Pocket Pals: Texting Practice

About

Pocket Pals: Texting Practice is a private, parent-guided place for children and teens to explore the rhythm of texting without sending a message to a real person. Each contact is a simulated practice partner created by a parent or caregiver. Pocket Pals is designed for calm, repeatable practice: a child can try a greeting, ask a question, answer a message, share an interest, or take a break and try again. Nothing in the app connects a child to strangers or sends a text to a real phone number. BUILT FOR DIFFERENT COMMUNICATION STYLES Pocket Pals can be especially useful for children and teens who benefit from more structure, time, and predictability when communicating — including autistic children and young people with communication, reading, typing, or social-confidence differences. It offers a low-pressure space to rehearse everyday exchanges at a pace that feels manageable. Children can: • Practice the back-and-forth of a conversation without real-world pressure. • Read messages slowly, replay them with Read Aloud, and use dictation when typing is difficult. • Get optional, gentle reply ideas when they are unsure what to say next. • Interact with familiar, parent-created characters based on interests, routines, and relationships. • Explore common social moments — greetings, invitations, making plans, handling a delayed reply, and ending a conversation — in a supportive setting. FOR PARENTS AND CAREGIVERS Pocket Pals puts the grown-up in charge. Create the practice contacts, choose how often they start a conversation, set the hours when texting is available, tune reply length and pace, and protect grown-up controls with a PIN. Use “See What [Child] Sees” to preview the child-facing contact screen and the active child-facing controls before handing over the device. The preview shows shared contacts and settings, but never reveals, copies, or syncs a child’s conversation history. PRIVACY AND SAFETY • No real messaging: all conversations happen inside Pocket Pals with simulated contacts. • No strangers, public profiles, or direct user-to-user messaging. • A child’s conversations stay on that child’s device and are not shared with the parent device. • Optional family sync shares only the parent-managed setup, such as contacts and controls. • There are no ads, behavioral advertising, analytics, or tracking. Pocket Pals is a practice tool, not a replacement for professional advice, therapy, school support, or a parent/caregiver’s judgment. A grown-up should choose settings and contacts that fit the child. FREE TO START Pocket Pals is free to use with up to five practice contacts. A one-time TextPractice Premium purchase unlocks unlimited contacts for $6.99. There are no subscriptions.