This review of the Junga app is sponsored but all opinions are my own and based on personal experience

As a mom of a college junior and recent college grad, I know raising kids doesn’t happen in isolation. Fellow parents, caregivers, relatives, and other trusted adults who are invested in your child’s development become part of your village.

One of the challenges of parenting can be ensuring everyone in your village supports what you’re working at home and communicates in a timely manner. Fortunately, Junga connects the many people in your village as you work to raise confident, thoughtful, emotionally aware humans together.

Junga Review: How it Helps Parents Raise Good Kids

Junga is intentionally designed to help raise confident, resilient children by creating consistency among the adults who support them.

About the Junga App

The Junga app helps parents and caregivers turn everyday routines into opportunities for growth, encouragement, and connection. The app and web-based platform is a home-centered parenting and caregiver support tool that supports child development in positive ways. It can be used by families to ensure consistent communication and caregiving between everyone in your village. Junga is best suited for families with kids ages 2-15.

Junga was founded as a personal response by parents of preschoolers who wanted to raise healthy, self-minded, and resilient children.

Junga and the Kazdin Method 

While searching for how to raise “good” kids Junga’s founders discovered The Kazdin Method developed by Dr. Alan Kazdin Ph.D., Director of the Yale Parenting Center and Child Conduct Clinic and innovator in child behavior.

Junga integrates The Kazdin Method and other evidence-based behavioral methods and research-backed social-emotional programs to help parents and caregivers turn daily routines into opportunities for growth and connection. By focusing on positive reinforcement, emotional awareness, routines, rewards, Junga:

• Helps children name and understand emotions
• Tracks experiences and emotional responses
• Sets expectations for positive behaviors
• Supports children through positive reinforcement, rather than punishment
• Reinforces daily routines, chores, and demonstration of values such as leadership, kindness, optimism,
• Uses reminders to support consistent check ins
• Invites other trusted adults to participate
• Keeps caregivers aligned with real-time feedback

Getting Started with Junga

During the time of this review, I used the Junga app for free as a Founding Families member. Founding Families is an early-access period where you can try Junga at no cost before Version 2.0 launches. 

Understanding Junga Lingo

Before getting started with the Junga app, it’s helpful to know the terminology used:

• Junga— Child or person being supported through the app
• Keeper— Parent, caregiver, grandparent/other relative, teacher, therapist, or other trusted adult who supports a Junga
• Circles— Allow Keepers to organize around groups of Jungas for support. A classroom, gym, therapy group, sports team, social group, or other organization can use a Circle to connect multiple Keepers with their group of Jungas.

Note: Since Junga is both the name of the app and the word for the child/person, from this point on Junga will only be used to refer to the child/person. While the platform is both app and web-based, I’ll refer to it as “the app or the Junga app” for simplicity.

Setting Up the Junga App

Junga works on the web, iOS, and Android and syncs in real time the web version available online. After setting up your account with your email and password, you immediately become a Keeper as the adult supporting a Junga.

Next, you’re invited to add a Junga, or child, by entering their name and birthday. A photo can also be added for each Junga.

All Jungas can be viewed in the My Village section of the app. You can also view Jungas assigned to you as a Keeper in the View Keeper section.

Additional Keepers, such as another parent or caregiver, grandparent/other relative, teacher, therapist, or other trusted adult, can also be added easily through the app to become part of a Junga’s Circle. Keepers in the Junga’s Circle can log Tasks or complete an Experience Story with a Junga. More about Tasks and Experience Stories later!

Information about each Junga is shared through the app with all Keepers within the Circle in real time. This ensures Jungas receive consistent communication from all Keepers and Keepers collaborate to consistently communicate for the benefit of the child.

The app generates a shareable link or QR code that can be shared with other adults you’d like to welcome into your Junga’s Circle. There is no cost for additional trusted adults to join a Junga’s Circle.

Using the Junga App with Your Junga

When my kids were little, I used to have to write down notable moments to remember them to share them with my husband after long, busy, and tiring days or my mom who lived across the country and always wanted to know what her grandkids were up to. To say it was an imperfect system was an understatement.

Where the app really shines is in its ability to capture and share moments with the Keepers in your Junga’s Circle. After the quick and easy set-up process, you can immediately start logging tasks for your Junga.

The app automatically provides appropriate Tasks for your child based on their age. For the purposes of my review, I set my kids’ ages as the same as they were when I started blogging- ages 4 and 2.

As a 4-year-old, Emily had the following 20 tasks assigned by the app:

• Bonus Point
• Bravery
• Brush Teeth- Morning
• Clean Up
• Composure
• Cooking
• Creativity
• Exercise
• Good Listener
• Helper
• Honesty
• Meal 1- Breakfast
• Meal 2- Lunch
• Meal 3- Dinner
• Problem Solving
• Reading
• Self-Starter
• Sharing
• Teamwork
• Trash

2-year-old Thomas’s tasks included these 13:

• Bravery
• Brush Teeth- Morning
• Clean Up
• Composure
• Creativity
• Good Listener
• Helper
• Meal- Snack
• Meal 1- Breakfast
• Meal 2- Lunch
• Meal 3- Dinner
• Potty Time
• Problem Solving

Tasks are automatically added due to age but at any time, additional tasks can be added or removed. Being able to edit the list makes logging tasks for your Jungas feel more manageable and lets you focus on things that matter during every age and stage.

