Family Prayer

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  Daily prayer tracker: kids see today's five prayers, their streak, and progress toward the next level.

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  My Library: Stories rewards, in English and French, with audio narration.

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  Prayer journal: a day-by-day view of all five prayers, so kids see their consistency build over time.

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  Daily goals: kids check off good deeds and earn points, with a short tip to keep them motivated.

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  Duas for everyday moments: Arabic text with simple explanations, plus favorites to revisit anytime.

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  Digital tasbih: a tap counter with a progress ring that makes daily dhikr a habit kids enjoy.

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  My Rewards: kids earn points for every prayer and redeem the real-life rewards their parents set.

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  My Family: each child gets their own profile, avatar, and progress inside one shared account.

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  Parent Portal: family-wide stats plus a weekly view for each child, so parents see progress at a glance.

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  Parent Portal: parents create, edit, and remove the real-life rewards kids work toward.

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  Parent Portal settings: PIN lock, location, EN/FR language, and prayer and notification preferences.

Inspiration

Building the habit of daily prayer can be challenging for anyone, but especially for children. Concepts like delayed rewards, consistency, and spiritual fulfillment can feel abstract at a young age. Constantly reminding or nagging children to pray can also have the opposite effect: prayer can start to feel like an obligation rather than something they genuinely value and gradually make part of their identity.

As a mom of two sons in a family where religion is an important part of our culture, we tried different reward systems over the years. But they were often inconsistent and did not really motivate the kids in the long term.

That changed when my 11-year-old son decided to build Family Prayer , a tool to make his and his brother's prayer journey more enjoyable, motivating, and meaningful.

What makes the project particularly special to us is that the kids' experience was actually designed by a kid. My 11-year-old son designed the entire kids' portal and came up with its features based on what he felt would make prayer tracking fun and motivating for children his age.

What it does

Family Prayer helps children build the habit of daily prayer through positive motivation, progress tracking, Islamic stories, and real-life rewards.

Kids have their own portal where they can track their five daily prayers, earn points, build streaks, and unlock achievements. When they complete their daily prayers, they unlock a new story that they can read or listen to, turning consistency into something they can look forward to. The narrated stories are available in English, French, and Arabic and introduce children to the stories of the prophets and Islamic history in an engaging, age-appropriate way.

Parents can also create personalized real-life rewards based on what motivates their child. Kids can accumulate points through their prayers and progress toward rewards chosen by their parents. Parents can also use streaks and achievements to encourage long-term consistency rather than focusing only on individual prayers.

Family Prayer also includes an intelligent Duaa library that helps children find the right supplication based on their situation or emotional state. Whether they are feeling worried, grateful, sad, afraid, or simply need guidance for a particular moment, they can explore relevant Duaas in a simple, child-friendly way. This helps children understand that Duaa can be part of their everyday lives and gives them a practical way to turn to their faith in different situations.

The app also provides useful tools for the whole family, including accurate prayer times, Qibla direction, Tasbih, individual child profiles, and progress tracking.

The goal is simple: make prayer something children associate with progress, discovery, achievement, and positive family experiences, rather than constant reminders.

How we built it

Family Prayer was built on Replit using Expo and React Native, allowing us to create a cross-platform experience for iOS and Android.

We developed a story curriculum covering the prophets chronologically and used Google Cloud Text-to-Speech, together with Replit Object Storage, to provide narrated versions of the stories in English, French, and Arabic.

Subscriptions are managed through RevenueCat, and the app has already been shipped to the Apple App Store, with Google Play planned next.

Challenges we ran into

Getting through App Store review required real persistence. We encountered several rejections involving the app name, location-purpose strings, and age-assurance configuration. Each required careful investigation and metadata or configuration changes before the app could be approved.

Creating a multilingual experience was another challenge. We did not want each language to simply feel like a translation of another. We went through several iterations of the onboarding experience, interface text, and story tone to make the experience feel natural, warm, and designed for families.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Publishing Family Prayer on the App Store as a small, family-driven project is something we're incredibly proud of.

Even more meaningful is seeing an idea created within our own family become a real product. My 11-year-old son designed the entire kids' portal and its features, bringing a child's perspective directly into a product made for children.

We are also proud that Family Prayer gives back to the community that inspired it. A portion of every subscription goes to our local community center to support youth activities, allowing the app's impact to extend beyond the families using it.

What we learned

One of our biggest lessons was that some of the best product ideas come from trying to solve a problem you experience yourself.

We also discovered how valuable it is to design with children rather than only for children. Having a child design the kids' experience made Family Prayer different because children do not evaluate motivation, rewards, or experiences in the same way adults do. Features that might seem small to an adult can be incredibly important to a child.

On the technical side, we learned a great deal about App Store compliance, subscription infrastructure, multilingual content, mobile development, and how much thought and iteration goes into making an onboarding experience feel warm and welcoming rather than transactional.

What's next for Family Prayer

Next, we want to make Family Prayer even more engaging and meaningful for children and families.

We plan to expand the rewards and achievement system, grow the story library beyond the stories of the prophets, and introduce a podcast center with short, child-friendly audio episodes exploring topics such as why we pray, the importance of consistency, gratitude, and how prayer can bring peace and fulfillment to the heart.

Our long-term goal is to continue building Family Prayer into a positive space where children can learn about their faith, celebrate their progress, and gradually build a relationship with prayer that can stay with them for life.

Built With

• replit