Lavalings are colorful, fun Mightier creatures that kids collect as they play Mightier. Each Lavaling has a name, unique personality and emotions, strengths, and things they are working on.
Lavalings are Mightier’s way of providing encouragement and rewards to kids, while also communicating awareness, practice, and emotional control. But there’s a lot more to Lavalings than just a way to communicate emotions.
In their hot state, Lavalings are fiery lava creatures, and when they cool down, they turn into rocks and gems. Kids collect Lavalings by exploring the Home screen, finding hot Lavalings, and tapping the ones they want to cool. Cooling Lavalings requires Snowflakes, which kids earn as rewards for bringing their heart rate down to the Blue Zone while they play games. When a Lavaling is cooled, it transforms from hot lava into a cool rock so it can be collected.
Kids keep track of all of the Lavalings they have collected in their Lavaling Collection Book. Players can even collect multiples of Lavalings! When you collect more than one of the same Lavaling, you unlock the ability to change your Profile Portrait into that Lavaling. Capturing 2x, 5x, and 10x of a Lavaling lets kids add special rings around their Lavaling Profile Portrait.
How do kids interact with Lavalings?
During gameplay, Lavalings make their way onto the screen when your child’s heart rate rises and they enter their Red Zone. They are the visual cue to say, “Hey, your heart rate is up!”
There’s nothing wrong with a child’s heart rate going up during play. It is going to happen, and we want it to happen. This is how kids learn what causes changes in their heart rate and how they can control that.
To collect a Lavaling, your child takes very important and intentional steps that tie directly to their learning:
- They recognize that their heart rate is up and choose to do something about it. Whether they press Gizmo (the on-screen heart rate gauge) to pause the game, or they breathe through the Red Zone while playing, they are learning to recognize how their body feels when their heart rate is up, and ways they can bring it down themselves. Imagine what that would mean in real life!
- They actively and intentionally do something to bring their heart rate down. For most kids, this might look like Deep Breathing, Progressive Muscle Relaxation, Crossing the Midline, or Tracing the Line as these are the cool-down strategies taught in Mightier. But anything your child does to bring their heart rate down is fantastic!
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When your child successfully returns their heart rate to the Blue Zone, they are rewarded by collecting Snowflakes. The Snowflakes they earn can be used later on to cool and collect Lavalings. Collecting Snowflakes for cooling down also reinforces for your child that, "Hey, you're really good at this. You are really good at bringing your heart rate down". Building that pride and confidence in children in their ability to regulate their heart rate on their terms is incredibly important for their later ability to translate this skill into real-life situations.
Cooling Individual Lavalings
Hot Lavalings live in the wild, all over the Mightier worlds.
To cool a Lavaling, kids go to the Home screen and search the current world for hot Lavalings that need cooling. Cooling a Lavaling requires Snowflakes and some Lavalings take less Snowflakes to chill than others! Kids tap wild Lavalings to see how many Snowflakes it will take to chill that Lavaling. If kids have accumulated enough Snowflakes, they can chill that Lavaling right there! If not, they can continue playing games and earning Snowflakes. Players earn more Snowflakes as rewards for bringing their heart rate down to the Blue Zone. When a Lavaling is cooled, it transforms from hot lava into a cool rock so it can be collected.