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From the myna blog.

Field notes from building family software in Singapore: parenting, helpers, household coordination, and the reasons we keep shipping.

The myna staring in alarm at a brass padlock that has sprung open by itself, while a boy beside it plays on a tablet, entirely oblivious
Parenting

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
A Singapore primary school boy in white shirt and navy shorts placing a kids' smartwatch-phone on the shelf of his locker, beside a handwritten sign reading School Hours
Parenting

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
A myna perched on a kitchen counter beside a wall-mounted family calendar display, looking at it with mild suspicion
Parenting

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
A myna in a school blazer reacting with horror as a cake is re-cut, while a second myna cheers
Parenting

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
A myna bird beside a wooden signpost whose five painted arrows point in five different directions
Parenting

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
A myna perched on the edge of a phone screen showing a P1 registration results notification, with a primary school gate out of focus behind it
Parenting

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
A myna bird calmly holding a small padlock beside a child's phone, with a jumble of tangled control switches behind them
Parenting

Parental controls, honestly: what works on a kid's phone in Singapore

Every guide gives you the same five apps. None of them tells you which controls quietly stop working, or why the free one on the phone you already own is usually the right place to start.

8 min read
A child carrying her plate to the kitchen sink while a laundry basket waits on the floor behind her
Parenting

How many chores should a child have when you have a helper?

The honest Singapore version of the question, where someone else can do it faster and better, so the chore quietly stops happening and nobody notices for a year.

6 min read
A child's hand holding a phone showing only a family call screen, with app icons fading away behind it
Parenting

What is the safest phone for a child? (The honest Singapore answer)

There is no safe phone. There are only phones with less on them. Here's how to work out what your kid's phone actually needs, and what you're really buying when you hand over your old one.

7 min read
A myna at a laptop showing a Singapore street map with a 1km circle drawn around a primary school
Parenting

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
A myna holding an hourglass while a child asks for one more episode
Parenting

Why your child's screen time limit isn't working

You set two hours. It has never once been two hours. Here's what's actually leaking, and what a rule needs before it holds.

6 min read
Aunty at a kitchen counter marking up a wall calendar of school holiday weeks while a bored child slumps at the table behind her
Life & Culture

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
Aunty the myna at a tablet labelled myna, with a coffee mug
Our story

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
Aunty shielding a child from crossed-out social-media apps
Parenting

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
Two Mynas chatting in English and Bahasa across a notebook
Life & Culture

The helper translation problem nobody talks about

There are 280,000 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