The App I Didn't Ask For

I'm not anti-technology, but I'm not the early adopter in our house either. I'm the wait-and-see one — a millennial who grew up without the internet, still prefers writing notes by hand, and will absolutely pick up the phone instead of texting.

I like paper-and-pencil

I remember getting an iPhone for my birthday and thinking, what was wrong with my Motorola flip phone? It works fine, and I don't need to text.

I'm the paper-and-pencil parent, not the techy one. Here's what happened when we put Koodos on our homeschool kids' devices.

What I actually use it for

From my phone, I can turn off the kids' screens and send a message telling them why. Before it shuts anything off, their devices get a five-minute warning so they have time to wrap up what they're doing — which has saved us so many meltdowns. Bedtime hours and homework hours are set per day of the week, and daily time limits are set down to the minute. All of it adjusts with a few taps.

The checklist that used to be paper

We homeschool, and for years I ran our Homework Checklist on a spreadsheet I printed out. The kids checked off their work, then I checked it again after correcting it. That whole system now lives in Koodos.

It might be our favorite part. When my husband is watching the kids, he can see exactly what they're required to do that day — no texting me, no calling. If the day needs to change because Dad's in charge, I just add or remove items from my phone, and everyone's expectations match. The kids are learning to check off their own work, so nobody's guessing.

We tried a claw machine first

Before Koodos, we ran rewards on paper: happy faces on the checklist earned tokens for a claw machine my husband stocked with toys. It genuinely worked — for months. But keeping a claw machine stocked with toys forever is not a sustainable parenting strategy. That's exactly why the reward system moved into the app: completed checklist items now earn coins the kids redeem for things they actually want — extra screen time, ice cream, boba.

My favorite feature: required means required

Some checklist items can be marked required, and the computer or iPad stays locked until every required task is done. Before this, the kids had figured out they could just wait out homework time and take their free time anyway, checklist unfinished. Now the device itself won't open free time until the work is done. I didn't have to become the enforcer — the app is.

The change I didn't expect

I used to spend all day going kid to kid: did you finish your grammar book? Are you done with your thirty minutes of reading? Now they come to me: "Can you check off that I finished my grammar book?" They do the work without being told, because every finished item is coins toward something they want. The nagging left our house, and I didn't have to leave with it.

Koodos is an app I thought I didn't need. I haven't even scratched the surface of how we used it for homeschooling last year — or how I'm planning to use it this coming school year. Stay tuned.