Gamification Fails in the Hong Home

When I began investigating Gamification this site came up in my Google Alerts: High Score House. I thought - what better way to learn gamification then to apply this amazing technology to solve the really big problems in my life - getting my son to sleep through the night and potty training my daughter.

The site is pretty well designed. It is playful and the style was engaging for both me and my children. The mechanics of setting up goals and rewards was straitforward. I had high hopes that this was the silver bullet to solve my parenting woes with advanced technology.

That was about a month ago and the site has gone unused. We are making some progress on the goals but gamification has had little to do with it. What went wrong?
First, we were not consistent. We didn't really integrate the site into our lives. Part of that is that the most important stakeholder in the process wasn't completely on board. My wife stays at home and spends much more time with the kids than I do and I think she was skeptical of the system and wasn't excited about spending the overhead of managing achievements for the children.

Second, we had problems setting up our digital currency. It was hard to figure out how much prizes should cost in terms of points. My son was very interested in a large prize like a lego set but when I told him it would take 1000 points he basically gave up on the program. My daughter couldn't grasp the idea of delaying gratification and would immediately spend any points she earned on a piece of candy - which created other problems.

Third, refrigerator gamification is still easier. We have charts on our fridge that the kids get stickers when they progress toward their goals. They like the stickers more than the badges from the site. I think having it up all the time on the fridge is more motivating then going to the computer once a day.

I think we will take another crack at it sometime - but for now our family is not a high score house.