To add Tasks, tap on the three lines (hamburger menu) in the upper right corner of the app. To add additional Tasks, look for Tasks beneath Catalog.

Ready for Bed and Ready for School were Tasks not automatically added to their lists by the app. I added them to both kids’ profiles to positively reinforce good habits at the beginning of a new school year. 

For example, if I wanted to work on kindergarten readiness skills for 4-year-old Emily, I would edit her task list to include:

• Bravery
• Clean Up
• Composure
• Good Listener
• Helper
• Honesty
• Problem Solving
• Ready for School
• Teamwork

For a 2-year-old, I’d whittle the list to the following:

• Brush Teeth- Morning
• Composure
• Good Listener
• Helper
• Potty Time
• Sharing

Logging Tasks for Your Junga

Since the app is designed to be collaborative, Keepers and Jungas are encouraged to log tasks together to help kids grow. Working with your Junga helps reinforce behaviors in a positive way.

To log Tasks, simply tap on your Junga’s profile through the app, tap on the task. Tap the green checkmark if your Junga completed the task or the red square with the person falling to indicate a miss.

There’s also a gray Add Details button where you can type a quick sentence to provide context for fellow Keepers. As tasks are completed, Jungas earn points towards rewards. More on Rewards below!

In addition to tasks, the app also features the Experience Story. Accessible through the waving hand icon in the middle bar just under your Junga’s name, the Experience Story serves as a way to track moods using emojis, stress on a sliding scale, and add details such as who was present, where it occurred, what happened, and more.

Keepers can set a reminder to get a push notification reminder about completing an experience story with their Junga. This helps families carve out time to track emotions on a regular basis with their Junga and is especially helpful in helping young ones learn to name and identify emotions.

Rewarding Your Junga

The app provides the following Rewards for Jungas:

• Extra Playtime- 2 points
• Show- 4 points
• Treat- 6 points
• Movie- 8 points
• Prize Bin- 8 points
• Special Purchase- 100 points

The built-in reward system helps motivate Jungas to be consistent to earn rewards in the form of points. Points are the currency that can be spent by Jungas on rewards predetermined by their Keepers. This system provides Keepers with flexibility to make a system that works for their family to ensure Jungas work towards expected behaviors in a positive way.

Learning Hub for Families

In addition to being a collaborative tool, the Junga app provides helpful information through the Learning Hub. The Learning Hub currently includes Resources, Videos, and the Knowledge Base.

Under Resources, there are two digital flashcard type resources called Learn Emotions and Calming Techniques for Keepers and Jungas use together.

Learn Emotions is designed to help Jungas attach words to how they’re feeling through these simple, child-friendly cards. Each card features the emoji that is found in Tasks and the Experience Story. Learning the emoji attached to the feeling helps create shared language around emotions that are helpful to all Keepers in a child’s life.

The Calming Techniques can be used by Jungas and Keepers when a calm moment is needed. There are directions for Box Breathing, Flower & Candle, 5-4-3-2-1 Grounding, Name That Feeling, Push & Release, and Temperature Reset.

The Learning Hub also contains 15 videos featuring Dr. Alan Kazdin that provide helpful parenting tips for Keepers. Videos range in length from 9-24 minutes, depending on the topic. The Knowledge Base is another name for the app’s FAQs.

These resources can be found by tapping on the three lines (hamburger menu) in the upper right corner of the app. Look for Learn and the Learning Hub will be right underneath.

Summary of the Junga App

Junga combines tasks and rewards with emotional experience tracking, growth insights, and a connected village of Keepers through an easy to navigate app. Age-appropriate tasks serve as a way kids and parents can use the app together to develop responsibility and emotional awareness through daily routines.

It also serves as a powerful communication tool thanks to the ability to connect and align all Keepers (caregivers). I didn’t cover this in my review, but the integrated group messaging system can be personalized for each Junga (child) to provide consistent communication between the adults that support them while maintaining privacy.

Junga works on the web, iOS, and Android and syncs in real time. The company pledges to never sell or share family data and vows to never serve ads, refreshing transparency that is much appreciated in the age of data as a commodity.

This review was written while using the free Junga app as a Founding Families member where you can try Junga at no cost before Version 2.0 launches.

Note: The Founding Families discount is available through the web app, so you’ll need to sign up through the web first before downloading the app and accessing your account from your mobile device. Families who sign up directly through Apple billing will not receive the Founding Families web subscription discount.

Images courtesy of Junga

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