Parent FAQ
Practical answers for families considering Distinction.
Who is Distinction for?
Families with children from birth to 18 who want their child to develop through real projects, rather than through grades alone. The responsible adult creates the account, controls permissions, and sees everything the child sees.
What ages does Distinction serve, and what is the adult's role?
From birth to 18. The responsible adult creates and controls participation at every age. Below ten the product is parent only and Cora works with you. Your child's own access to Cora begins at ten.
What does a child receive?
A personalized plan: real projects, books, activities, and goals shaped around who they are. Daily coaching from Cora in the family chat. A live dashboard showing progress, accomplishments, and growth. And monthly parent reports summarizing development across the five pillars: Leadership, Perseverance, Communication, Self-Awareness, and Initiative.
Why not just use ChatGPT or another AI chatbot?
A general chatbot is excellent at homework help, and your family should probably have one. What it structurally cannot do: keep a dated record of your child's work, refuse to do the work in your child's place, run child safety with full parent visibility, or compound across eight years. The chat evaporates. Here the record is the product, and the conversation is just how it gets built. Many of our families run both. The full honest comparison is in the parent guide called Why not just use ChatGPT.
My child is eleven. Why does this matter now?
Because the value is not this year. It is the year somebody asks your child what they have done and why they did it. By then the details are gone, for them and for you. A record only works if it was written while the thing was happening, which means the years that feel too early are exactly the years that cannot be reconstructed later.
What if my child has no idea what they want to do?
That is the most common reason families arrive, and it is the case the product was built for. A young person can ask Cora for explorer mode, which runs for a few weeks and changes what she coaches toward. Rather than pushing a project forward, she follows what your child keeps returning to, suggests things worth trying once, and treats a thing that did not work as information rather than as failure. If something catches, she names that moment and proposes committing to it. If nothing does, your child ends the period knowing more about themselves than when they started, which is not nothing. Explorer mode never pauses or removes work already underway.
My child is not motivated by anything. How would this work?
Motivation is rarely missing. It is unmatched. A child who seems uninterested in everything is usually uninterested in everything on offer. The intake exists to find what is actually there: what they do when nobody directs them, what they cannot stop talking about, what they quit and why. The first project is built from that, so the energy comes from the child rather than from you. And agency, the belief that your own actions change outcomes, grows from finishing chosen projects. It does not grow from being reminded.
Where do the projects come from?
Three places. Distinction builds projects around what your child is actually like, drawn from the intake conversation and everything since. A mentor or parent can set one directly. And your child can propose their own, which is the direction we are trying to move every family toward. Running underneath all of it is a curriculum of human intelligences, covering the things that decide whether a capable young person ever finishes anything: resilience, agency, and more as we write them. Your child works through these as projects in story form, ending in something they made rather than a mark.
What can Cora do, and what can she not do?
Cora provides project, learning, development, reflection, and motivational support. She coaches project execution: the outreach email, the poster, the repair log, and the scaffold fades as skill grows. She never touches schoolwork: no essays, no homework, no exam answers. An independent safety review runs alongside her coaching. AI assists the family; the family makes the decisions.
Does this help with grades, or replace tutoring?
No, and it does not pretend to. Distinction is not a tutor. It does not teach mathematics, mark essays or raise a test score, and if that is what your child needs then hire a tutor. What it does is the other half, the half almost nobody sells. The projects, the follow through, and a dated record of what your child actually did. Strong grades with nothing behind them is the most common shape an application takes, and it is the one with the least to say.
What can parents see and control?
The adult sees everything the child sees, every project, message, reflection, and milestone. Parents control permissions for money, contacting adults, local travel, and public publishing. Permissions can be changed at any time. Real-world actions that go beyond granted permissions require the parent's approval.
Can we set family values, faith, or service expectations?
Yes, and the place to do it is the intake. Whatever matters in your house, faith, service, what your child reads, what is off the table, say it there and the plan is built around it: the projects, the books, the boundaries. Nothing about your family is stored as a category or a label. It simply shapes the plan Cora coaches from. If a priority arrives later, raise it in the Parent Space. Cora turns it into a proposal your child sees in the family chat, and it happens when both sides agree, which is also how it sticks.
How does pricing work for multiple children?
Pricing is per child: monthly or annually. The annual plan saves compared to twelve monthly payments. Each child receives a separate profile, plan, and coaching experience. For an honest comparison of every option, counselors, mentorship programs, AI tutors, and doing it alone, see the honest cost map. Billed in Singapore dollars; US dollar figures are approximate and move with the exchange rate. Prices are per child and include applicable taxes.
Can I cancel anytime?
