LightMap by Birch & Light — Parenting App with a 2-Week Free Trial
LightMap is a family insight app by Birch & Light, created by Tara Alison. It helps you log tough moments — meltdowns, shutdowns, refusals, or hard days at any age — then spot patterns over time and get practical, personalized suggestions for what might help. Use it for a young child, a teen, yourself, or anyone you care for. Your first 14 days of full membership are free. A card is required at sign-up, nothing is charged until day 14, and you can cancel anytime in Settings. After the trial it is $99/year or $12.99/month. If you would rather look around first, you can log 3 moments with no account and no card.
Why parents use LightMap
- Quick Log: capture a tough moment in about twenty seconds, one-handed.
- Patterns: see what triggers, settings, and times of day are connected.
- Suggested Support: AI-assisted, non-clinical ideas based on your last 20 moments.
- Shared access: invite a co-parent or therapist with a secure link.
- Private by design: your data stays in your account.
- Installable PWA: works on iOS, Android, and desktop browsers.
About Birch & Light
Birch & Light is a children's emotional-wellness brand offering stories, songs, and simple tools that help kids reset and families reconnect. LightMap is the brand's companion app for parents.
For parents of kids who feel everything more
You are not imagining it, and you are not alone. LightMap turns your hardest days into patterns you can act on.
Card required. Nothing is charged until day 14, and you can cancel anytime.
“LightMap showed me patterns I wasn't connecting before. Things that looked random stopped feeling random.”
Shalee B. · Mom of five
Pattern Insights
Based on 15 logged moments
In plain words
Sam's hardest moments cluster between 3–5 pm, most often after busy mornings.
What's showing up most
When it happens
Common factors
LightMap™
Track tough moments. Find what's underneath.
✦ Bright Spot
▤ Story Note
Sam · 7 days
He knew it wasn't real but it scared him and he asked for parents to check…
Intensity 3/5
Intensity 3/5
Dropped backpack, cried about homework.
Intensity 4/5
Stalled at the door for 20 min before school.
Intensity 3/5
Covered ears at the grocery store, needed to leave.
Intensity 4/5
Intensity 2/5
View all in History →
Pattern Insights
Based on 15 logged moments
In plain words
Sam's hardest moments cluster between 3–5 pm, most often after busy mornings.
What's showing up most
When it happens
Common factors
✦ LightMap Muse
A thoughtful companion · understands Sam's patterns
I think the after-school meltdowns are getting worse
You're seeing it accurately — and I'm sorry it's been getting heavier. Over the last three weeks, Sam's 3–5 pm meltdowns have gone from twice a week to nearly daily, and the intensity is climbing too.
With an ADHD diagnosis, this pattern has a name — often called after-school restraint collapse. All day his brain works overtime to sit still, follow directions, mask frustration, and switch tasks on someone else's schedule. By pickup, there's almost nothing left in the tank, so home — the safest place — is where it finally comes out.
A few things that often help in the first hour home: 1) protect a quiet decompression window — no questions, no homework, low light/sound; 2) offer a predictable snack + movement combo (he's likely hungry and under-moved); 3) delay every non-urgent demand until after dinner; 4) narrate what you see ("your body looks really done") so he doesn't have to find the words.
If you only try one thing this week, I'd start with the quiet decompression window — it's the smallest change and usually the one that softens everything that follows.
Want to sketch out what that first hour could look like tomorrow?
LightMap™
Track tough moments. Find what's underneath.
✦ Bright Spot
▤ Story Note
Sam · 7 days
He knew it wasn't real but it scared him and he asked for parents to check…
Intensity 3/5
Intensity 3/5
Dropped backpack, cried about homework.
Intensity 4/5
Stalled at the door for 20 min before school.
Intensity 3/5
Covered ears at the grocery store, needed to leave.
Intensity 4/5
Intensity 2/5
View all in History →
Why LightMap
Why you needed LightMap yesterday
Not a tracker. A way through the nights that feel like they will never end.
01
“It's 6:40 and it's happening again, and you have nowhere to put it.”
Somewhere to put all of it.
Log it in the moment and it stops looping in your head. You get something to do besides react, and over time fewer moments turn into full storms.
02
“You lie awake replaying it, sure you handled it wrong.”
See the pattern. Drop the shame.
You were never guessing badly. You were guessing blind. Once you can see what keeps setting it off, you respond to what is actually happening, and the whole house feels different.
03
“Fifteen minutes with the pediatrician, and you cannot remember what March was like.”
Your child, explained to the whole care team.
One secure link shows the therapist, the OT and the school team what you have been living. You stop describing three months from memory.
04
“Why does she do this? Nobody has ever told you.”
What is really going on in your child's brain.
Every pattern comes with the science underneath it, in plain words. You learn why the meltdown happened, not just that it did.
05
“One of you says defiance. The other says anxiety. Dinner goes quiet.”
It settles the argument in your own house.
The log ends the debate. You are both looking at the same picture instead of two different memories of the same week.
06
“The day you are certain nothing is getting better.”
Proof that it is.
LightMap keeps the good stretches too. On the worst day you can scroll back and see the week that worked.
Card required. Nothing is charged until day 14, and you can cancel anytime.
Watch me use it
The whole platform in ten minutes, the way I'd show a friend at my kitchen table.
