The reward that isn't money
Your children set a goal. The whole family works towards it together. Reach it, and the grown-ups say yes to what the children choose.
A Yes Day is a promise a family makes each other. The children pick something to work towards; everyone's chores count towards the same total. When the family gets there, the grown-ups spend an hour, an afternoon or a whole day saying yes to what the children choose.
Chores earn pocket money. This earns time together — and it is the children who ask for it, which is the part that changes how a house feels.
Your child proposes the goal from their own screen: how many jobs, or how much earned. Nothing is promised yet.
You accept, and at that calm moment you set a spending cap and anything that is off the table. Agreeing to the limits in advance is the only reason saying yes on the day is easy.
Progress is pooled across all your children. They get there together rather than racing each other, and only work approved from the day you said yes counts towards it.
When the bar fills, the promise is earned. You choose a date that suits the family — it does not have to be that weekend.
You have the day, then mark it kept. That is the moment anything is earned — the promise on its own earns nothing.
The same idea at three scales, so a younger child has something reachable while the big one stays rare enough to feel special.
Up to 30 days to reach it
Once every three weeks
Up to three months to reach it
Once every two months
Up to a year to reach it
Once a year
Chores and tasks you have approved, from the day you accepted the promise onwards. Money you add or take off by hand does not count — the goal is work done, not balance moved.
They can, but the promise belongs to the family: the total is pooled, and the day is for everyone. There is no per-child scoreboard.
Nothing is lost and nobody is punished. The promise simply expires at its deadline, and the family can agree a new one.
Pikidoo suggests a target from your family's own pace over the last two weeks, so it is reachable rather than plucked from the air. You can set your own instead.
Most of what children ask for costs nothing. These are the kinds of things that come up again and again when families write about their own Yes Days.
Yes Day is not ours. It began as a picture book, spread through a film, and has been written up by families and parenting sites ever since — well worth a read before you agree to your first one.
These are independent sites, not connected with Pikidoo. Links open in a new tab.
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