Help your child see herself across time. Capture moments, reflect together, and bridge the gap between actions and understanding.
Young children live in an eternal present. When you say "If you don't clean up your blocks, you can't play with them tomorrow," the words evaporate. Tomorrow is an abstraction. The consequence, when it arrives, feels arbitrary and cruel.
What if the consequence could become comprehensible?
Quick video clips of meaningful moments—when choices are made, when consequences are established.
Watch clips together when emotions have settled. Explore what happened with curiosity, not judgment.
Gentle bedtime stories that weave in the day's experiences through imagination and narrative.
The app documents rather than judges. When we watch a video together, the framing is curiosity about one's past self: "Look at what happened"rather than "Look at what you did wrong."
Young children are still learning to separate their actions from their identity. Mirror Stage helps a child observe her patterns without feeling that she is her worst moments.
The name references Lacan's stade du miroir—the moment when a child first recognizes herself in a mirror and grasps that she is a continuous being across time. This recognition is mediated by the parent, who says "That's you."
This app extends that insight: what if the mirror showed not just who we are, but who we were—and helped us understand the thread connecting them?
The app succeeds when it becomes unnecessary—when the child has internalized the capacity to reflect across time without external scaffolding.
She begins to hold her own mirror.
Mirror Stage is designed for children ages 3-6 and their parents.