Talkspace-owned Lasting launches new ‘Parenting Guide’ app, its latest self-guided advice service – TechCrunch

Lasting, which is owned by mobile therapy company Talkspace, has launched a new app aimed at parents. The app, which is called Parenting Guide from Lasting, is designed to help parents become more confident in their approach to raising children. The company says the app gives parents and caregivers access to resources to raise healthy and resilient children. The app offers self-guided sessions and live classes, along with tools that help parents teach their kids how to regulate their emotions.

The app includes more than 100 self-guided sessions and live therapist-led classes every week on topics such as secure attachment, self-awareness, discipline, anxiety in kids, whining and complaining, getting kids to listen, strong-willed children and sibling relationships. It also offers more than 30 mental health prompts designed to help parents practice self-care and emotional regulation. In addition, the app includes a section that allows parents to record their thoughts and answer prompts about certain topics.

It also includes features for parenting partners, such as a collaborative Q&A section that prompts conversations around parenting approaches. For instance, you and your partner can answer a series of questions to gauge how the other person is feeling about their parenting. If you and a partner disagree on something, the app will prompt you to work it out together. You can also see how many sessions your partner has completed.

Lasting says the parenting program was completed by more than 4,000 families in beta testing and that 79% of them said the app helped them parent more effectively.

“Today’s parents have an incredibly hard job to do,” said Steven Dziedzic, the founder and senior vice president of Lasting from Talkspace in a statement. “Raising kids used to be done by an entire community, and now many parents are doing everything by themselves. By listening to our customers, we learned that the families in America needed the most help with parenting issues such as anxiety, sibling conflict and emotion-coaching, so we built an app that applies tried-and-true psychological approaches to help them.”

The free version of the app includes four sessions. The app’s full content library is available for a monthly subscription that starts at $29.99. Lasting Parenting Guide is available to download on the Apple App Store and Google Play Store. 

Talkspace acquired Lasting in November 2020 and formed “Lasting from Talkspace,” which established Talkspace’s entry into self-guided apps. Lasting’s flagship therapy product, Lasting: Marriage and Couples, includes guided marriage counseling and sessions about conflict, communication, emotion connection and more. You can pair it with your partner’s app and complete exercises to reflect and unpack your thoughts. The company’s other offering, Lasting: Mental Health, includes tools to better manage stress, anxiety, depression and relationship issues. It also includes sessions about body image, burnout, boundaries and more.

Talkspace launched back in 2012 with a mission to make therapy accessible to as many people as possible. In 2019, the company announced the close of a $50 million Series D round led by Revolution Growth. Existing investors, such as Norwest Venture Partners, Omura Capital, Spark Capital and Compound Ventures also participated in the round.