We are excited to announce that Alexa now supports kid skills in Australia and New Zealand. Aussie and Kiwi developers can now use the Australia and New Zealand Alexa Skills Kit to create skills that educate, entertain, and engage kids. From interactive games to instructional skills, you can create engaging kid-friendly voice experiences that will entertain the whole family and make them available in the Australia Alexa Skills Store.

How It Works

Parents can turn on kid skills using the Alexa app. When a kid skill is enabled for the first time, Alexa will ask the parent to turn on access to all kid skills by enabling the “Allow Kids Skills” toggle under Settings / Kids Skills in the Alexa app. Access to kid skills only need to be turned on once to enable and use all kid skills on the parent’s account. Like with any other Alexa skill, each kid skill will need to be enabled separately. Parents can turn off all kid skills at any time by disabling the “Allow Kids Skills” toggle in the Settings menu of their Alexa app. When turned off, kid skills cannot be used on the parent’s account.

Join developers around the world who have already created engaging and award-winning Alexa kid skills for the whole family. Get inspired from the winners of the Alexa Skills Challenge: Kids.

3 Resources to Get Started

You have a unique opportunity to reach a whole new audience with your skills, as kids are quick to take to voice experiences and talk to Alexa in a way that’s uniquely their own. This means there are a few key things to keep in mind as you build kid skills—from vocabulary to style of speech to areas of interest. Here are 3 recommended resources to help you start building engaging kid skills:

1. Download our guide on 6 Tips for Building Stellar Kid Skills and watch our video for step-by-step tips and examples.
2. Check out our tutorials and templates to get inspired, including the Mix Master Kid Skill, Interactive Adventure Games, Quiz Games, and Trivia Games.
3. Review the Certification Guidelines for Kid Skills for best practices to ensure your skill is published smoothly.

Build Engaging Skills, Earn Developer Perks

Publish a new skill this month, including your engaging kid skill, and earn an exclusive Alexa developer t-shirt. If more than 30 unique users use your skill in the first 30 days, you could also earn an Echo Dot. Learn more about our promotion and start building today.