Virtual Play – a Unique Tool for Families to Stay in Contact: YooCasa

“You never send me pictures of the kids”

“We can’t afford to go see Grandma this year”

“What did you do today?”

This scenario is common for many families that are separated, whether it’s across town or across the globe. A new tool has become available to help bridge this gap for families that’s private and offers more than just emails or wall postings like other online tools.

Yoocasa, a French company co-founded by Axel Cateland, offers all kinds of online activities for families to help bridge the gap in distance or time. Live since early 2010, the site allows family members to connect with each other similar to Facebook but all the activity is private and strict controls are in place requiring parental approval for any children under 18. The name is a modification of “your house” – yoocasa, like going home.

Yoocasa offers photo sharing, video calling and messaging, a family calendar to track where everyone is, wish lists so family members can see what people want for birthdays and holidays and thus, coordinate gift-giving, as well as the most unique feature – games. The games they offer can actually be played virtually such as concentration, checkers or car racing as well as coloring a picture together – you can actually see each other’s pencils! The best part: the service is FREE!

Cateland is divorced and his young son lives far away with his mother. In between his son’s visits, Cateland wanted a way he could interact with him beyond a nightly phone call. According to Cateland’s work with Professor Sylvain Missonnier head of the Psychology Lab at the University of Paris, young children do not understand the question “What did you do today?” which is what parents always ask.

“It’s the worst question we could ask,” Cateland tells Family First. According to Missonnier, young kids think parents know everything they know, so when we ask what they did, they think we should already know. For them, “only ‘now’ is important,” says Cateland, so they have no new information to offer. “They don’t understand (the question), they don’t care and they think we already know.”

To offer a richer experience for his son, Cateland came up with the concept of virtual play. That way, he can spend a few minutes with his son interacting in an educational, stimulating environment on the computer instead of having a one-sided conversation on the phone.

The site was originally written in French but they also offer an English interface as well so families across the globe can communicate. He mentioned a friend whose family lives in Russia and does not speak French. English is a common language between the two families so they wrote the English version.

The tool is very simple to use with bright colors and fun retro graphics. Cateland hopes to eventually offer links to Amazon for wish list purchasing as well as to photo printing sites as well. They are also working on offering a centralized address book so you would have all your family members’ contact information in one centralized place (easier holiday card addressing!).  

They don’t accept advertising, again to help keep things private. The true target for the tool is kids ages 4-12 and Cateland said, “I’d feel guilty putting ads on the site,” because of so much “gimme” marketing that happens. They also keep the number of family member connections low, unlike sites such as Facebook.

Once a child is identified as under 18, they then connect with their parents. After a parent is identified as either mom or dad, parental controls are activated so that anyone who contacts the child must be approved by a parent. This way, any potential content the child sees comes from people the parents have approved to contact their children.

Cateland says most connections are meant for families but he does know of situations where children who have been separated from old friends may connect with friends too – such as a long-term hospitalization that is far from home.

My favorite example of the use of this tool was from some feedback Cateland got about how one family uses this site. Cateland said a mother contacted him to tell him, instead of watching television in the evenings while she makes dinner, her children play on the computer for a few minutes with their grandparents, who live a short distance away. Even though they aren’t far away, those few minutes are spent having quality family time instead of watching television. Yoocasa helps this family bond and learn from each other – what a wonderful way to stay close!