How everything works

Getting started — the first week

1. Add each child. Use a first name or nickname (no last names — children are identified inside the system by a parent-chosen display name plus their age band). Set the right age — every lesson is rewritten in vocabulary and stakes for each age, so a 10-year-old and a 15-year-old don't see the same words.
2. Open the first lesson. From your dashboard, pick the child from the dropdown, then click the top lesson card. The first lesson sets the vocabulary and the tier-feedback language the rest of the program builds on.
3. Don't help your child pick. The lesson is designed to be self-explanatory. Sitting next to them is fine; whispering the answer breaks the data. Every "wrong" pick is where the rationale screen does its work.
4. Check the report at day 5–7. One lesson isn't a report — five is. By the fifth lesson the dashboard shows a real per-skill profile, a real trend line, and the first spotlight decisions worth talking about.

The 4-tier scoring system

Every decision your child answers has exactly four options. Each option is pre-scored on a tier from Strongest down to Weak. The point values are fixed.

Why 4 tiers, not right/wrong? Real-life decisions are rarely binary. The 4-tier system trains your child to notice that several answers can be "not wrong" but only one is strongest — and the difference between the answers is exactly the skill being practiced.

Why no penalty for the lowest tier? A Weak answer earns 0 points, not negative — there is no grade penalty for picking it. The point is that your child sees the rationale and learns what the strongest option actually was. The 119 lessons that follow will keep practicing that skill.

How tiers are shuffled on screen. The 4 options are randomly shuffled every time the lesson opens — your child cannot learn "the answer is always A." The tier assigned to each option is fixed; only the on-screen position changes.

The 6 thinking skills

Every lesson is exactly 6 decisions — one per skill. The same six skills appear in every lesson at every age, so a year's worth of reports compare apples to apples.

The order on every grade screen is the same: Reasoning → Judgment → Pattern recognition → Problem solving → Emotional intelligence → Decision quality. That's also the order skills are shown in your monthly report.

How a lesson works, end to end

1. Open the lesson. A scenario sets the situation — usually 2–4 paragraphs of context. The objective is the one-line takeaway the lesson is building toward.
2. Answer 6 decisions. Each decision is a question with 4 ranked-choice options. Your child reads the prompt, weighs all four options, and picks one.
3. Submit. The "Complete lesson" button locks in all 6 answers. There's no time limit; pacing is up to your child.
4. Read the grade screen. For every decision, every option is shown again with its tier (Strongest / Strong / Partial / Weak), its point value, and one line of feedback explaining why each option lands in its tier. Your child's pick is marked.
5. Lesson is filed. The 6 tier-scores roll into the per-skill totals shown in the monthly parent report. Nothing has to be saved by hand.

How long does a lesson take? 10–15 minutes is normal. Most children finish in 12. Each decision typically takes 90 seconds to 2 minutes.

Can my child do more than one a day? Yes — there's no cap. But skill building consolidates better with sleep between lessons, so the program is paced for one a day.

What if my child quits halfway through? Currently each lesson is one complete sitting. If they close the tab partway through, the answers up to that point are not saved — they restart from the beginning. The lesson is short enough that this almost never matters.

The grade screen, decision by decision

After your child completes a lesson, the grade screen shows every decision they answered. Here's exactly how to read each piece.

• Score: X / 18. Six decisions × max 3 points = 18-point maximum per lesson. A "15/18" means three decisions hit Strongest and three hit Strong, for example.
• Decision N / Skill / pts — the header for each decision shows which of the 6 it was, which skill it tested, and how many points your child earned out of 3.
• The 4 cards under each prompt — every option is shown with its tier pill and point value. Your child's pick has a "Your pick" mark.
• Tier color codes: deep-green = Strongest (3 pts), teal = Strong (2 pts), amber = Partial (1 pt), red = Weak (0 pts). These same colors appear on the calendar in the monthly report (a "strong day" is one where every decision landed at Strong or better).
• "Why each option lands in its tier" — the small text under each option explains the rationale. This is the most valuable part of the screen. If your child clicks through this thoughtfully, they're learning even when they pick correctly.

The monthly parent report

The report is generated live — every time you open /report from your dashboard, it rebuilds from the lessons your child has completed so far that month. You can open it at any time.

The report has 7 sections in order:

1. Banner — child's name, age, the month, and the overall thinking accuracy %.
2. Stat row — lessons completed this month, decisions answered this month, and points-vs-previous-month.
3. Daily completion calendar — the last 20 weekdays, colored by whether a lesson was completed and how strong it was.
4. Six-skill breakdown — % score per skill, plus a trend arrow vs. the previous month.
5. Score trend (last 18 lessons) — a small chart showing how the per-lesson accuracy is moving over the last ~4 weeks.
6. Specific decisions worth talking about — one Strength decision and one Growth decision, picked from the actual lessons your child did. With the full prompt, what they chose, and why it matters.
7. Conversation prompts — three open questions you can ask your child this week, tied to their recent lessons.
8. Recommended focus for next month — Primary (where to push), Maintain (what to keep doing), Stretch (one harder thing to try).

