Age suitability in Staris Kids
Staris Kids is a storytelling app for families. A parent creates a story — choosing a world, characters and what the story is about — and a child reads it, or is read to. It is designed as a parent-led experience.
Who it's for
Staris Kids is designed for children ages 2 through 13+, with age-adjusted story settings across that whole range. It is set up and controlled by an adult: the account, the subscription and the story creation all sit with the parent. Younger children are read to; older children read on their own.
In the App Store, Staris Kids is in the Kids Category with the 6–8 age band, which represents our primary audience; on Google Play it takes part in the Designed for Families programme. The six age settings below adjust each story for younger and older children across the full range, up to an older child or teenager reading the longer, more layered stories of the 13+ setting.
The six age settings
When a parent sets up a child's profile they pick one of six settings, which can be changed at any time:
| Setting | What it means |
|---|---|
| 2 – 3 years | Simple, soothing stories with tiny sentences |
| 4 – 5 years | Playful stories with a refrain to join in |
| 6 – 7 years | Engaging stories with more detail |
| 8 – 10 years | Richer stories with adventure and depth |
| 10 – 12 years | Deeper stories with meaning and growth |
| 13+ years | Longer stories with layered characters and earned endings, for older children and teens |
What actually changes
The age setting is not a label — it changes how a story is written:
- Sentence length and vocabulary. The youngest setting uses one short sentence at a time, with lots of repetition and a warm refrain to join in with. The oldest uses fuller paragraphs.
- How long the story is. Shorter for younger children, longer and fuller for older ones.
- How much happens. Younger stories are written without peril or villains, with a caring grown-up present. Older stories carry a real (still safe) sense of stakes.
- Emotional complexity. Early on, a story names one feeling and shows one thing that helps. Later, characters hold mixed feelings, make mistakes and repair them.
- How openly a story teaches. For the youngest children the lesson is the plot, shown rather than explained. As children grow, the theme moves into the background — by the oldest setting the story is simply a good story, and the meaning sits underneath it.
That last shift is deliberate. Our story design is built on a published framework for age-appropriate social and emotional learning (the CASEL competencies), together with guidance from child-development sources on what children are working on at each stage. Younger children benefit from a clear, concrete idea they can see happening. Older children switch off the moment a story starts lecturing them.
Stories are also written to reflect real situations a child may be going through — a new sibling, starting school, a friendship falling out, a first competition. Heavier subjects such as grief or a big family change are handled in a gentler register and are not used to surprise a child; a parent chooses them deliberately.
One honest caveat. The age setting is a content setting that steers how a story is written — it is not a certification. It does not correspond to a specific reading level or curriculum stage, and no single setting can capture what an individual child is ready for: children of the same age differ, and stories are AI-generated, so the result varies. Treat the setting as the way to get a story close, and your own judgement as the thing that decides. Our AI Content Policy §3 says the same in the policy set.
What is deliberately not in the app
- No advertising. None, of any kind.
- No chat and no messaging. There is no way to contact anyone through Staris Kids.
- No social feed, and no way to discover other families' stories. There is no gallery, no profiles, no comments, no browsing of anyone else's content, and no way to find a story except by being sent a link. A parent can send an unlisted link to one story they created; that link expires after 10 days and they can remove it sooner.
- No web browser. The app does not contain a browser. The few links to our own website open in the device's browser, and once setup is complete they sit behind a parental gate.
- No loot boxes and no randomized purchases. Story Credits buy a known thing at a known price, shown before you spend.
- Nothing designed to frighten. Worlds that could tip that way — dinosaurs, for instance — are written deliberately as friendly.
How stories are kept appropriate
Stories and illustrations are generated by AI, using the parent's choices as the starting point. Both what a parent submits and what the AI produces are screened by automated moderation designed to block sexual content, sexual or exploitative content involving minors, hate, graphic violence and self-harm. Illustrations pass an additional automated safety screen before they are shown, and an extra-gentle mode is available.
Automated filtering is commercially reasonable but not guaranteed to catch everything, which is why Staris Kids is built around parental involvement: the parent chooses the world, the characters and what the story is about. We recommend you review each story before sharing it with your child.
Stories are labelled as AI-generated in the app at the point of creation. For more detail, see our AI Content Policy and Child Safety Policy.
Who is in control
- The account belongs to an adult, and there is no child login.
- Story creation is a parent's flow — the account holder chooses the world, the characters and what each story is about, and can change or delete any of it at any time.
- Buying anything is behind a parental gate — a question a young child cannot answer. Prices are not even shown until it is passed. Payment then goes through Apple, which asks for the account holder's Face ID, Touch ID or password.
- Giving a nickname is optional — stories work without one.
Questions about whether Staris Kids suits your child: support@cleverlabs.com.au.