This walkthrough uses LightMap's desktop view so every detail is easy to see. On your phone, LightMap installs as an app on your home screen, with its own mobile layout designed for quick, easy logging. Same account, two views, each built for its screen.
Every moment you log makes the next one easier.
- 1Capture the momentLog the hard moment once it's passed.
- 2See the patternLightMap connects it to what came before — and surfaces what's underneath.
- 3Muse, informedA thinking partner that already knows your child — not a generic one.
- 4Relief in the momentCoaching that actually fits, exactly when you need it.
- 5The right toolsStories, guides, and education matched to this child's patterns.
Each moment you log makes the loop sharper — more specific to this child, every time.
The flagship of membership
Go Deeper with Muse
Once you have a few weeks of real entries, Muse reads all of it at once. Every moment, your stories, the health record, your bright spots, and any evaluation reports you have uploaded. Then it lays out the mechanisms that could be underneath the pattern, with the evidence for and against each one pulled from your own dated entries, the questions worth bringing to your care team, and what to log next.
It shows its work
Every hypothesis cites your own moments, by date, so you can check it.
It argues both sides
Evidence for and evidence against, because a pattern that only fits one story is rarely the whole story.
It travels with you
Export any analysis as a polished PDF for a co-parent, therapist, or doctor.
Deep analysis is hypothesis generation for you and your child's clinical team. It is never a diagnosis.
Read a full sample report, section by section
Questions parents ask about deep analysis
Muse reads everything you have logged for your child. Every moment, your stories, the health record, your bright spots, and any clinical reports you have uploaded. Then it proposes possible mechanisms that could explain the patterns, with the evidence for and against each one drawn from your own entries, questions to bring to your care team, and what to log next.
Your child's reports are private. They are stored encrypted, only your account can access them, and they are never shared or made public. Privacy
What using it looks like
How LightMap actually works
Four steps. The whole thing lives on your phone.
Log a hard moment in about twenty seconds
Open LightMap, tap what happened, tap what was going on around it. That is the whole log. One-handed, works while you are still standing in the hallway. No essay, no journaling.
Patterns start surfacing after about three logs
LightMap begins connecting triggers, times of day, and settings almost immediately. By the third or fourth entry you are already seeing the shape of what has been happening.
Ask Muse anything, grounded in your child
Muse is your private thinking partner, not a generic chatbot. She has read every moment you have logged for your specific child and answers with that context. Ask what a pattern might mean, what to try before pickup, or how to talk to a teacher. Calm, non-clinical, always in your corner.
Hand a report to your child's team in seconds
Generate a secure, read-only pre-session brief for pediatricians, therapists, OTs, teachers, or a co-parent. One link. Revoke it anytime. See a sample report →
What it costs
Free for two weeks. Then $99 a year.
Membership is $99 a year, our best value, $56.88 less than paying monthly, a 36% saving, about 27¢ a day, or $12.99 a month if you would rather go month to month. The trial is long enough for LightMap to learn your child's patterns before you decide. Paid members can cancel anytime in one tap from Settings.
Birch & Light Membership includes
- ✓ LightMap with unlimited logging for every child in your care
- ✓ Pattern insights, weekly recaps, and Muse, your private thinking partner
- ✓ Shareable read-only reports for the care team
- ✓ Foundations: The Birch & Light Course, eight video lessons, a $79 training included at no extra cost
- ✓ Every workbook in the Toolkit: the full Fast Brain series plus the What's Underneath field guide, $30 of downloads included
- ✓ The full story library, all 32 titles, with Deep Dive podcasts for each
- ✓ Every story download, printable, and parent guide
- ✓ Installs as an app on your phone and desktop
$109 of courses and workbooks are included with membership, before you count LightMap itself.
Start my 14 days freeYour 14-day free trial starts when you add a card at sign-up. Nothing is charged until day 14, and you can cancel anytime in Settings. After that it is $12.99/month or $99/year.
Questions parents ask
Before you start
Is this a medical or clinical tool?
No. LightMap supports emotional wellness and helps you spot patterns. It does not diagnose or treat anything. For clinical concerns, work with a qualified professional. LightMap is designed to make those conversations easier by giving you a real record to bring in.
Is my child's data private?
Yes. Your data lives in your account. Never sold, never shared. You choose when to hand a read-only report to a therapist, teacher, or co-parent, and you can revoke access anytime.
How is Muse different from ChatGPT?
ChatGPT can remember things you’ve told it. Muse has your child’s LightMap. She can work from the moments you’ve logged — including what happened, when, what came before it, what helped, and patterns across time. It’s not just memory. It’s a structured history built specifically around your child.
Do I have to log every day?
No. LightMap is built for the moments that matter, meltdowns, refusals, shutdowns, bright spots. Log when something happens. Patterns emerge from a handful of real entries, not from perfect daily discipline.
Can more than one parent use it?
Yes. Invite a co-parent, caregiver, or therapist with secure read-only access from Settings.
The next hard moment won't wait.
Start with one moment. 14 days free, card required at sign-up.
No account or card to begin, and these first three moments are LightMap only. Create your free account to keep them. Your 14-day free trial of full Birch & Light Membership starts when you add a card, and nothing is charged until day 14.