How Gamification Works
Why Gamification?
Traditional parental controls are punitive — they block, restrict, and lock down. Children learn to resent the rules and look for workarounds. KidMoat takes a different approach: pay a child back for the days they get it right.
The System at a Glance
KidMoat's gamification has three parts, and they all key off the same thing — whether your child stayed within the daily screen time limit you set.
Coins & Rewards
Stay within the daily limit and your child earns a flat 5 coins for the day; go over it and the day earns none. Coins are spent on a fixed list of real-world rewards — like an ice cream, a trip to the park, or pocket money — that you choose to switch on. Nothing is ever rewarded with more screen time or a lifted restriction.
Streaks
The number of days in a row your child stayed within the limit — the same days that earn coins. A day KidMoat can't measure freezes the count rather than breaking it. Coins already earned are always kept if a streak ends.
Levels
Lifetime coins earned — never reduced by spending — drive a title across 25 levels. Levels are cosmetic: nothing unlocks, and the coin rule never changes.
How Scoring Works
Once a day ends, KidMoat scores it against the screen time limit and adds coins if the child stayed within it. This happens automatically overnight for the child's own local yesterday — a day still in progress is never scored. The child sees the result the next morning: their coin balance, their streak, and their level, all updated together.
Getting It Working
Two things need to be set up before any of this means anything to a child:
- A daily screen time limit — with none, no day can earn coins.
- At least one reward switched on — with none, there's nothing to spend coins on.