health condition of an individual. These mental health apps become even more critical in the current world as there is a high level of stress among kids as well as adults.
Mental health apps help deal with mental stress, increase focus, relax brain functions, encourage sleep, and improve people's overall sharpness and intelligence through different features like meditative practices, therapy sessions, tracking mental conditions, daily reminders, connecting with therapists, etc.
Top 5 Mental Health Apps To Find Focus
The mental health apps listed here are chosen based on their overall features, pricing, usability, and several other factors. However, you should also understand that different individuals have different preferences. So, what might be good for some, may not be the same for others. It's important to note that in certain cases, reaching out to professionals with MFT degrees can provide invaluable guidance and insight.
With that in mind, here are the top 5 mental health apps to help find focus.
MoodKit
MoodKit is the best overall mental health smartphone app for your family. The app uses the principles of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for better lifting the mood of individuals. The app is developed by Drew Erhardt and alumnus Edrick Dorian, two cynical psychologists, and distributed by ThrivePort, LLC.
MoodKit has over 200 different activities that help mental well-being. While some users have found some technical issues with the app, overall, the app is quite good for improving the mood of kids and family members.
MoodKit App:
Available For: iOS and Android
Pricing: One-time fee of $6.99.
Main Features:
- An evidence-based mood-tracking feature
- Has a large variety of activities like meditations to help improve the mood
- Journal to track the progress of mood improvement, stress management, thought processes, etc.
Headspace
Headspace is another meditative app that can be used for families and kids. The app has an easy-to-use interface and is one of the most popular mindfulness apps downloaded in the world. The app has been downloaded more than 65 million times in the world and has users in over 190 countries.
The app also has features designed specifically for kids like kindness lessons, mind-relaxing activities, breathing activities, etc.
Headspace App
Available for: iOS and Android
Pricing: $12.99 per month (monthly subscription)/ $69.99 per year (yearly subscription)
Main Features:
- Meditation courses for guided meditations.
- Olympians teach workout classes through the app interface.
- A buddies feature that helps you include someone else on your mental health journey.
- Daily nudges and practice remainders.
MoodMission
This app is a user-friendly meditation application that helps improve mental health and increase focus for families through giving out different missions. These missions include physical activities like push-ups, breathing exercises, thought-based activities like controlling negative thoughts, etc.
While some may find these missions cumbersome, for many individuals and kids, these missions are a fun way to improve the mental health of children. These missions and intuitive interface make this one of the best apps for kids.
MoodMission App
Available On: iOS and Android
Pricing: $5.99 on Android and $4.99 on iOS
Main Features:
- Missions that help improve the mood and increase mental capacity.
- It uses research-backed data and analysis to create missions for its users.
- Provides in-app rewards to increase enthusiasm and motivation.
Calm
Calm is also one of the most popular meditation apps on the market. In the fall of 2021, the app hit 100 million downloads.
This app has many activities that help boost the mental health of kids and family members and increase their focus. Some of the content on the app include body scan meditations for stressed teens, calming stories for kids who have trouble sleeping, etc.
Calm App
Available On: iOS and Android
Pricing: Has a free option with limited features. The premium version costs $40 per year.
Main features:
- Statistics tracking feature to track the status of the user for improvement.
- Mood tracking feature to track the stress anxiety of the user.
- Sleep library feature containing sleep stories.
- Music library for calming music.
- Guided meditations and breathing exercises for mental health improvement.
Chill Panda
Chill Panda is definitely one of the apps you need to have on your app lists. Kids and parents can learn how their bodies react to different feelings with Chill Panda and receive some tools to manage their emotions. The app contains natural sounds and cute animals to help with stress, mostly for kids.
Kids can use this game-like app to learn mindfulness and mood improvement in a relaxing manner. The app has nature sounds, wise panda bears that teach its users different mood improvement techniques, garden scenery, and a good user-friendly design.
Chill Panda App:
Available On: iOS and Android
Pricing: Free
Main Features:
- Fun games to help relax the mind.
- Calming activities like yoga and square breathing for confidence.
- Compatible with all kinds of devices as well as Nintendo Switch.
Conclusion
To sum up, mental health apps are an important aspect of today’s life, where kids, teens, and adults are often stressed out with an overload of information, social media, or demanding jobs.
These apps that support positive growth do help relax users’ minds, deal with anxiety, stress, and depression, and help improve their overall mental health status. We hope this article helped you learn the top 5 mental health apps that help kids and families find their focus.