Play Kindly

A gamified parenting app for Pacific parents for reducing behavioural problems and increasing parenting confidence.

Play Kindly
About this project

Play Kindly is an app, designed to be a fun and educational way of demonstrating ways of dealing with behavioural problems in children aged 2-5. There are 7 parenting scenarios to play through and after each one, parents are given a range of responses to choose from.

Who is involved?

Principal investigator: Esther Cowley-Malcolm, Sally Merry, Gerhard Sundborn, 

Co-investigators:  Marthinus Bekker,Sarah Hopkins, Rebecca Slykerman

Who is funding this project?

This project is funded by Cure Kids

How long will it take?

The project commenced in July 2016 and is expected to be completed by December 2022.

What we hope to achieve

We hope that Play Kindly is an acceptable, cost-effective and scalable eHealth intervention in which Pacific parents can further develop their parenting skills and sense of competence, thereby improving their well-being and quality of life.

Further information

Publications related to this project:

  • Mairs, R. A., et al. (2020). Gamifying Parenting Education Using an App Developed for Pacific and Other New Zealand Families (Play Kindly): Qualitative Study. JMIR Serious Games 8(2): e15647.
  • An open trial of Play Kindly, Gamified Parenting app for Pacific parents, in reducing behavioural problems and increasing parenting confidence. Manuscript in preparation.