Why I couldn't leave this alone.
I grew up in a house where nobody had these talks. Not the body safety one. Not the online safety one. Not the big feelings one. So I had to piece them together the long way. Then I started watching the kids I love head into the same gap. I built Trailies so the parents in my life had what mine didn't — the actual words, not just the intention.
Same age. Same situations. Completely different outcomes.
With family in Germany, Australia, and a dozen places between — and friends scattered everywhere else — I kept seeing the same scene replay in different languages. Kids losing it. Parents winging it. Everyone exhausted by Tuesday.
Some kids had a way back to calm. Others unraveled. Some kids had words for what was happening to them. Others didn't even know that what was happening had a name.
It took me straight back to my own childhood. Nobody taught me how to work through anger. Nobody handed me language for my body, or for what was and wasn't okay. I pieced it together the long way. Even then it took years.
And now I was watching the kids I love head into that same gap.
The difference wasn't the kid. It wasn't discipline. It was whether the adult had the words.
Once you see a gap that big, you can't unsee it.
I kept replaying it in my head. How different my own life might have been if someone had handed me a script when I was little — for the body, for the feelings, for the conversations that actually matter most.
Then I'd picture the kids I love growing up without it. Patching it together the same way I did.
It didn't sit right.
Not another parenting book that sits on a shelf. Not a system that takes a weekend to learn. Just something a parent could grab on a Tuesday and actually use that night.
That's why Trailies exists.
It started with one deck. Then parents told me what they were really freezing on.
The first tool was a deck of cards for big feelings. Help a kid name what they were feeling. Give the parent words for the moment. Something to actually do when everything was unraveling at 7:32 AM.
Parents tested it. Passed it to friends. Friends passed it on. Suddenly people I'd never met were asking, "where can I get this?"
Then a different kind of message started coming. Parents asking for the body safety talk. The online safety talk. The hard ones. The conversations they'd been putting off for two, three, six years because they didn't know how to start without making it weird or scary.
Parents weren't just freezing on tantrums. They were freezing on the talks that actually keep a kid safe.
That's when Trailies became something bigger than one deck. It became the place parents come for the talks they'd been avoiding — done in five minutes, at bedtime, with the exact words ready to go.
Three Talks every kid needs.
Each one has scripts written word-for-word by your kid's age. Each one is built on PCIT, CBT, attachment theory, and decades of research from people who've spent careers studying this. None of them take longer than five minutes to start.
The Body Safety Talk
The 7 rules that keep a kid safe — and the exact words to teach them. Most parents have covered 2 of the 7. The missing ones are the ones that matter most.
Start this talk →
The Online Safety Talk
Roblox. Snapchat. Discord. The platforms your kid is on, the predators they're not ready for, and the exact words to start the talk before something happens.
Start this talk →
The Big Feelings Deck
For when they're losing it over the wrong cereal at 7:32 AM. 200+ cards your kid actually wants to use — so you stop yelling and they actually bounce back.
Start this talk →Four things, no exceptions.
The rules every Talk has to clear before we ship it. The ones we won't bend, even when it would be easier.
Science-backed (but speakable).
Built on PCIT, CBT, attachment theory, and trauma-aware frameworks. Translated for the 7:30 AM kitchen, not the clinic. If a card sounds like a textbook, it gets rewritten until it sounds like a person.
Kid-first, always.
If a kid doesn't actually want to use it, it's gone. No charts pretending to be fun. No worksheets disguised as games. We've killed plenty of "good ideas" because the kids in our pilots couldn't sit through them.
Radical empathy.
Made for parents who are trying — imperfectly, beautifully — to figure it out. We've never met one who needed more guilt. The voice on every card is the friend in the kitchen, not the expert at the lectern.
Give forward.
Every Talk you buy, another family gets one free. The single mom on a double shift, the teacher with 30 kids, the family in the hardest season of their lives. Protecting a kid shouldn't depend on a credit card.
Built by a cycle-breaker. Built with the experts.
I'm not a therapist. I'm not a teacher. I'm a guy who couldn't shake the question "why isn't there something better?" So I got the certifications, did the research, and went and found people who'd been doing this work for decades.
Jonah
Started Trailies because the kids in his life were heading into the same gap he grew up in. Writes most of the cards. Reads every review. Still gets a little emotional when a parent emails about their first Talk.
The teachers + coaches
Decades of meltdowns before lunch between them. They test every Talk in actual rooms full of actual kids — so we ship things that work in the wild, not just on paper.
The therapists + experts
Psychologists, licensed family therapists, early childhood specialists. They make sure every script is safe, evidence-based, and built to grow skills — not shame.
Since launch.
Every Talk you buy, another family gets one free.
The single mom working double shifts deserves the same shot at protecting her kid as everyone else. So we send a free copy with every order. No paperwork. No charity language. Just one cycle-breaker helping the next.
See how it works →We built Trailies so you don't have to wing it.
Pick a Talk. Open the first card tonight. Five minutes at bedtime. A conversation you'd been avoiding for two years, finally done.