How to use Our Family

Our Family is the shared board. Everyone in the house sees the same screen: what needs doing, who's got it, what's already done, and what the points are building towards.

It replaces the nagging, not the chores. Nobody is handed a rota. Most jobs sit in a pool and whoever gets there first takes them — and takes the points with them.

1. Setting up your family

Create the family

1. Go to the Me tab and tap Open Family Management.
2. On the Family & members card, tap Create Family.
3. Name it — the placeholder suggests The Johnsons — and tap Create Family again.

You're now the account owner, and your third tab says Our Family.

Invite everyone else

On the same screen, tap Invite Member:

1. Pick the relationship — Co-parent, Nanny, Daughter, Son, Sister, Brother, Dad, Mom, or Other.
2. Pick an age group — 12–18 or 18+. This one matters: a 12–18 member can never approve rewards, assign work to other people, or change family settings, whatever else you set.
3. Tap Generate & Share Code, then Share code to send it however you like.
4. They join — install SparkDay, tap Have an invite code? Join a family, enter it, done.

Teen accounts get a PIN. You can change it any time from that member's card: Reset PIN → NEW PIN → Save PIN.

Give everyone a colour while you're there. A member's colour follows them across the calendar and the board, and it's what makes a glance work.

2. Reading the board

The board is built to be understood in about three seconds, top down.

The header shows the week number, one warm line about where things stand — "Still on top ✦", "3 up for grabs", "The board is clear" — and a row of everyone's faces with their score for the week underneath.

Filter chips — All, Open, Mine, Done — each with a count. Then, in order:

• Waiting on you (parents only, and only when something's there) — reward requests to approve, completions to confirm.
• Earned together Plus — family stickers you've unlocked, plus the one you're closest to.
• Sticker book Plus — how many lanes you've collected.
• Free to take — the pool. This is the important one.
• Yours today — what you've claimed.
• Taken — what someone else has, so nobody doubles up.
• Practice — a private lane; only that person and the parents see it.
• Spend it — your points and what they'd buy.
• Send love — what's already done today.

3. Putting chores on the board

Tap the ＋ button, bottom right.

1. Chore or Practice. A chore is anything anyone can do. Practice is a personal routine — see section 6.
2. What is it — type it, or tap a suggestion: Dishes, Cook dinner, Vacuum, Laundry, Take out recycling, Walk the dog.
3. Effort — leave it on Work it out and SparkDay judges it from the title, or set ★ / ★★ / ★★★ yourself. Effort is what the job pays.
4. Repeats — Once, Daily or Weekly.
5. Give it to (parents only) — Anyone to put it in the pool, or a specific person.
6. Tap Add it.

A daily chore is one card, not seven rows. Underneath it sits a strip of dots, one per day, filled in for the days it got done. Today's dot pulses while the job is still open. Missed days show as an empty ring — never red, never a telling-off.

A weekly chore gets no strip. It just names its day, like Mondays.

4. Taking one, and finishing it

To take a chore: tap Mine!. First tap wins. If someone beats you to it you'll see "Someone got there first" — no harm done, and the board updates for everyone.

Taking on a job somebody else put up earns a bonus point on top of the chore's own value. Putting up your own chore and doing it doesn't.

To finish one: tick the checkbox, or swipe the row right. You can reopen something you closed by mistake — but only your own, and only before the week is tallied.

Effort locks the moment a job is claimed, so nobody can quietly reprice work that's already underway.

5. Points, effort and the weekly race

What a chore is worth

Effort is the points. ★ pays 1, ★★ pays 2, ★★★ pays 3.

SparkDay works effort out from the title — dishes and taking out the trash are ★, vacuuming and laundry are ★★, cooking dinner and deep cleaning are ★★★. Anything it doesn't recognise, it makes a sensible guess about.

Parents can correct it. Tap the effort chip on a chore and it cycles 1 → 2 → 3. That becomes your family's default for that chore name from then on, so you only fix it once.

The other ways points arrive

The weekly wrap-up

Once a week the scores settle, stickers are awarded, and everyone starts again from zero. Points already banked in your wallet are not reset — the race resets, the money doesn't.

Stickers come in three kinds:

• Personal — top scorer, most helpful, early bird, night owl, biggest comeback
• Tiered — hype crew, heavy lifter, streak keeper, at 3, 7 and 14 lifetime
• Family — awesome family, clean sweep, tag team, big week. Everyone earns these together, and they're the ones worth chasing.

Opting out of the race

Anyone can opt out for themselves, including the owner. Gear icon → Count me in the weekly race, switch it off. Your avatar then shows how many things you did instead of a score, and you're left out of weekly stickers.

Points still bank. This is for the person in the house who finds scoring stressful, not a punishment.

6. Practice — homework, piano, drills

Practice is for the routine that belongs to one person. It behaves differently from a chore on purpose.

• Always assigned, never in the pool. Nobody else can take it or do it for them.
• Private. Only the person doing it and the parents see it. It never reaches the family feed.
• Measured in sessions — How often: School nights (5), 3× a week, or Daily (7). Session: 15, 25 or 45 minutes.

It pays 1 point a session, plus 2 for hitting the week, up to 7 a week. Practice points land in the same wallet as chores but never enter the weekly race — a child who practises every night doesn't automatically win the house.

Logging a session

Tap Log (or Start tonight's 25 min) and write what you did — it pre-fills something like "Piano completed at 8:30 PM" — plus optional minutes.

7. Rewards worth having

Points that buy nothing stop mattering by about week three. Rewards are what make the board hold.

Setting them up Plus

Gear icon → Manage rewards → Add. Give it a name, a point cost and an icon, then tap Add reward.

If your catalogue is empty, SparkDay offers four one-tap starters under Start from one of these: Ice cream trip (20), Pick Friday movie (30), 30 min extra screen time (15), Skip one chore free (40).

Asking for one

On the Spend it card, tap a reward. If you can afford it:

30 pts · leaves you 12. A parent approves this before your points are spent. We'll hold the 30 until they answer.

Tap Ask for it. The cost is held, not spent, so the same points can't be promised twice. If you can't afford it yet, the tile says how far off you are — "12 to go".

Approving one

Parents get the request in Waiting on you: Approve or Not yet.

• Approve — the points are spent and they're told: "Approved — it's yours."
• Not yet — the hold is released and their points come straight back.

A request nobody answers expires after a week, and the points return. A parent asking for their own reward is approved instantly — nobody needs permission from themselves.

8. Family settings

The gear icon, top right of the board.

A change to the race takes effect at the next weekly wrap-up rather than instantly, so nobody can duck out of a week they're losing.

9. Who can do what

Everyone, including teens, can see the board, add a chore or practice routine for themselves, take anything from the pool, finish it, reopen their own work, log practice sessions, cheer, ask for a reward, and opt themselves out of the race.

Parents can also give chores to other people, confirm completions, approve or decline reward requests, manage the catalogue, correct effort, and see other members' practice.

The account owner can also allow or block share cards, and reset all points.

10. Free and Plus

Points accrue on Free even though they're hidden. The day you upgrade, everything anyone has earned since day one is already there. Nothing is lost by trying it free first.

11. Common questions