Kid-Powered Taps and the Parent Approval Queue
Kids can now tap their own actions and reward requests on the kiosk. Everything lands in a new Approvals inbox where parents review one at a time or in bulk. Available on Power-Ups.
Until now the kiosk was a beautiful but read-only view of the family garden — points were awarded only by a parent on the phone, the web, or a quick-app shortcut. A lot of you told us your kids wanted in: "I emptied the dishwasher, can I tap it?" and "Can I get the screentime reward please?"
What's new
When you turn on the new feature, every action tile and reward tile on the kiosk becomes tappable. A kid taps "Brush teeth," picks who it was for, and the request lands in your Approvals inbox. You decide yes or no.
Parents stay in charge. Nothing moves the point counter until you approve.
Approvals inbox
A new Approvals screen sits next to Actions, Rewards, and History. It shows every pending request grouped by child, with the item name and points, and a stamp for when the request came in.
- Approve a single request — it awards the points or redeems the reward right away, exactly as if you had done it yourself.
- Reject with an optional one-line note ("try again after chores" / "save it for the weekend").
- Select multiple and approve or reject them all at once. Bulk approve is forgiving — if one item can't be applied (a daily limit hit, a cooldown still running, not enough points), the rest still go through and you get a tidy summary of what was skipped.
A badge in the sidebar and a card on the dashboard show you how many requests are waiting. We send a push notification each time a kid sends one so you can act when it's convenient, not when you happen to open the app.
Smart points reservation
When a kid queues a reward request, the points are reserved — not deducted, but no longer available to queue with. That stops the "I queued three of the 50-point rewards and I only have 60 points" loop. Their balance on the kiosk still shows the full number; "Can earn" badges only light up against what's actually free to spend.
If something does slip through (you approve two requests that together cost more than the kid has), we re-check at approval time and reject the one that no longer fits, with a note explaining why.
Built for the kiosk
- The kiosk now shows a "✅ Sent for approval" toast after a tap so kids see the result instantly.
- A small "⏳ N awaiting approval" tag appears on each child's tile when they have pending requests.
- Tapping is rate-limited per child so a kid can't fill your inbox by stress-testing the screen.
How to turn it on
The feature lives under Manage → Kiosk. Look for the new Kid-Powered Taps + Parent Approval Queue card — one tap to enable, one tap to turn off.
This is a Power-Ups feature, included with your subscription. If you're on Free you'll see the upgrade prompt; the kiosk will keep running in its current read-only mode.
What's next
We're already thinking about per-child overrides (older kids you trust to log without approval) and auto-approve thresholds for small actions. Tell us what would help: hello@ourfamilyhabits.com.