We'd rather your kid play outside
Mandarin is a long game. Twenty consistent minutes a day beats a two-hour weekend marathon every single time, and it's also better for a child's eyes, posture, and attention. Bóyǎ's session caps and pacing are tuned for that — not for how long we can keep them tapping.
- Default daily cap: 20 minutes (free), 30 minutes (Family)
- Cap is enforced — after it, the app says "see you tomorrow" and won't unlock
- Streaks need 5 minutes a day, not 30 — easy to keep on a busy day
- XP gain per session is capped — grinding does not pay
No notifications nagging the child
Kid accounts cannot receive push notifications, email, or SMS from Bóyǎ. Ever. If a streak is at risk, the message goes to the parent dashboard so a parent can decide whether to remind the child — not the app pinging a 9-year-old at 8:45pm.
- Zero push / email / SMS to kid accounts at any tier
- Parent can opt-in to a daily summary email for themselves
- No "FOMO" prompts ("3 friends practiced today!")
- No artificial urgency ("limited-time XP boost")
No dark patterns, no infinite scroll
There's no infinite vocab feed, no autoplay-next, no scrolling timeline. Every screen ends. Every session ends. The 'next' button is always a deliberate tap, never a swipe-up auto-trigger.
- No autoplay between activities
- No "just one more" injection at session end — only "well done, see you tomorrow"
- Cosmetics (heroes, badges) cannot be bought with real money on kid accounts
- Confetti, sound, haptics: all opt-out in settings
You hold the override switch
Parents can extend the daily cap on a per-day basis, pause an account during exam week, or shorten the cap if a kid has been overdoing it. Defaults are designed to keep usage low; overrides exist for the rare days that need them.
- Per-child daily cap setting on /parent
- One-tap "pause this week"
- Activity is visible in the parent dashboard within 30 seconds
- Settings carry across devices instantly — no per-device fiddling
Our commitment, written down
If we ever change any of the above — adding push notifications, raising the default cap, introducing a notification-driven streak save — we'll email every parent on file before it ships, with a one-click way to keep the old defaults. We've put this in writing so that we have to live with it.