Trophy Tykes user guide

TrophyTykes turns household routines into something children opt into. Parents set the tasks and the rewards; children collect trophies and can see their own progress. The aim is to remove the daily reminding, not to add a new chore chart for you to maintain.

1. Create the household

Add a profile for each child with a name and an avatar. Younger children can use a picture-based view with no reading required; older ones get the full list. Parent actions — creating tasks, approving rewards, editing balances — sit behind a parent PIN.

2. Start with three tasks, not twenty

The most common setup mistake is entering every chore in the house on day one. Pick three that genuinely cause friction — usually a morning routine step, a tidy-up, and homework or reading. Add more only once those three are running.

Each task has a name, an optional picture, when it repeats, and how many trophies it is worth.

3. Decide how completion is confirmed

Two modes are available per task:

• Self-marked — the child taps it as done. Best for routine, low-stakes tasks.
• Parent-approved — it goes to your queue for a tap. Best for anything with a quality bar.

Start with parent-approved for most things, then relax it as trust builds. Moving a task to self-marked is itself a reward children notice.

4. Set up rewards

Trophies convert into rewards you define. Mix small, frequent rewards with one larger goal so there is always something reachable and something worth saving for. See the rewards guide for how to price them.

5. Run a family launch

Show children the app together and let each one choose their first savings goal. A system a child helped set up gets used; one imposed on them gets gamed or ignored.

Weekly recap

Each week the app produces a short summary per child. Read it with them rather than about them — the point is a positive conversation, not a performance review.

Rewards are the engine of TrophyTykes and the part most worth getting right. Priced badly, a trophy economy either collapses into inflation or feels unreachable and gets abandoned.

Pricing rewards

Work backwards from time. Decide roughly how long a meaningful reward should take to earn — a week for a small one, three or four weeks for a large one — then set trophy values so that a child completing most of their tasks arrives there on schedule.

A workable starting shape:

• Everyday routine task: 1 trophy
• Something genuinely effortful: 3 trophies
• Small reward (choose the film, extra story, a treat): 10 trophies
• Medium reward (day out, small purchase): 40 trophies
• Large saved-for goal: 120 trophies

Adjust once, after a week of real data. Constant re-pricing teaches children that the rules are negotiable.

Choose experiences over purchases where you can

Rewards that cost nothing often land hardest: choosing dinner, staying up thirty minutes later on a Friday, picking the weekend activity, an hour of undivided attention doing something they choose. They are also sustainable, which matters when the system is meant to run for months.

Let children save

The savings goal is the feature that teaches the most. A child who chooses to skip three small rewards to reach a larger one has practised delayed gratification in a real way. The app shows a progress bar toward whatever goal they picked.

Bonus trophies, used sparingly

Parents can award ad-hoc trophies for things no task covers — helping a sibling unprompted, handling a disappointment well. Keep these occasional. If most trophies arrive as discretionary bonuses, the routine tasks stop mattering.

Never take trophies away

Deducting earned trophies as a punishment is the fastest way to kill the system. Trophies are a record of work done. Consequences for behaviour belong outside the app; if a task was not done, the trophy simply is not earned.

Handling multiple children

Each child has their own balance, tasks and goals, and balances are private by default so siblings are not competing on a shared leaderboard. If your children respond well to friendly competition, a shared weekly view can be enabled in parent settings.

When interest fades

It will, usually around week three to five. Refresh with a new savings goal chosen by the child, retire tasks that have become genuine habits, and add one new task. A system that never changes stops being noticed.