Purr & Reset: a guide for grown-ups

Information for Grown-Ups

Purr & Reset provides short, age-adaptive games that help children and teens practice general emotional-wellness skills such as recognizing feelings, calming their bodies, handling frustration, focusing, and communicating with others. These activities are educational and recreational. They do not diagnose, assess, monitor, prevent, or treat any mental-health condition and are not a replacement for care from a qualified professional.

Children should be encouraged to speak with a parent, caregiver, teacher, school counselor, healthcare professional, or another trusted adult when they are struggling. If feelings or behaviors continue for weeks, interfere with daily life, or cause concern, contact a qualified healthcare professional.

What children practice

• Calm: paced breathing, quiet sensory spaces, soundscapes with a volume control.
• Feelings: naming and sizing emotions with weather metaphors instead of judging them.
• Friendship: low-stakes rehearsal of being left out, sharing, and repairing after a mistake.
• Focus: grounding, sorting mental clutter, and picking one manageable step.
• Confidence: language for asking, refusing kindly, and asking a trusted adult for help.

What it is not

• Not therapy, diagnosis, screening, or treatment of any kind.
• Not a mood tracker — nothing a child chooses is stored, scored, or reported.
• No streaks, leaderboards, timers, or losing. Children can pause or exit at any moment.
• No chat, no other players, no ads, and no links out to other sites inside the games.

Privacy

Purr & Reset does not ask for a name, an account, an email address, a microphone, or a camera. Feelings, choices, room designs, and reset steps live only in the browser tab while the child plays and are not sent anywhere. The only thing MeowZap remembers between visits is the kitten avatar the child made, saved on their own device.

Playing alongside your child

• Play a round yourself first, then ask which tool they'd pick.
• Copy the language home: "Is your weather sunny or foggy today?" works at dinner too.
• Keep it short. Two minutes with a calm adult nearby beats twenty minutes alone.
• Let them repeat the same game — repetition is how a coping skill becomes automatic.
• Read-aloud narration and reduced motion are supported; captions are always shown on screen.

When to get real support

If a child's distress is persistent, escalating, or interfering with sleep, school, eating, or friendships — or if they mention hurting themselves — please talk with a GP, school counsellor, or local mental-health service. In an emergency, contact your local emergency number. MeowZap cannot detect or respond to a crisis.

The games

• Bubble Breathing Bay (Ages 2+, 2–4 min) — Hold to grow a big bubble, let go, and watch your kitten float it across the sky.
• Emotion Weather Station (Ages 2+, 3–6 min) — Build your inside weather — sun, fog, rain, rainbows — and see your kitten understand it.
• Calm Room Creator (Ages 2+, 4–8 min) — Design a cozy room for your kitten with lights, cushions, plants and quiet sounds.
• Friendship Quest (Ages 5+, 5–8 min) — Walk through kitten stories about being left out, sharing, and saying sorry.
• Cool the Volcano (Ages 5+, 3–6 min) — A big feeling is bubbling! Pick reset tools and watch the colors cool down.
• Reset Lab (Ages 12+ (open to all), 2–5 min) — A quick, grown-up-feeling reset: breathing, grounding, sorting and one small next step.