Cancel anytime. Your plan runs to the end of the period you have paid for, and no cancellation fee exists.
What if I cancel an annual plan early?
If you cancel an annual plan early, we refund the unused full months, pro rata, on request.
Can I pause?
You can pause for up to 3 months in any 12 month period, once, for any reason. The record is kept exactly as it is while paused.
Who owns my child's record?
The record belongs to your family. Ask for a full export at any time and we provide it within 7 days.
Can I have my child's data deleted?
Ask us to delete your child's data and we complete it within 30 days, keeping only what the law requires us to keep.
What does plan selection mean?
Selecting a plan records your preference. We confirm the plan together in your intake conversation, and you can change your selection at any point before then.
What is the intake process?
The adult completes a typed intake form with information about the child: interests, resources, family context, and permissions. Then both the child and adult record voice responses to age-appropriate questions. There are no graded or preferred answers. Answer every question as fully and honestly as possible; useful detail and clarity matter more than a specific length. Several questions may be answered in one recording. Distinction may ask follow-up questions when information is incomplete or unclear.
A fuller picture, with example answers from the demo students, is at Where a record begins.
How does the family chat work?
Coaching happens in a private family chat that the responsible adult controls. Both the child and parent can message Cora anytime. The adult remains in the shared experience at all times. You can always come back to this website to see the full plan, dashboard, and journal.
Can I talk to Cora without my child seeing?
Yes. The parent space is a separate conversation for the adults, walled off in both directions. You can ask anything there about supporting your child or about parenting itself. Your child is told the space exists, and Cora never repeats what they say to her privately, in either direction.
What about projects, books, and outside opportunities?
Each plan includes real projects, books, and activities tailored to the child's age and interests. Projects grow with the child: some to try on and explore, one to build for real. Every real thing the child does becomes documented evidence of growth.
What is Project Finder?
Project Finder matches older students to real competitions, mentors, and audiences outside Distinction. It coaches the real-world outreach: the email, the application, the introduction. Decisions about outside opportunities remain with the family and the opportunity providers.
What are the monthly parent reports?
Each month, parents receive a summary of their child's development across the five pillars: what was attempted, what was completed, and where growth is happening. It is a growth record, not a grade.
What are the safety limitations?
Cora is not therapy, psychological counseling, medical care, legal advice, or emergency response. An independent safety review runs alongside coaching and may flag concerning language for team review, but automated systems can be imperfect. In immediate danger, contact local emergency services and a trusted adult.
Is Distinction available in my country?
Yes. Distinction works anywhere with an internet connection, and the coaching is in English. Families are with us across Asia, the United States, and beyond, and everything from the intake to the daily coaching happens online. If your child is more comfortable in another language, ask us and we will tell you honestly whether the experience will work well for them yet.
We move often. Will my child lose their record?
No. The record is designed to move with the family. Every project, milestone, source correction, obstacle, and revisit is dated and portable. A move does not reset the record: it adds a new setting to it. A child may attend six or more schools before graduation; Distinction builds the one long-term relationship that does not depend on geography.
How do I contact Distinction?
Use the contact form: we read every message.
What is The Sunday Question?
Once a week, on a Sunday, the family sits with one question Cora sends about this specific child. It is short, it is meant to be asked at the table or on the walk home, and it is the one conversation about the work that does not turn into the usual conversation. The question lands on a Sunday on purpose: it gives the week a seam, a small fixed point the family returns to, rather than another notification to forget. Over a year that is one small occasion a week, and by the next you can see the difference between what your child was doing this Sunday and the last.
Do you sell my family's data?
No. Distinction makes money three ways: family subscriptions, annual partnerships paid by schools and providers, and paid placement in search results, which is always labeled where it appears. Your family's data is not a product. You can export the raw record at any time, and if you leave, it leaves with you.
What you receive each month
This is the digest format. Yours arrives monthly, built from your own child's month.
First report: from idea to documented build
David started with the pattern you described at intake, he dreams up machines nobody has made yet, then leaves once the exciting first spark becomes measuring, writing, and testing. The asteroid-sample gripper is deliberately small: one mechanism, one cardboard prototype, three tests, one build log, small enough to actually finish, which is the whole point.
Milestones this month
- Studied OSIRIS-REx sampler photos and named one mechanism
- Sketched the gripper open and closed views
A reflection from David
"Cora asked why I stopped the coding course at loops. I said because it was boring. She said 'boring or hard?' … I think the boring middle is where I usually leave."
Something to talk about at dinner
Ask David what his gripper would grab first and why.
This is the digest format. Yours arrives monthly, built from your own child's month.
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