As a busy Mum of four, always juggling work, school, the kids, housework and the many, many clubs and hobbies the children have each day, finding the time to sit down together each night to talk about our day can be difficult. And even then, between eating our tea, completing homework and seeking out lost dance shoes and football tops, we are lucky if the children can even remember what they’ve had for lunch that day, let alone any quality conversation!

So imagine if there was a sure fire way to kick start conversation in a family friendly way, in a time scale to suit you and your schedule, right there in your home?  And this is where Yak Talk Back comes into play and, believe me when I say, it has been a game changer!

What is Yak Talk Back

Yak Talk Back is an entertaining, interactive story experience designed for families with children age 5-12 years accessible via Amazon Alexa. The whole concept is centred around Yak, a Himalayan mountain yak who got fed up with a lack of conversation with the other yaks and set off in search of someone to talk to.

Eventually he came across a farmer with a shiny new Alexa speaker and found he was able to connect with people right across the world and ask them his questions – the very same questions you will hear when you use the Yak Talk Back experience with your family. 

Presented in a game like format, Yak Talk Back provides a supportive environment in which young children can express their feelings whilst developing their social, conversational and critical thinking skills, encapsulated by a lovable character who they can really allow into their hearts and homes.

The concept is simple: each session is led by Yak and consists of a short story and three questions, specifically designed to encourage families to express their feelings, share their day, and have fun together. Each day you will find new questions and content, including seasonal and topical questions, positive responses and encouragement throughout, original music and rich character voices.

So how does it work?

The great thing about Yak Talk Back is firstly that it is completely free to use on all Alexa-enabled devices. Whether you’re using it on your Alexa devices, your smart televisions or your mobile phones, it’s so easy to use and guaranteed to kick start conversations and veer away from one word answers.

To launch you can use simple commands as follows –

· “Alexa, launch Yak Talk Back” – Starts a new conversation with Yak.
· “Alexa, next question” – When you are ready for the next question.
· “Alexa, more time” – When you need more time to chat as a family before moving on to another question.
· “Alexa, Ask Yak Talk Back to Play a Song” – Plays a fun remix of the catchy Yak Theme Song.

Things we love

As a family we have absolutely loved using Yak Talk Back, not just during meal times but during these lazy days of lock down when it’s been particularly hard to think of anything new to share given we have spent every minute of every day together! At a time when our children’s worlds have been turned upside down, it has never been more important to make sure they are still talking to us, sharing their feelings, voicing there concerns and asking questions, and Yak has a real knack of encouraging them to talk and allow us to work out what’s going on in their little heads during this time.

There are so many things we love about Yak but together with the children we were able to list our favourites:

3 Questions 

We love that each session asks three questions, the perfect number of questions to have a quality conversation but not too many so that it becomes a chore. As a family of six we find those three questions take around twenty minutes depending on how much they want to share which is achievable in even the busiest of households.

Oldest goes first 

With three children very close in age there is always an argument when it comes to who goes first and yet Yak has one rule that the oldest always goes first. He specifies this after each question to reinforce the rule amongst the children which means they are more than happy to take turns and follow his instructions. As a parent that’s one less argument to deal with!

Sharing our day

Usually when we ask the children what they did at school that day, they will instantly reply. “I can’t remember”, I think that’s standard for most children, right? But Yak has a great way of wording his questions to encourage the children to reveal more about their day than they ordinarily would. For example, he may ask. “What’s something you know today that you didn’t know yesterday?” which may lead on to them taking about discovering they enjoyed a new food for the first time at lunch, or telling us about a fact they learned about space, or Ancient Egypt, or a shared moment between them and a friend. It’s lovely to hear their days unfold through these little snippets and rewarding for us as parents to share in their day.

No time limits

Despite having a set format the wonderful thing about Yak Talk Back is that there are no time limits. Once Yak has asked the first question you can talk for two minutes or twenty without feeling rushed or wrapping things up ready for the next question – Yak will only ask the next question when you are all ready.

Email Yak 

A unique feature of Yak Talk Back is that the children can email Yak with any questions they may have as well as their names and location and possibly hear Yak give them a personal hello during one of his sessions at a future date!

Use it anywhere

We love that you can use Yak Talk Back anywhere and when lockdown is over the children are so excited to take Yak with us on our travels. Accessed in seconds via my smart phone, Yak can ask about our day wherever we are in the world and I think it will be a lovely way to stay connected to our home routine when we are away for any length of time.

The theme tune 

The children absolutely love the theme tune and will ask Alexa to play it throughout the day, singing along and dancing away. It’s lovely to see how much they have embraced the Yak Talk Back experience and how they absolutely believe that somewhere in the Himalayas a talkative yak is sitting and asking them these questions each day.

Would we recommend it?

I think it goes without saying that we absolutely love Yak Talk Back and I can see him being a big part of our day for years to come. For children who struggle to speak up, children who love to chat just as much as Yak does, busy families who struggle to find time to sit down and have quality conversations, or those simply looking to switch up their daily chats, Yak Talk Back is just such a lovely concept and I would recommend it hands down to every single family to try.

You can enable Yak Talk Back on your Alexa devices or smart phone here.

** We were asked to review Yak Talk Back and have been compensated for our time. All thoughts and opinions are my own **