"Have you packed your bag?" "Did you do your reading?" "I've asked you three times to tidy your room."
Every parent has a version of this loop. The tasks aren't complicated — pack a bag, tick off a chore, finish a todo — but getting a child to do them without being asked, reminded, and then asked again is its own daily project.
SimpliHome's new points system connects three things kids already do inside the app — chores, todo items, and morning routine tasks like packing their bag — into one reward loop. Complete the task, earn the points, spend them on a reward a parent has approved. No more nagging as the only currency in the house.
#How It Works
Three ways to earn points:
- Chores — Each chore a parent creates carries a points value. When a child ticks it off, the points land in their balance.
- Todo items — Any todo list item assigned to a child counts. Homework, reading, tidying — if it's theirs and it's ticked off, it's worth points.
- Morning routine tasks — Items in the "what to pack" category of the family planner, the actual bag-packing-for-school checklist, earn points the same way. So does homework logged in the planner.
Every completed item is visible to parents in real time — no separate tracking, no "did you actually do it?" conversation. The task and the proof of completion live in the same place.
Spending points — the Reward Store:
Parents create the rewards: extra screen time, choosing dinner, a later bedtime, a small treat, a family trip. Each reward has a name, an emoji, and a points cost that the parent sets.
When a child has enough points, they redeem a reward from their side of the app. That redemption doesn't go through automatically — it lands with the parent as pending, and a parent approves or rejects it before the points are spent. The child sees exactly where their redemption stands: pending, approved, or rejected, with an optional note back from the parent.
This approval step matters. It means the Reward Store is flexible — "I'll allow it this week" or "not before homework's done" — without the whole system relying on trust that a checkbox in a child's phone hasn't been ticked without the task actually happening.
A leaderboard, for the ones who want it:
Weekly points are visible across the household — useful for the sibling dynamic where a bit of friendly competition gets things done faster than a request ever did.
#The Psychology of Why This Works
A points-and-rewards system is not just a bribe with extra steps. Done well, it changes a child's relationship to household responsibility in three specific ways.
#1. It builds a genuine sense of ownership
When a task is assigned by a parent, tracked in a shared system, and completed by the child themselves — tapped, ticked, done — the child experiences the task as something they own, not something that was done to them or for them.
This is the difference between compliance and contribution. A child who is told to do something and checked up on is complying. A child who sees their name against a task, completes it, and watches their own points balance grow is contributing to something bigger than the individual chore — a place in the household that has weight.
Ownership also means the task doesn't disappear the moment a parent stops watching. A system that's visible to the child (not just enforced by a parent standing over them) is one they can self-manage. That's the actual goal — not a child who does the dishes because someone's watching, but a child who does the dishes because it's their thing to do.
#2. It takes mental load off parents
Household mental load isn't the doing — it's the tracking, remembering, and chasing. Who's done their chores this week? Did the school bag get packed? Whose turn is it to load the dishwasher? That invisible administrative layer sits almost entirely with one parent in most households, and it's exhausting in a way that's hard to explain to someone who doesn't carry it.
A points system externalises that tracking. The system remembers what's assigned, what's done, and what's outstanding — so a parent doesn't have to hold it all in their head or repeat themselves to get a result. The nagging that used to be the only mechanism for getting things done becomes optional, because the system itself creates the motivation.
This doesn't remove parents from the loop — reward approval keeps them there deliberately — but it moves them from task enforcer to occasional approver, which is a meaningfully lighter cognitive load carried across a week.
#3. It sets kids up for future success
The mechanics here — do the work, track the outcome, earn toward a goal, decide how to spend it — are not really about chores. They're a low-stakes rehearsal for skills that matter well beyond childhood: delayed gratification, budgeting a finite resource against competing wants, and understanding that reliable effort compounds into things you actually want.
A child who chooses to save points for a bigger reward rather than spend on the first small one is practising exactly the trade-off they'll make with money, time, and effort as an adult. A child who sees their own bag-packing routine tracked and rewarded is building the habit loop — cue, routine, reward — that underlies most durable adult habits, from exercise to saving.
None of this requires the child to understand any of it consciously. The system does the teaching by design, just by being consistent and visible over time.
#Why It's Built This Way
Points are earned automatically, spending is not. Completion drives the points balance without any extra admin — but every redemption needs a parent's approval, so the reward always stays tied to a parent's judgement, not just a number on a screen.
It spans chores, todos and routines — not just chores. Kids don't experience "chores" as a separate category from "things I have to do in the morning" or "my homework." Rewarding all of it consistently, in one balance, mirrors how the tasks actually feel day to day.
Parents define what's worth what. Points values on chores and costs on rewards are entirely parent-set — there's no fixed exchange rate imposed by the app. A five-minute tidy-up and a big Saturday chore shouldn't cost the same, and parents know their own household's economics better than any default would.
Chores don't need to be a daily negotiation. A visible system that rewards effort — approved by a parent, owned by the child — turns "did you do it yet?" into something the child answers for themselves.
#You Might Also Like
- End the Chore Wars: How to Divide Household Tasks Fairly — Building a chore system the whole family buys into
- The Back to School Morning Routine: How to Get Out the Door on Time, Every Time — The night-before and morning system that actually works
- To-Do Lists and Chores in SimpliHome — Setting up and assigning household tasks
SimpliHome turns household chores, todos and morning routines into a points system kids actually want to engage with — and a Reward Store parents fully control. Start free →