Kids do chores, earn points and redeem for prizes using Handipoints |
(8 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Whomever finds the magic formula for getting kids to do their chores will really be onto something. We are a family who gets along without too much conflict, but when it comes chores it’s definitely an area in need of improvement. It’s a challenge for most every parent to deal with unless they were born with kids who just love to do chores. Handipoints with it’s younger kid design might not appeal to teenagers or parents of teens, but it’s nice to see a project that focuses on making some fun out of chores.
Developed by someone he used to work with, Greg Yardley explains what Handipoints does:
It’s a reward system for parents with school-aged children, to motivate them to do their chores - the parents assign tasks to the children, who can complete them in exchange for points. These points can then be redeemed by the children for a list of potential rewards, which the parents also select. A bit like ‘experience points’ for your childhood - except instead of gaining a level for your chores, you’ll get a toy of some sort.
I tried registering as a parent and within seconds was met with a common email registration problem:
I prefer to use a + in my email addresses in Gmail to organize by folders so I know what sites are trading/selling my info. Too many registration scripts do not recognize name+name at domain.com structure, including Handipoints. Please fix, kind developer.
The parent registration form requires a minimal amount of basic information and didn’t feel too intrusive.
Oops, not all kids have email addresses
I ran into a problem when filling out the kids section that I’d never realized until then. Not all of our children have email addresses. As geeky and tech-friendly as our family is, we don’t share emails back and forth that often with each other. We communicate the old fashioned way: in person.
In fact, only our oldest teen, who has a laptop and desktop computer of his own, has an email address. I wonder how many other parents have children with email addresses? Our two teens (15, 13) haven’t asked for an email address yet. It isn’t something that has come up as required in school either. I would imagine in the future more kids will have email addresses but only one of ours does at the present. We wouldn’t deny them having email addresses but they don’t have them. If they have ever needed them along the way to this point, they’ve just used a shared family email.
Whatever the case with your children, Handipoints requires an email for them, so be prepared to get them one or pass on the service because of the email address requirement.
Once adding at least one child — another Handipoints requirement — a confirmation email will be sent to the parent. Got mine right away and clicked the verify link. I didn’t see the email that was sent our oldest but he confirmed he received something from the site.
Next it’s time to start assigning chores and rewards for points. There are a bunch of common chores you can click on:
Under the “rewards” tab parents can create custom rewards based on a certain number of points. Kids can also use bonus points to download cartoons, videos and “other fun stuff” which as best as I can tell won’t appeal much to teens. This type of site might work with younger children but in its present state don’t think it will appeal to older kids. This got me wondering if the site is really prepared to handle all the extra COPPA baggage that comes with dealing with children under 13.
I asked our oldest teen (almost 17) for his thoughts on Handipoints: “It’s alright,” he replied.
Don’t think we’ll be using this site, although I will definitely present it to my wife and get her thoughts, but certainly appreciate the effort trying to solve a very old, vexing situation between parents and children. Out of the last 100 online services I’ve looked at few have tried to tackle anything as challenging as chores. If Handipoints would like to appeal to teens, it’s going to need a facelift to something a little more mature. Teens are acutely aware of something that looks “too young” for them and it’s a turn off.
From a parent’s perspective, I still prefer the old magnetic dry erase chore board. Yeah, it’s not as tech-savvy and nextgen, but it’s something kids can look at on the fridge that’s in their face which is a well-trafficked area computers don’t yet dominate.
What do you use in your family to make sure chores are done? Would you consider using a site like Handipoints? Too young, or old, for your kids? If you are a teenage Hmm reader, what do you think of this site? Would you like your parents to set something like this up and work on it with you?
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That would have been great when they were younger, but I too now have teens and I don’t think it will appeal to them. Also TDavid, don’t be too sure your younger teens don’t have email addresses. If they IM they probably already do…
Comment by FranciscoIV — January 18, 2007 @ 12:02 pm PST
Hi TDavid, thanks for the great feedback and the detailed review. I am the primary founder/developer of the Handipoints site. I’ve entered a bug to relax the restriction on email addresses for all of you geeky tech parents out there :).
