iRewardChart

When the nice folks behind iRewardChart asked if I'd like to review their iPhone app, I downloaded the lite (free) version for my iPhone to see if I was interested in reviewing the more robust version ($4.99).

I set up iRewardChart Lite using TW (my partner) as my fictional kid - with the lite version, you can only add one child - and I was so amused by setting up silly tasks for her to accomplish and fun rewards if she managed to "dry off properly after her shower" that I said, "heck yes I want to review the robust version!"

They kindly sent me the code to download it for free, which I did. And then I promptly forgot about it until the little kids arrived for the weekend. Liz (she's 11) saw the new app icons on my iPhone and clicked into the lite version to see what was what. She laughed when she saw the stuff I had entered for her mother. (Her mother, however, has not found any of this amusing - at all... more on that in a minute...)

I told Liz to open the non-lite version of iRewardChart and set up some tasks and rewards for herself. She got to work, somewhat gleefully, and added a whole bunch of chores that she does all of the time, without ever being asked. I explained to her that I was not interested in rewarding her for stuff she finds easy and non-challenging. I would rather she include some tasks that are difficult and maybe some that cause me to have to use the "Denise voice" -- you know, stuff like hiding wet towels in the American Girl doll case for six months, or touching her siblings in the car, or leaving full cups of milk in her bedroom for months at a time.

She laughed evilly, deleted the easy tasks (except for "do homework" which she always does but I agreed to keep on the list since some of her other siblings seem to get rewarded for doing their homework - I'm nothing if not fair.) Here's what she ended up with:

Then she set to work entering the rewards. Again, we had to haggle. She wanted to add things like "iPhones" and expensive American Girl Dolls to her list, for very few stars. But, she quickly remembered that Denise is thrifty and does not believe that children should be given expensive items in this fashion. Here's what she ended up with for rewards:

Unfortunately, she's received very few stars because... she cannot seem to keep her hands off of her siblings in the car and she can't seem to remember to clean the food out of her darn bedroom. She does enjoy grabbing my phone and adding her yellow stars when she finishes her homework and we had a bit of a disagreement about whether she should add a star on days when she did not have homework but simply read - for fun.

She's 11 and while she'd love to go to Homer's for ice cream (and to get prizes from the machines) she prefers to antagonize her siblings. And, she's a little too over-privileged to really want to work for rewards. I've begun to think that I should change the app to say "She can touch her siblings in the car one time if she earns five stars for cleaning the food trash out of her room." Do you think that would work?

The app, itself, is great fun. And if my kids were younger this would really be a great app for them. It's got the flexibility I'd want in how it allows me to add the kids, add individual chores and rewards And for kids who love to play with the iPhone, it would be quite a treat to be able to add those stars and see them increase.

One cool feature to note, it also allows you to add a passcode for the app so the kids can't go in and sneak some extra stars while you aren't looking. TW stole my phone and filled her "chores" with stars one day, after too much teasing about her being on my iRewardChart chart. A sneaky kid might want to give that a try too, and it's good to know you can prevent that from happening if you need to.

It works great. It's fun. Easily customizable. Brilliant idea.

~Denise BlogHer Community Manager
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