When Daily Routines Feel Like Climbing Mountains
For many families with neurodivergent children (diagnosed with conditions like ADHD or ASD), daily life can feel like a constant battle against overwhelm. Simple routines – getting dressed, homework, chores, transitions – can become major sources of stress and anxiety, not just for the child, but for the whole family. This isn't about defiance; it often stems from differences in executive functioning (planning, focus, task initiation) and sensory processing. Predictability is crucial, yet hard to maintain. Traditional methods often fall short, lacking the engagement or specific support needed. Parents need practical, empathetic tools designed for their reality.
TaDone - Making 'To-Dos' into 'Ta-Dones!'
TaDone is designed to be that tool – a supportive partner in your pocket, built with empathy and direct experience. It aims to empower neurodivergent kids and ease the load for parents by focusing on:
- Interactive routines: We go beyond static charts. TaDone uses visual schedules and step-by-step task breakdowns to make routines clear, predictable, and less overwhelming. This helps reduce anxiety and smooth out transitions.
- Engaging points system: Completing tasks earns points! This provides immediate positive feedback and taps into the reward pathways that motivate many kids, especially those with ADHD. It turns 'must-dos' into achievable steps.
- Positive Reinforcement Focus: We help you "catch" your child doing well! Track positive actions (kindness, effort, using coping skills) to provide specific, meaningful praise that builds self-esteem.
- Teaching Value Through Rewards: The points earned can be exchanged for parent-customized rewards (screen time, outings, toys). This isn't just about getting stuff; it's a concrete way to teach saving, goal-setting, and the connection between effort and reward – vital life skills.
- Sleep Pattern Insights: As sleep significantly impacts daytime functioning, TaDone includes a feature for parents to log key sleep events (bedtime, sleep onset, night events like waking or nightmares). This helps identify patterns and provides objective data to share with doctors and therapists.
Progress so far
The core concept of TaDone has already proven effective in small scale.
Clinical guidance
I'm receiving invaluable consulting support from PIN Partners In Neuroscience , a respected clinic here in Portugal. This collaboration ensures TaDone is grounded in both lived experience and professional expertise.
Release plan
Initially, I plan to open registrations to everyone for free. I want to ensure TaDone provides real value before considering any paid model. My goal is to understand usage and gather feedback from users and professionals.
Planning for sustained development
If TaDone proves valuable and needs long-term financial support, I will introduce affordable subscription options while ensuring every family can afford it. Your initial support is crucial to reach that stage.
Social responsibility
Driven my will to help others and desire give back to the community I've begun outreach, offering free access to families supported by Capiti . They are a non-profit organization in Portugal that provides support to families with children with neurodevelopmental disorders.
Who Am I?
I'm Bruno, a father, software developer, and advocate for neurodivergent children.
I believe I'm uniquely positioned to bring TaDone to life because I bring together:
- Professional expertise: Over 15 years developing user-centric healthcare software, understanding the complexities of building reliable and helpful digital tools. Having worked 13 of those years in a hospital environment gave me a unique perspective on the challenges faced by families and professionals.
- Lived experience: As someone with ADHD diagnosed late in life, I intimately understand the challenges and the need for tailored support. I know firsthand what it's like to navigate the world without the right tools. This lived experience informs design choices and fosters genuine empathy for users.
- Parental insight: I've walked the path of raising a wonderful neurodivergent child, experiencing the daily realities, the joys, and the struggles.
- Proven results: Me, my partner, family and therapists have seen the positive impact of the core TaDone concepts on my own daughter's motivation and self-regulation.
Why I need your help
Your contribution, big or small, directly fuels the development, design, and infrastructure needed to launch and grow this tool.
How you can help
- Donate: Every euro counts! Your support will help me build a tool that can many families like my own.
- Spread the word: Share this campaign with your network. The more people who know about TaDone, the more families we can reach. Spreading the word is incredibly powerful.
- Follow the journey: Stay updated on TaDone's progress by following us on social media. Your engagement helps build a community of support and awareness.
- Connect with us: Share your thoughts, ideas, and experiences. Your feedback is invaluable in shaping TaDone into a tool that truly meets the needs of families like yours. If you have insights, experiences, or resources to share, please reach out. Your input can help us refine TaDone and make it even more effective.
How your support will make a difference
To bring it to the many families who could benefit, I need your support to raise 30,000€ in funding. For the next 12 months this will enable:
- Dedicated development time: Allowing me to keep working on TaDone full-time. I've been a few months into this journey without any income, and the cost of therapy is taking a toll in our budget. Staying full time would allow me to keep the accelerated development, adding features, and providing dedicated user support.
- Professional design: Hiring a designer to create customizable themes and interfaces, allowing parents and therapists to personalize the app to a child's preferences, making it even more engaging.
- Cloud infrastructure: I depend on cloud services to be able to make TaDone available to everyone. If the influx of users is too large I will not be able to support this on my own.
- Content creator: to help with documentation and creating guide videos so that users can take the advantage of the best of TaDone.
My main goal is €30,000 for a year of focused work. But reaching the monthly goal of €2,500 keeps the project alive and moving forward each month.
Other ways to support TaDone
- Design: Creating a beautiful and engaging experience for our users.
- Development: Bringing TaDone to life is a big ask for one person and there is much more to explore beyond the initial scope.
- Testing: Help test TaDone, give feedback and how it can be improved.
- Clinical guidance: If you are a therapist or clinician and want to help guide the development of TaDone, I would love to have your expertise in shaping TaDone. I strongly believe that diversity of experience is key to craft something really special.
- Internationalization: As part of making TaDone accessibile to everyone I want to provide support for multiple languages.
If you are interested in helping out in any of these areas, please [reach out to me](mailto:[email redacted]). I would love to hear from you!
How TaDone was born
My journey into creating TaDone wasn't planned; it was born from necessity, love, and self discovery.
A father's journey, an unexpected diagnosis
It started with the early arrival of my daughter, a little fighter who entered the world almost two months ahead of schedule. Those first weeks were a blur of NICU visits and doctors' warnings about potential developmental hurdles.
As she grew, the everyday challenges of school and routines became more apparent. We sought help, navigating therapies and specialist consultations, eventually leading to diagnoses of ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). We embraced strategies, celebrated progress, but then hit plateaus, even regressions.
Her diagnosis led to my own: ADHD. By having my diagnosis this late in life I understood firsthand the profound impact of growing up neurodivergent without the right tools and support. To me it was a "wake up" moment, a realization that I could do much more than what I had been led to believe I could.
In third grade, her school introduced mandatory tablet use – a tool I worried might hinder skill development for a 8 year old. As I suspected this tablet would become the focus of her day. Every day I picked her up the only topic bacame what she did on the tablet that day.
Seeing this, and drawing on my experience developing healthcare software, I decided to turn this challenge into an opportunity. Inspired by the static routine charts we used, I built a simple app – interactive, animated, with a rewards system. Completing tasks earned points for rewards, like watching cartoons. More than just motivation, she learned self-regulation; screen time became managed, not all-consuming.
Seeing her thrive ignited a passion in me to ensure other families wouldn't have to navigate this alone. TaDone transformed from a personal tool into a mission.
Thank You
Thank you for taking the time to read my story and learn about TaDone. Your belief and support mean the world. Together, we can build a tool that empowers kids, reduces family stress, and helps every child unlock their amazing potential.
With heartfelt gratitude,
Bruno
Organizer
