iReward Chart – As Effective As Your Physical Reward Chart, But Now On iPhone (and iPad)

Posted on May 6th, 2010. Written by Jane.

Any one with a child will know it is true when I say, from time to time we all need something to keep them on the right track. Something to encourage them to make their bed or do their homework, in fact any little chore we want them to do. Children like gifts to motivate them, they like to be rewarded for things that they do.

They don’t like doing something for nothing. With this in mind many parents dig out the homemade reward charts, some offering points to get prizes or like I used to do stickers. That’s right, kids go mad for them! Not sure why because they don’t last long, but children just seem to like these little things.

So this brings me to @iRewardChart by Got Clues Inc. A unique little app that works just like a physical reward chart, but it is safe and near you at all times on either your iPhone, iPod and now, your iPad. Your children are rewarded by stars and then they can exchange them for what ever reward you set up. To see how effective it would be with children I used it on my three girls aged 8, 3 and 2 just to see if I could get any of their usual chores done and on time!

It is very easy to set up at the beginning. You tap the ‘Add another child’ button and all the details you need to fill in are there. You put in the child’s name accompanied with a photo if you like. You then fill out the rewards that they will get. There are some already listed to give you an idea of what to put but if you don’t want to use them you just delete them. You can also add your own. You tap ‘Add new reward’ type in the reward you want to give them, so for example a new DVD or a gift voucher then in the next entry decide how many stars they need to get to win that reward. Once you have filled in those bits just tap done and they will be listed on the main page.

Now obviously you will want to set up what tasks they have to do so you then click on the child’s name and their page comes up. If you scroll to the bottom there it says ‘Edit tasks’ again there are some already listed but you can delete them or use them it is up to you. If you want to add your own their is a custom task option. To give you an example of the kind of tasks you could put, I put my eldest had to do her homework, make her bed, read her school book and no talking back. Of course my little angels never do that but just in case I have got it covered!

Then you are all set to watch your child do their tasks with your fingers at the ready to reward them with a star. At the end of each day I went through what each child had done that they were supposed to do on the list. Then I found the correct day on the chosen childs page and gave her a start for the ones she had completed. You just tap the empty star and it fills it in and at the same time makes a great little magical noise. If your child did maybe half of the book instead of all of it you can instead give them half of a star. I thought this was a great idea instead of it being a choice of one star or none. Then you do the same for each child for that day and repeat it each day.

Every time you give them a star it adds up the balance for you. If you want to see what stars they have or if your child wants to cash in there stars for a prize you just click ‘Balance’ at the top right corner. It then brings up a balance sheet with how many stars you have earned, how many has been paid out and then the new balance. This section is also the area where the child goes to claim the prize. You tap the ‘Payout’ button and tap the prize you want if you have enough stars you get your reward and it deducts the amount off your balance. You can at this point share it with your friends via facebook or twitter but to be honest my children are too young to be on them and I doubt my friends would be interested in me tweeting my eldest had just collected 10 stars and won a DVD. So that option I left out, that part of the app may work for older children. If you dont have enough stars to collect your reward a message pops up telling you how many more you need to collect.

I really liked the UI within the application and the children loved the sound effects of the stars and when you cashed in a reward. They were a magical sound similar to what you would expect the fairy godmothers wand to sound like when she casts a spell. So having three girls they were amazed and really did try to earn the stars. My eldest the 8 year was really enthusiastic about it and I have to admit she kept to her task list every day to get her stars. In fact, she is still working keeping up to them. She like the fact she could see at a glance what she had earned and what she needed. My 3 year old got the idea quite quickly and I set her a few small tasks. Her highlight of the day was tapping the stars and hearing the sounds before bed time and she got used to the idea of doing it everyday and did look forward to it. My youngest the 2 year old didn’t really seem to know what was actually going on and just thought it was some sort of a game where she pressed a few buttons if she ate all her meals but again she enjoyed the visual side to it and the great sounds.

It really is an app for any young child, as it gets them to learn at an early age the importance of doing chores that maybe they don’t always enjoy doing. It will certainly motivate them to do their tasks and it feels like they are playing a game instead of doing their chores. It is also great fun and at the end of the day that’s all children want, to have fun.

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