Terms of Service

Effective Date: March 19, 2026

1. What Thistle Is

Thistle is a web application that helps parents and caregivers of demand-sensitive children by generating personalized daily parenting guidance. You log observations about your child, and Thistle uses artificial intelligence to produce tailored daily guides, weekly summaries, and on-demand advice grounded in your family's real context.

Thistle is not a medical device, therapy service, or clinical tool. The guidance Thistle provides is informational and educational only. It is not a substitute for professional medical, psychological, therapeutic, or educational advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always consult qualified professionals — including your child's occupational therapist, pediatrician, psychologist, or other care providers — for decisions about your child's health, development, or care.

Thistle's AI-generated content may occasionally be inaccurate, incomplete, or inappropriate for your specific situation. You are responsible for evaluating whether any suggestion is right for your family.

2. Eligibility and Accounts

You must be at least 18 years old to use Thistle. By creating an account, you represent that you are a parent, legal guardian, or authorized caregiver of any child whose information you provide.

Thistle is currently available by invitation only. You may not transfer, sell, or share your invitation or account access with others.

You are responsible for the accuracy of the information you provide about yourself and your child. You are also responsible for all activity that occurs under your account.

3. How Thistle Uses AI

Thistle uses large language models (LLMs) provided by third-party AI services to generate daily guides, weekly summaries, advice responses, and other content. Here is how that works:

Your data is processed by AI. The observations you log, your child's profile information, and your onboarding answers are used as input to generate personalized guidance. This data is sent to third-party AI providers for processing.

We protect identifying information. Before your data reaches an AI provider, we replace your child's name and other identifying details with generic placeholders. The AI model sees "[CHILD]" rather than your child's real name. We restore the real names in the response before showing it to you.

AI output is reviewed for safety. Every piece of AI-generated content passes through a multi-layer safety review before you see it, including automated pattern matching and a separate AI safety evaluation. Content that fails safety checks is blocked or regenerated.

AI can be wrong. Despite these safeguards, AI-generated content may contain errors, reflect biases, or be unsuitable for your circumstances. You should always use your own judgment.

4. Your Content

You retain ownership of everything you write in Thistle — your logs, onboarding answers, questions, and any other text you provide. By using Thistle, you grant us a limited license to use your content solely for the purpose of operating the service: generating your guides, producing your summaries, improving your experience, and maintaining safety.

We do not sell your content. We do not use your content to train AI models. We do not share your content with other users.

5. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use Thistle to:

Submit content that is false, misleading, or describes a child who does not exist for the purpose of manipulating the system
Attempt to extract, reverse-engineer, or probe the AI system prompts, safety mechanisms, or internal logic
Use Thistle's output in legal proceedings, custody disputes, or any adversarial context as though it constitutes professional or clinical evidence
Resell, redistribute, or commercially exploit Thistle's content or services
Interfere with the operation of the service or circumvent any safety or access restrictions

6. Subscription and Payment

During the current invite-only period, access to Thistle is provided at no cost. We may introduce paid subscription plans in the future. If we do, we will notify you in advance and give you the choice to subscribe or discontinue use. We will never charge you without your explicit consent.

7. Termination

You may close your account at any time. When you do, we will delete your account and associated data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these terms or if we discontinue the service. If we terminate your account without cause, we will provide reasonable notice and an opportunity to export your data.

8. Data Export and Deletion

You may request a copy of your data or request that your data be deleted at any time by contacting us. We will fulfill data export requests within 30 days and data deletion requests within 30 days. Deletion is permanent and cannot be undone.

9. Intellectual Property

Thistle's software, design, prompts, brand, and documentation are owned by Winter Green Solutions LLC, a Vermont limited liability company. Your use of Thistle does not grant you any rights to our intellectual property beyond the limited right to use the service as intended.

The AI-generated guides, summaries, and advice produced for you are provided for your personal, non-commercial use. You may share your weekly summaries with your child's care providers.

10. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

THISTLE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." We make no warranties, express or implied, regarding the accuracy, reliability, completeness, or suitability of any AI-generated content. We expressly disclaim any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, our total liability to you for any claims arising from your use of Thistle is limited to the amount you have paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim, or $100, whichever is greater.

We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of Thistle, including but not limited to decisions you make based on AI-generated guidance.

11. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or through the app at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of Thistle after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

12. Governing Law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Vermont, without regard to conflict of law principles. Any disputes arising from these terms or your use of Thistle will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Vermont.

13. Contact

If you have questions about these terms, contact us at: info@thistleguide.com