Why I Built PaintPal: A Mom's Take on Screen Time That Actually Connects Kids

By Elisa Heiken · 2026-02-11

My kids are obsessed with screens. Yours probably are too. That's not a hot take, it's just Tuesday.

But I started noticing something specific. FaceTime calls with friends and grandparents were awkward. My kids would hold the phone and just stare. Long silences. Weird fidgeting. They wanted to connect, but the format gave them nothing to work with. Video calls are basically two people looking at each other, and that's surprisingly hard for a five-year-old.

Then I'd watch those same kids sit down at a table with paper and crayons, and everything changed. They'd talk, laugh, make up stories about what they were drawing. They'd collaborate without being told to. The drawing gave them something to do with their hands and something to talk about. It made being together easy.

I kept thinking: what if they could do that even when they're not at the same table?

A book that put words to what I already felt

Around this time I read Jonathan Haidt's "The Anxious Generation." The book makes a compelling case that not all screen time is the same. There's a real difference between a kid passively scrolling alone and a kid actively doing something with another person through a screen. Screen time that reinforces genuine human connection can be valuable. Screen time that replaces it is the problem.

That idea stuck with me. I didn't want to build another app that puts kids in a bubble. I wanted the screen to be a bridge between them, not a wall.

Everything I tried was disappointing

I downloaded a lot of drawing and coloring apps with my kids. Most fell into one of two categories.

The first: way too complex. Layers, advanced brush engines, interfaces clearly designed for adults or older kids. My four-year-old would open the app, tap around for thirty seconds, and hand the phone back.

The second: simple enough, but loaded with ads and subscription pressure. Every other tap was an upsell. The "free" experience was basically a demo. And none of them let kids draw together.

I wanted something simple, free, collaborative, and genuinely built for young children. It didn't exist. So I started building it.

Why I was maybe the right person for this

I have a doctorate in psychology. I went to grad school planning to become a clinician, but life took a different turn and I ended up in tech instead. I never got licensed or practiced, but the training stayed with me. I understand how kids develop, what makes shared experiences feel meaningful, and why creative play matters for connection.

I also know how to build products. Years of working in tech taught me how to design things that are simple and intuitive, especially for people who aren't going to read a tutorial first. PaintPal is where those two worlds met.

Built for my own kids

Here's the honest version: I built PaintPal because I wanted it to exist for my own family. I wanted my kids to be able to draw with their friends when they couldn't be in the same room. I wanted something I could hand them that wasn't going to blast ads at them or require a subscription to do anything useful.

They are obsessed with it. They ask to "do PaintPal" constantly. That reaction is exactly what I was going for.

What PaintPal actually is

It's a free drawing and coloring app for kids on iPhone and iPad, with a web version at paintpal.fun. The core idea is real-time collaborative drawing with built-in video chat. One kid creates a room, shares a link, and everyone draws on the same canvas at the same time — while seeing and talking to each other on video. It's the thing that was missing from those awkward FaceTime calls: something to actually do together.

It includes a gallery of coloring book pages that kids can swap between and color together, simple drawing tools designed for little hands, and the ability to save shared creations right to the camera roll. There's an optional $2.99 one-time purchase to unlock more coloring pages, but the core experience is completely free. No ads. No subscriptions. No creepy data collection.

Try it with your family

PaintPal started as a side project for my family. It still feels that way, honestly, even as more people have started using it. If your kids love to draw, or if they struggle with the "just sit and talk" format of video calls, I'd love for you to give it a try. It's free on the App Store, or you can open paintpal.fun in any browser and start drawing in seconds.