Set up TaskKidz in about 15 minutes

1 Getting started

You'll need a phone for yourself and one for your child, TaskKidz installed on both, and about 15 minutes. Adding more than one child needs Premium.

Create your parent account

1. Download TaskKidz and sign up with your name, email and a password.
2. Create your family and give it a name. Your family code appears in the app straight away — your kids use it to join.

Add your child (on the child's phone)

1. Install TaskKidz on your child's phone and open it.
2. Choose to join a family as a kid.
3. Your child enters their name, your family code, and picks a PIN they'll remember.
4. This sends a join request to you.

Approve your child (on your phone)

You'll get your child's request to join — as a notification and as a card on your dashboard. Approve it, and they're in your family.

Turn on the phone controls (on the child's phone) — the important bit

This is what lets TaskKidz gently lock your child's phone when chores are overdue — and it's the one step worth doing carefully. As soon as your child signs in and TaskKidz sees they're a kid, it walks them through it:

Two pop-ups appear first:

1. "Activate device admin app" — a short description with buttons at the bottom (Cancel / Uninstall / Activate). Tap Activate. (Your phone may list what device admin can do — this is standard. TaskKidz only uses it to lock the screen when a chore is overdue.)
2. "Allow TaskKidz to send you notifications" — tap Allow.

Then the kid dashboard opens with a "Finish setup" checklist. Two items are already ticked (Phone control and Notifications, from the pop-ups above). For each of the rest, tap Enable, which opens a settings screen — turn the TaskKidz switch on, then come back:

Set your payday and allowance

1. Choose a payday — the day your weekly cycle resets.
2. Set an allowance for each child, per week.

Create your tasks

Create as many tasks as you like for each child — daily or weekly, each with a due time. Tasks are live the moment you save them. There is nothing to activate afterwards and no draft step.

Bonus tasks — extra jobs, up for grabs Premium

A bonus task is an extra job that isn't tied to any one child. When you create one — say "Vacuum the lounge — $5" or "Wash my car — $10" — every child in the family gets a notification that a bonus task is available. The first child to accept it gets the job, and it disappears for everyone else.

That's it — you're running

Your kids now see their tasks, do them, and submit them (with a photo if you like). You approve, and the reward lands in their balance. The next section explains exactly how the locking, bedtimes and payments work.

2 How it all works

Everything below is here so nothing surprises you. Skim it now, or come back when a question comes up.

The locking — the heart of TaskKidz

• A task is due at, say, 1:00 pm. If it isn't done, your child's phone locks.
• When your child marks the task as done, the phone unlocks straight away — it wouldn't be fair to keep them locked while they wait for you to check it.
• When you approve the task, great — the phone stays unlocked and the reward is paid.
• If you tap Redo, the phone locks again and the task goes back to "to do" for your child to complete properly.
• If you do nothing, the phone simply stays unlocked — until a bedtime cut-off kicks in or another task falls overdue.

Bedtimes — school nights, late nights and wake-ups Premium

You can set the phone to lock itself at night and unlock in the morning. It's split into two kinds of night so weekdays and weekends can be different — and all of it is optional (skip it entirely if you'd rather not).

• School Nights — an earlier auto-lock cut-off, for nights before school.
• Late Nights — a later cut-off, or no cut-off at all, for weekends and holidays.
• Wake Time — when the phone automatically unlocks again in the morning.
• Day assignments — mark each day of the week as a School Night or a Late Night, so (for example) Sunday–Thursday lock early and Friday–Saturday stay open later.

Holiday mode

Turn on Holiday — for the whole family or just one child — and nothing will lock their phone. The locking simply pauses until Holiday is switched back off.

"I'll do this one" — doing a task for your child

Under any of your child's tasks on your phone, there's a green "I'll do this one" button. Tap it and the task is marked done: your child still gets the reward, and their phone won't lock over it. Handy when you'd rather just handle a chore yourself — or when your child isn't feeling well or has had a rough day.

Manual lock — for when they're not listening

On your phone, per child, you can manually lock their phone — for example if they're acting up. Your child can still complete their tasks and reach you while it's locked, and you unlock it back to normal whenever you're ready.

Savings goals

Kids can set a savings goal and watch a progress bar fill as their balance grows toward it — a nice way to encourage them to work for something bigger. It's a target and tracker; it doesn't lock their money away.

Your child's balance and paying them (the Pay tab)

• Your child's balance is the money they've earned. It's held in your dashboard — there's no automatic payout, so you pay when they ask.
• Pay all: under your child's name, tap Pay all — you pay the whole balance and it resets to $0.
• Pay part: your child asks for, say, $12 — enter the amount, and the balance shows the remainder (e.g. $35 becomes $23).
• Payday is just a label for the weekly cycle — no money moves automatically in the app.

Messages — and what works on the lock screen

• In-app messages are only between a child and a parent — never between siblings.
• Even when the phone is locked, your child can still complete tasks and call or message you. They're never cut off from reaching you.
• Emergency services can always be reached. The TaskKidz lock screen has an emergency call button that uses the right number for the country the phone is in, and Android's own lock screen always offers one too. A locked phone is never a phone that can't call for help.

The Task tab

See every task assigned to each child. This is also where you set each child's weekly allowance and choose your payday.

The Settings tab

• Display name — what your kids see you as on their phones.
• Phone number — used for your child's "call parent" button.
• Change email — update your account email address.
• App security — turn on Face ID / fingerprint unlock.
• View goals — see what your kids are saving toward.
• Reset a PIN — if a child forgets theirs.
• Remove a child — take a child out of the family.
• Danger Zone — permanently delete your whole family account and all its data. This can't be undone.

Your kids can make it theirs

In the kid app, your child picks an avatar and a colour. These show up on your phone and colour-code that child's tasks — an easy way to tell everyone's chores apart at a glance.

Notifications

TaskKidz keeps everyone in the loop with notifications — your child gets a reminder about 1 hour before a task is due, and you'll be notified when a task is approved, when a child asks to join, when a bonus task is grabbed, and more.

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