From the myna blog.
Field notes from building family software in Singapore: parenting, helpers, household coordination, and the reasons we keep shipping.
How to introduce your kids to AI, before the internet does it for you
Most children will meet AI this year whether you plan it or not. What the age rules actually say, what the experts advise at each age, the five habits worth teaching, and why the first AI your child meets can be one that lives inside the family.
9 min read
Is the Skylight subscription worth $79 a year? What you lose without it, and the cheaper routes
The Skylight works without Calendar Plus. The question is whether the bits behind the paywall are bits your family will actually use, and what the same wall calendar costs if you never pay a subscription at all.
8 min read
Bark Phone vs Gabb: two very different ideas of a safe phone
Gabb takes things off the phone. Bark leaves them on and watches. What each one costs, what each one lets through, and how to tell which philosophy fits your child.
8 min read
A phone for kids without the internet, that's still online for the family
When parents ask for a phone with no internet, they rarely mean no internet. They mean no strangers, no feed and no rabbit holes. There's a way to get exactly that without handing a child a brick.
8 min read
The landline is back for kids. Here's what you're choosing between
Tin Can, Ring Ring Club, Pinwheel Home, an ordinary home line, or the tablet already in your kitchen. What each one does, what each one can't, and the question that decides it.
8 min read
Family organiser apps: why the good ones still don't work in most houses
Cozi has nearly 400,000 App Store ratings. The category is not short of good software. It is short of a second user — and that is a different problem with a different fix.
10 min read
Every parental control app is a little bit broken on iPhone. Here's the part they don't say loudly.
You installed the app, you paid the subscription, and half of it quietly doesn't work. It isn't you, and it isn't really them either. Here's what an iPhone actually permits, and how to set one up so it holds.
10 min read
The $599 calendar on the kitchen wall, honestly compared
Skylight, Hearth and Greenlight all sell a screen that puts the family calendar where everyone walks past. They are better than you expect. And every one of them stops at the edge of the thing your family actually argues about.
10 min read
Roblox parental controls, honestly: what quietly expires at 13
The Parent PIN no longer exists. Spending limits stop applying entirely at 13. And Roblox states in its own help pages that your chat settings do not reach chat built by game developers. Here is the system as it actually works in September 2026.
17 min read
MOE named myFirst Fone. Here's what that means if you already bought one
The whole-day phone rule got the headlines. The part parents actually needed was in footnote three, and it names a product by name.
7 min read
Phase 2C just got bigger, and the alumni are quietly paying for it
Sixty places instead of forty, and twelve schools where living nearby suddenly buys you nothing. The good bit is buried on page two: MOE has quietly admitted its own rule was part of the problem.
9 min read
Which parental control app should you actually use? Family Link, Screen Time, Qustodio and Bark
One of the free ones cannot supervise an iPhone at all and one of the famous paid ones isn't sold here, which is the sort of thing the comparison tables leave out.
9 min read
P1 registration results, balloting, and what happens if you don't get in
What results day actually looks like, how a ballot is really run, how to read the vacancy tables, and the plan B nobody explains until you need it.
8 min read
WhatsApp parental controls in Singapore, and what else works on a kid's phone
WhatsApp now has its own parental controls. What they cover, what Screen Time, Family Link and Singtel can and can't reach, and which controls quietly stop working.
8 min read
Chores for kids by age, when you have a helper
Age-appropriate chores from 2 to 12, from paediatric sources, and the honest Singapore version: in a home where someone else can do it faster, how to stop the chore quietly disappearing.
6 min read
How P1 registration actually works, phase by phase
The phases, the 1km rule, the documents you probably don't need, and the honest answer to whether your child ends up somewhere fine.
7 min read
Safe phones for tweens: what you're actually buying, and what it costs you
There is no safe phone. There are only phones with less on them. What Gabb, Pinwheel, Troomi and the Bark Phone actually do, what the hand-me-down really costs, and the one test that decides all of it.
10 min read
What to do during the school holidays in Singapore when you both still have to work
School holidays don't fall apart because the kid is bored. They fall apart because by week two nobody is sure who is fetching whom.
7 min read
Screen time limit not working? Why it leaks, and what actually holds
You set two hours. It has never once been two hours. The eight things that make a Screen Time limit leak on an iPhone, the fix for each, and what a rule needs before it holds.
6 min read
Why we built myna
I spent years automating other people's houses, then couldn't get my own household to tell me what time swimming was. Four things changed once I pointed the tools at my own family, and none of them were on the roadmap.
7 min read
Grow Well SG: How to give your kid a phone the right way
Your kid will get a phone. The question isn't whether. It's what's on it. A practical guide for SG parents trying not to lose them to TikTok at age nine.
6 min read
The helper translation problem nobody talks about
There are 308,700 helpers in Singapore. 'Ok mam' is the most quoted phrase in employer subreddits. Here's what's actually happening, and why pretending it's fine is the most expensive thing in the household.
5 min read