Why we designed DiaryZapp to be a non comparison journal.

‘Competition’ – the word itself has been the cause of much debate in education methods and now in our home. Competition when used carefully can be good to fuel action in children in different ways, but for us, when we were at the stage of deciding the narrative for how DiaryZapp should work, we decided that we didn’t want to make it a multi-player, point-scoring against each other game.

A diary is private unless you want to share it, read it to others or show them the scrapbook of your day. I remember doing that as a child and loving reflecting back on the memories so I was definitely keen to pioneer the fact that each writer or ‘zapper’ had their own diary unique to them and not one shared as a family.

‘Oh no!’ I hear you cry, ‘a bit of competition is good it prepares them for the real world.’ Yes I agree that it does, but only when adminisitered in the right way. Certainly not in education when at five years old they’re struggling to think of the right word to describe how they’re feeling. Not at eight when they’re trying to string the words together correctly in a sentence. And at any age when they’ve been made to feel that they’re stupid because they can’t keep up.

Healthy competition is good. However, comparison competitiveness is detrimental to a child’s self-esteem.

Try and view learning as a positive emotion that you feel – yes a concept might be initially hard, but you feel smarter when you get it, right? Language and writing is all about building communication skills and we all feel better and safer when we communicate. Let’s empower our little ones. Not make them feel as if they don’t understand a concept as quickly as someone else does then they’re not as smart.

Comparison remains the thief of joy in adults let alone children whose minds can’t rationalise the negativity out.

I want to help empower little children. Not just inspire them that learning is fun, I want to build their confidence to then be excited to do the subject again, for it is with repetition that their retention skills are improved and their learning progresses. And that’s what the ethos of DiaryZapp is all about. Preserving treasured memories and improving literacy in a fun and positive way for each unique child.

Interested in more of our reasoning? Find out why we chose not to have in-app purchases within DiaryZapp