Smiles & Frowns™ didn’t begin life as an app, and it certainly didn’t start with a little ™ symbol.
It started off as homemade rewards chart for three wild kids, hung prominently by the front door, where it became the focus of a Dad’s endless tinkering.
Pretty quickly, visiting parents saw that his behavior plan had a twist. Kids easily understood that earning more smiles and avoiding frowns added up to more rewards-buying power for them. They got it. They owned it. And it worked.
But success still seemed to come and go, which Dad found was a common curse for rewards charts. So he kept tinkering, and slowly came up with the 5Cs of Positive Reinforcement™: Clarity. Consistency. Collaboration. Consequence and a game-like sense of Challenge.
These weren’t five new features, but five pillars of an approach he could build features around. Supporting all five Cs leads to a strong economy of expectations that kids can count on – and stick with. Let even one C slide, and things start to fall apart, voices start to rise, and it’s back to crazy town.
And that’s when it hit him: If he really wanted to put these ideas into motion, Smiles & Frowns needed things that just don’t fit on a board by the door. It needed to be out there – in the park, n the car, at the store. Always ready to help.
So Dad #1 joined up with coder Dad #2, and they made an app of it. And then, they started to share it with the parents. And then it found its way into homes around the world. And then, ask they kept working to make it better and better, they thought it probably was time to go get some TM’s.
Welcome to Smiles & Frowns! We hope it brings good behavior to your family like it has to ours!
(TM)