For parents
How we handle the tender parts.
To make the book, you tell a company something private about your child — what frightens them, what they are working through, the words you say at bedtime. This page is what we do with that, and what we will never do with it.
How a difficult subject is handled
If you tell us your child is working on something — sleeping alone, the first day of school, a new baby in the house — the story can carry it, gently and on your terms. Four rules govern that.
- The difficulty is never the villain
- It is not dramatised, given a face, or made frightening to raise the stakes. It shows up the way it shows up in life: as an ordinary thing that takes a bit of courage.
- Your child's own character does the work
- The creature they drew is the one who helps, and the resolution belongs to your child — not to a rescuer who arrives and fixes it. That is the whole reason the story is built from their drawing.
- The fears list is an exclusion list, absolutely
- Anything you name as a fear or a strong dislike is kept out of the book entirely. It is never quietly repurposed as the challenge to be overcome. If you want something worked through, that is a separate question we ask you directly.
- Your family's own words carry the turn
- The phrase you always say — the one from the doorway at bedtime — is placed where the story turns. It is the most reliably powerful thing in the book, and it is yours, not ours.
What Kitak is not
Stated plainly, because this category is full of products that imply more than they are.
- We do not diagnose. Nothing we make is an assessment of your child.
- We do not read your child's drawing for psychological meaning, and we will never send you an interpretation of what it supposedly reveals about them.
- We are not therapy and not a substitute for it. If something is worrying you, the people to talk to are your doctor or a child psychologist.
- We do not claim professional endorsement we do not have. Our stories are written and reviewed carefully by our team — they are not a certified developmental or therapeutic intervention, and we will not market them as one.
- We do not use what you tell us about your child to advertise to you, and we do not sell it to anyone.
Written for the age, not just labelled with it
The age you give us changes the sentences, not only the cover. What lands at four is patronising at eight.
- 3–5
- Short sentences, rhythm and repetition, one idea per page, and nothing the reader has to keep track of between pages.
- 6–8
- Fuller description, cause and effect, and a proper arc — a middle that gets harder before it gets better.
- 9 and up
- More room and more agency: the hero decides things, and the story trusts the reader to keep up.
What never goes in the book
No violence, no peril played for fear, no death, no romance, no brands. Real people appear only as the friendly characters you named for us. The original drawings are printed alongside their new versions, and the artwork stays your child's — we do not take ownership of it.
The legal detail — data, ownership, delivery, refunds — is in the terms of service. Anything this page does not answer, write to us: hello@kitak.shop