Just as so many subjects in "real school," the preponderance of educational apps help teach the ABCs and 123s, as opposed to addressing emotional development in any way. Enter Be Confident In Who You Are ($3.99), an eight-chapter graphic novel that deals with several important topics such as bullying, friendship, stress and body image.
The app presents a number of very critical, but oft-neglected concepts. The perception, I believe, is that the sex/drugs talks are the ones to worry about for parents with children in this age range, but I think a bullying talk is of equal importance.
Each chapter presents its own significant topic through a story with a conclusive point as the end. I thought a more direct approach might have worked better in a few places, but that may be because my oldest just turned 10. More important than that, however, is that developer Electric Eggplant is putting these topics out there in a format (graphic novel) and platform (iOS) that can reach their target audience.
There is also a section just for information about the characters and their specific concerns. They can even be emailed, which is quite a unique feature...but my seven-year old said "but they aren't real, are they?" so I'm not sure if that will work. I like the idea, however, that the developers tried to reach out to children who identified with a certain character.
There are thousands of apps teaching reading and math but not many developers are taking a shot at this kind of delicate, but extremely important material. I recommend Be Confident as sit-down-together reading if your children are within the suggested age range (8-14), and I especially recommend it for the 8-10 age-range, before a lot of that dreadful teen angst starts to creep in.
