By SHERI STAFFORD
Contributing Writer
“Eat your supper, brush your teeth, and clean up your toys.” If you have children, these are words you have spoken countless times. Getting young children to behave well can be a challenge. But thanks to one local family, help is on the way. The Harrison family, mom Tania, dad James, their seven-year-old daughter Symonne, and the family’s best friend, Julie Vaccarelli, are bringing a new patent-pending product to life, “Bear on the ChairTM,” a year-round behavior buddy.
The cute and cuddly teddy bear comes with its own white chair and two Velcro patches, a smile face and a frown face, which attach to the bear’s shirt, and a story. When the child behaves well, the bear wears the smile face, reinforcing positive behavior. If the child needs to work on a behavior, the bear’s patch is “magically” changed to the frown face, letting the child know the bear is “sad.”
The Harrison family saw a need for a product to motivate good behavior and felt children sometimes need a little extra help learning those behaviors. During their family brainstorming sessions, the Bear on the ChairTM was invented. The bear is a helpful parenting aid that helps promote good behavior every day of the year.
“The concept is to help children master important life skills by understanding how their own actions can make someone happy while others can make them sad. Their self-esteem is bolstered through improved behavior all year long,” added Tania.
The child will choose a special name for their bear, register their bear on the website, and print out an official adoption certificate.
“I really wanted to have a cute and cuddly friend of my own. I thought it would be fun for the bear to be happy when I do good things. Then, everyone else would know I have been good too, just by looking at my bear,” said Symonne. Symonne is the 2013-2014 “Little Miss North Royalton.”
“Bringing this product to life has been a great journey as a family and a dream come true. From its early concept to execution, every hurdle has made the process so rewarding,” said Tania. “My daughter is the creative mind behind this product, and she has been part of every detail down to using her own handwriting in the logo and co-authoring the story.”
The product has been approved for launch with Kickstarter, a platform where you can pre-order new inventions. Interested buyers can visit www.bearonthechair.com and click on the link to connect to Kickstarter. Packages range from $5 to $1,000 and include special, one-of-a-kind rewards along with an early opportunity to purchase the bear. The Kickstarter launch runs now until Thursday, May 8. The family is confident they will sell all 2,000 bears from their initial production run. Once the Kickstarter campaign has ended, you can continue pre-ordering the product from their website. “It is a prestigious honor to be able to launch through Kickstarter. This brings credibility to Bear on the Chair™ and will demonstrate that it is a desired product in the marketplace. We are thrilled and excited to begin fulfillment of orders,” said James.
The family is using social media including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Pinterest to promote product interest. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, and they are receiving nationwide attention. Locally, Stefani Schaefer from Fox 8 News in the Morning has invited the family to appear on the show, which will air Tuesday, April 29, at 8 a.m. For more information visit www.bearonthechair.com.