Who’s the boss?
Working parents around the world are united in the struggle to juggle keeping their young children entertained and learning whilst trying to meet the deadlines and demands of their own paid employment.
Even the most creative and diligent parents are suffering cognitive overload and burnout due to the intensity of trying to meet the continual demands of children yearning to learn. It seems an impossible and time-taxing task, driving parents to continually seek new activities to stave off boredom.
In an ironic twist, the current lockdown saw Aussie start-up own staff wondering what to do with their children while they juggled work and childcare duties. Being app developers, staff resorted to handing over test devices to keep their kids busy while they worked, even though the apps were originally designed for ESL teachers to use in schools. Interestingly, much to their surprise, especially being native English speakers, the apps that were originally made for classroom teachers kept their young children busy for hours, and consistently over weeks.
This inspired the team to create the specifically to let parents gain back valuable guilt-free time without having to think about what they are going to do with their kids.
According to Prosper Education’s CEO, Genevieve Gilmore, mother of four, teacher and founding member of Mathletics (ASX: 3PL) the current lockdown environment has shown parents just how hard it is to manage their children’s time and education from home. “It’s a happy accident that our original content designed for ESL students actually works really well with native speakers. The research suggests that native language learning and second language learning differs, however we’ve found that for this age group, they seem to be learning similarly.”
Ben Rawson in the UK said “Max is only 3 but if it’s not Peppa Pig, it’s Prosper’s “The Learning Game” he wants to play – at first I was just using it so I can distract him so I can get on with work, but now I’ve realised he’s actually been learning new words – I tell people I’m Father of the Year.”