As you have picked up on, we are targeting the site at kids ages 4-13. The reason is that we felt that the fundamental concept of getting points instead of cash and having parents sign off on kid purchases would not appeal to teenagers who are most interested in exploring their own independence. But I am certainly interested in hearing more feedback as to whether this assumption is indeed true. I would love to hear direct feedback from your own teenagers about whether they would use a similar service that was correctly marketed to them — hippier look and feel, music video downloads instead of cartoons, etc. Also if this service were for teenagers, would the teenagers still want cash in addition to points for their allowance? Or perhaps the parents could fund a gift card or bank check card when they redeem points in order to give them more purchasing freedom.
I am also very interested in learning at what age a kid typically gets his/her first email account. This was an issue we were on the fence about as to whether to require a kid to have an email for registration. We decided to require this because the site is trying to promote some autonomy for kids in managing and tracking their tasks and goals. But I definitely see the benefit of allowing kids to share an email address with their parents. We are currently in beta tests right now, so this is definitely something that we are open to changing before our formal launch.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Comment by Milo — January 18, 2007 @ 4:24 pm PST
I continue to wonder how many younger kids have email, FranciscoIV, I mean what would they need them for? IM makes sense, I suppose, if they are into IMing with their friends. Did your kids have email addresses when they were younger than 13? It was one of those things I came to and went, wow, never really thought much about this one. Just hasn’t come up ever in our home that I can remember anyway. Not really being judgemental of parents who let their kids have one but only our oldest son is interested in IM and seems less interested in email (although he still has an address). The younger two teens don’t do IM. The closest they come is Xbox Live.
Milo - thank you for stopping by and taking my comments constructively. It’s always nice to see folks stop by who do
I’ll ask our teenagers to look in more depth at your site and provide some additional feedback either here in the comments or by separate post linked to this one.
Comment by TDavid — January 18, 2007 @ 7:02 pm PST
The creators of the site said it’s specifically for younger children.
Why did you pass on the site just because your oldest teen didn’t like it?
Reading comprehension for the win!
Comment by Greg — January 19, 2007 @ 1:03 am PST
Writing to let your readers know that the site has been updated to use a username instead of an email address to login. An email address is now optional for kids. Kids can share their parent’s email address or the field can be left blank.
Comment by Milo — January 22, 2007 @ 4:51 am PST
[…] Source: Kids do chores, earn points and redeem for prizes at MakeYouGoHmm […]
Pingback by Handipoints — reward your kids for doing chores at ProBargainHunter.com — January 23, 2007 @ 3:18 am PST
[…] in January, we looked at Handipoints and decided it was a bummer it was aimed at younger children since, well, all out kids are teens. […]
Pingback by Chore Wars Role Playing Game » Make You Go Hmm — July 25, 2007 @ 10:30 am PST
Hey! I found your post about this site on digg, and I’ve been writing about this other program all week. Check it out. I think your teens would benefit from it. Here’s my comparison of the two (see signature URL)
Also - you should make some gmail accounts for your kids, my son’s had his since he was 6. Tired of borrowing your parent’s credit card to buy things online? Try the PAYjr Visa Buxx Card.
Comment by QueenJean — September 30, 2007 @ 1:31 pm PST
Hi I am writing to let you know that we just recently launched a new version of the site. We’ve greatly improved the Chore Chart and Allowance management tools for the parents and added a virtual avatar game for the kids. Kids can do chores to earn bonus points that they can use to adopt and dress up their own cartoon cat. Check it out at [see signature URL]
Comment by Viva — October 11, 2007 @ 3:03 pm PST
Thanks for the update on what’s happening with the site, Viva. In the future, you’re welcome to email me at the PR email address in advance (see homepage on my photo) if you like. If it’s particularly newsworthy I might even — no promises — write a new/follow-up post about it
Comment by TDavid — October 11, 2007 @ 4:05 pm PST
This is a great idea.
You might want to check out the chores your kids can learn, age by age .
Comment by Zach — February 22, 2008 @ 7:57 pm PST