Alexa Skills Kit > Get Deeper > Custom Skills > Alexa Kid Skills
Create kid-friendly voice experiences that foster curiosity, create memorable moments, and are simple and natural to use. With the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK), you can build fun and educational custom skills for kids under the age of 13. Developers have additional eligibility requirements when building custom skills in the kids category.
Custom Skills
Kid skills are a category of custom skills. Use custom skills to deliver nearly any use case.
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited
With Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, customers can access a selection of kid-friendly skills out of the box. This includes a mix of curated kid skills available in the Alexa Skills Store, as well as premium skill experiences only available via FreeTime Unlimited at this time.
Kids In-Skill Purchasing
Offer subscription content or one-time purchases with kids in-skill purchasing (ISP). Using the Alexa app, parents can enable and disable voice purchasing in kid skills, and can also choose whether they would like to approve each purchase individually.
Nickelodeon Transports Kids to World of SpongeBob
Nickelodeon's skill places kids behind the counter at the Krusty Krab diner where they take orders that they then have to remember. The SpongeBob Challenge skill features 70 characters from the show including Patrick, Plankton, and Mr. Krabs.
Sesame Street Enables Kids to Call Elmo with Alexa
Sesame Street built a skill that enables kids to call Elmo to learn about the letter of the day or play hide-and-seek. In addition to Elmo's voice, the skill is chock-full of silly sounds that kids love, like boings, oinks, and horn honks.
Tellables’ Tips for Fostering Consistent Customer Engagement
Tellables, the developer behind Tricky Genie and Listening Comprehension Practice, created three popular story-based skills designed to keep children engaged while developing their critical-thinking skills. Learn how they design successful skills for kids, from starting with the kid audience in mind to consistently adding fresh content.
Ready to build? Read our whitepaper to learn six tips for building stellar kid skills for Alexa, then start building your skill with the Alexa Skills Kit.
What is meant by a kid skill?
A kid skill is any Alexa skill that is intended for children under the age of 13 (if distributed in the US or India), or under the age of 16 (if distributed in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, Mexico, or Australia).
Do I need to do anything differently when developing kid skills?
Yes.
- We will only publish kid skills in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, India, Mexico, and Australia at this time.
- You are required to identify if your skill is child directed by selecting ‘Yes’ to the question, “Is this skill directed to or does it target children under the age of 13?” on the Privacy and Compliance tab in the Amazon Developer Console.
- Your skill must not include any advertising, make any products, content or services available for purchase, collect any personal information from end users, or include content not suitable for all ages.
- Some categories of skills, such as Kid Skills, have additional eligibility requirements for developers.
Do product manufacturers that integrate Alexa Voice Service (AVS) need to do anything differently now that kid skills are available for Alexa?
No. Device manufacturers do not need to do anything differently to allow their customers to access child-directed skills.
Can I now create an Alexa-enabled product for kids using AVS?
At this time, the Alexa Voice Service does not support child-directed devices.
I’m interested in Amazon FreeTime Unlimited. How do I get started?
Developers interested in FreeTime on Alexa can contact freetime-skills@amazon.com.
What is verifiable parental consent?
Verifiable parental is required in the United States under a federal law known as The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act (“COPPA”) and is applicable to operators of websites or online services directed at children under 13 years of age who are located in the United States. Verifiable parental consent requires that before operators of these websites and services can collect personal information from a child under the age of 13 in the US, the parent or guardian of the child must be notified and must authorize any collection, use and/or disclosure of the personal information. COPPA is designed to give parents control over the information collected from their young children online. Learn more about COPPA and verifiable parental consent.
When I’m testing my new skill in development that is marked as “child-directed,” how do I give permission to use my skill?
If you’re unable to give permission in the Alexa app, you can directly go to the Amazon Parental Consent page to give permission.
What is Amazon FreeTime on Alexa?
Amazon FreeTime on Alexa includes a new set of parental controls and family-focused features such as explicit song filtering, bedtime limits, educational Q&A, household communications, positive reinforcement for using the word “please,” disabled voice purchasing, and more—for free. Amazon FreeTime on Alexa will roll out to existing Echo, Echo Dot, and Echo Plus owners in the US via a free, over-the-air software update starting May 9, 2018. Learn more.
What is Amazon FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa?
Amazon FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa is an all-new content subscription service just for Echo devices. The service includes access to over 300 Audible kids’ books; kid-friendly, ad-free radio stations and playlists; character alarms; premium Alexa skills from Disney, Nickelodeon, National Geographic, and more—starting at $2.99 per month for Prime members, and no additional cost for existing FreeTime Unlimited members. Amazon FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa is available in the US only at this time. Learn more.
What is Echo Dot Kids Edition?
Echo Dot Kids Edition combines an Echo Dot, FreeTime features and parental controls, 1 year of FreeTime Unlimited, a kid-friendly case, and a 2-year worry-free guarantee for $79.99. It is available for purchase in the US only at this time. Learn more.
How do I get my Alexa skill into the curated FreeTime experience?
FreeTime Unlimited on Alexa features a selection of kid-friendly skills out of the box. This includes a mix of curated kid skills available in the Alexa Skills Store, as well as premium skill experiences only available via FreeTime Unlimited at this time. Not all Alexa kid skills will be part of the out of box experience, but parents can add any third-party skill they’d like to make available to their kids via the Parent Dashboard. Developers interested in FreeTime on Alexa can contact freetime-skills@amazon.com.
Do customers need to do anything differently to use kid skills?
Yes. For kid skills in the US, Amazon needs permission to collect personal information from children. The first time a customer asks Alexa to enable a kid skill, Alexa will ask a parent to give permission by following the steps in their Alexa app. The Alexa app will ask the parent to verify themselves using a one-time SMS code sent to the mobile phone number in their Amazon account, or by entering the security code of the credit card in their Amazon account. Parental consent will be saved, so access to kid skills will not require this verification again. After consent has been granted, customers will not be asked for consent each time they initiate a kid skill.
Do customers need to do anything differently to use kid skills?
Yes. Access to kid skills are turned off by default in the UK, Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Japan, India, Mexico, and Australia. When a customer in one of these countries tries to enable a kid skill for the first time, Alexa will ask the customer to turn all kid skills on by following the steps in the Alexa app. Access to all kid skills only needs to be turned on once. They will not need to turn on access each time they enable subsequent kid skills. All kid skills can be turned off at any time in the Settings menu of the Alexa app. When turned off, kid skills cannot be used on the customer’s account.
