Thoughtfully Written, Carefully Considered
When you give a child something to read, you want to feel confident about what's inside. So do we.
Every Letters from Grownups letter is created with careful consideration for the child's age, safety, family circumstances, and relationship with the adult writing to them.
We developed a detailed set of content guidelines to help us make decisions about everything from the topics we choose to the questions we ask and the words we use.
Here's what goes into creating our letters.
Written for the child's age
Children at different ages have different reading abilities, interests, and ways of understanding the world.
Our letters are written for specific age groups, with attention to vocabulary, sentence structure, reading comprehension, and the kinds of subjects children can comfortably explore.
We also consider how much writing a child can reasonably manage so that participating feels achievable and enjoyable.
Inclusive of different families and circumstances
We don't assume every child has the same kind of family, home, resources, or experiences.
Our letters are designed to work for children from a wide variety of backgrounds and living situations. We try to avoid stereotypes, assumptions, and expectations about how children should think, feel, or interact with others.
The goal is simple: A child should be able to enjoy a letter without feeling that their life is somehow different from what it is supposed to be.
Appropriate boundaries between adults and children
We take the responsibility of creating correspondence between adults and children seriously.
Our letters never encourage secrets, private arrangements that exclude caregivers, or conversations that a child might feel they need to hide.
We avoid questions that request sensitive personal information. Letters are written to support healthy, transparent communication, with parents and caregivers remaining part of the process, should they choose to be.
No pressure to share, perform, or respond
Children shouldn't feel responsible for making an adult happy, and adults shouldn't feel obligated to express emotions that aren't authentic to them.
That's why our letters don't rely on guilt, emotional demands, or expectations about how someone should feel.
We also avoid language that could make a child feel embarrassed, inadequate, or uncomfortable with their circumstances.
The letters invite participation without requiring a particular answer or emotional response.
Carefully selected topics
We choose subjects that offer plenty to talk about without introducing unnecessarily sensitive or complicated issues.
Our letters focus on accessible experiences, imagination, observations, creativity, and everyday interests.
We intentionally exclude topics involving sex, politics, religion, violence, finances, illness, death, and other subjects that are better addressed by a child's parent or caregiver.
Even seemingly harmless topics receive additional consideration. A letter about a dream house, for example, should encourage imagination without suggesting that a child's actual home is inadequate.
Designed for genuine conversation
Letters from Grownups is designed to create a back-and-forth exchange, not a series of questionnaires.
Every letter has a beginning, middle, and end. Questions are woven naturally into the writing, and the child's reply builds on the subject the adult introduced.
We want both participants to have something interesting to say, even when they have very different experiences or personalities.
Our writing is deliberately gender-neutral, polite, conversational, and timeless. We try to avoid trendy expressions or technology, overly complicated language, and mushy sentimental statements.
We even use a simple sign-off, “From,” so adults and children can participate without being asked to express a particular relationship or feeling.
Reviewed with child safety in mind
Before a letter is approved for our collections, we evaluate it against our content and safety guidelines.
We look for anything that could encourage unsafe behavior or situations; suggest secrecy or inappropriate boundaries; make assumptions about a child's family or circumstances; introduce sensitive personal topics; create guilt, shame, fear, or emotional pressure; encourage disclosure of private information; or be misunderstood or used inappropriately by an adult.
If something doesn't meet our standards, we revise it or choose a different approach.
A final thought
We know that parents and caregivers are the people who understand their children best. Our guidelines are intended to support their judgment, not replace it.
We also know that adults who want to stay connected with a child don't necessarily know what to say, how to begin, or how to keep a conversation going.
That's why we put so much thought into the letters before anyone ever opens an envelope.
We want adults to feel comfortable sending them, caregivers to feel confident about their content, and children to enjoy receiving and answering them.
That's the standard we're working toward with every Letters from Grownups letter.
RYDER IS HERE TO ENSURE YOUR LETTERS ARE CLEARED FOR TAKEOFF.
Right now, he is designed strictly for adults. We think kids have enough apps at this point, and we want to keep them on the page.
Scan the QR code included in your package to get started, or search for him in Google Play or Apple App Store.