Every stat in the report, defined

Overall thinking accuracy (%)

Total tier-points earned ÷ total possible points across every decision your child has completed this month. A 75% means they're averaging roughly 2.25 points per decision (mostly Strong-tier picks).

Lessons completed

Lessons fully submitted this month. The cadence is 5 lessons a week (Monday–Friday), so a typical month has ~20 weekday lessons available. Partial months are normal and not penalized.

Decisions answered

Total decisions submitted this month. Six decisions per lesson, so the count grows by 6 every completed lesson.

Points vs [previous month]

Difference in average per-lesson accuracy between this month and last. "+5" means this month's lessons are averaging 5 percentage points higher than last month's. Reported as "first month" during the first report.

Per-skill score (%)

Tier-points earned on that skill ÷ tier-points possible on that skill, across every lesson this month. Each lesson contributes exactly one decision per skill, so the per-skill score is built from the same number of decisions as your "lessons completed" stat.

Per-skill trend (+/- pts vs previous month)

Difference between this month's per-skill % and last month's per-skill %. "first month tracked" means there's no prior month to compare against yet.

The completion calendar

The grid shows the last 20 weekdays (Saturdays and Sundays are skipped). Each square is one day.

• Completed (teal) — at least one lesson was completed that day with an average tier-score below 80%.
• Strong day (deep green) — a lesson was completed that day with an average tier-score of 80%+ across all 6 decisions. The threshold is fixed at 80% so it's hard to game.
• In progress (amber) — today, when no lesson has been completed yet.
• Upcoming (gray) — a weekday in the recent past with no completed lesson, or a weekday that hasn't happened yet.

Weekends are deliberately excluded from the calendar so that a Saturday off doesn't break a streak — the program is paced for weekdays.

The score-trend chart

The trend chart shows the last 18 lessons' per-lesson accuracy as a line. The x-axis is roughly "earliest lesson on the left, most recent on the right" — not literal calendar dates, since some weeks have more lessons than others. The horizontal baseline at the 70% mark is a visual reference: above the line is Strong-tier average, below is mostly Partial-tier average.

An upward-sloping line means your child is consistently moving from "okay answers" toward "deeper answers" — exactly the skill growth the program is designed to produce. A flat line at a high level means they're holding steady; a flat line at a low level means a particular skill (visible in the breakdown above) is the bottleneck.

Strength & growth spotlights

From every lesson your child does, the system records every decision they made and the tier they picked. The spotlight algorithm:

• Strength spotlight — picks the most recent decision where your child earned 3 points (Strongest). The full prompt, the option they picked, and a one-paragraph note explaining what their choice shows about how their thinking is developing.
• Growth spotlight — picks the most recent decision where your child earned 0 points (Weak). Same: prompt, pick, paragraph note. This is the decision most worth a 5-minute conversation.

If your child has fewer than ~5 completed lessons, one or both spotlights may be blank — there's not enough data yet to call something a strength or a growth area.

Conversation prompts

Three open-ended questions, refreshed every report cycle, tied to the lessons your child actually completed. They're designed for car rides and dinner — not as a quiz.

Use them like this: read the question to yourself first, then ask your child the question in a natural moment. Don't reference the dashboard. Don't read it out as if from a script. The goal is to give you something specific to talk about that isn't "how was school today."

Primary / Maintain / Stretch

At the bottom of every report are three small cards recommending where to put attention next month.

• Primary — the skill that's currently lowest. Specific lessons in next month's queue that target that skill are flagged. This is where the most improvement is available.
• Maintain — the skill that's currently strongest. The goal here is to keep it sharp; the cards point at the lessons that exercise that skill so it doesn't decay.
• Stretch — one optional harder thing. Usually a lesson from the next age tier above your child's current age, which uses harder vocabulary and bigger stakes. Only attempt this when your child is doing well consistently at their current age.

How to talk with your child about a lesson

The single biggest predictor that this program changes how a kid thinks is whether a parent talks about it sometimes. You don't need to lecture. Three short habits:

1. Ask "which option did you pick?" not "did you get it right?" The right/wrong framing pulls your child toward performance anxiety. The "which option" framing pulls them toward decision-making.
2. If they got a Weak score, don't fix it — ask why they thought that option felt right at the time. Often the answer surfaces a real-life pattern (peer pressure, fear of looking dumb, copying a parent). That's the gold.
3. Use the conversation prompts at meals, not at the dashboard. The lessons are inputs; the dinner conversation is where the skill consolidates.

The skill being trained is not "be right." It's "notice that several answers are not wrong, and learn to recognize which one goes deeper." That's a meta-skill that compounds for decades.

Billing, cancellation, refunds

Subscription is monthly by default and bills automatically via Stripe on the same day each month. You can cancel anytime — cancellation stops future charges and ends paid access at the end of the current billing period. No early-cancellation fee.

If your child doesn't engage in the first 14 days of a new subscription (fewer than 5 lessons completed), email support@parkersmartkids.com with "Refund request" and we refund the most recent monthly payment in full. Refunds process through Stripe within 5 business days.

Full policy: Refund and cancellation policy.

Children's privacy & COPPA

Parker Smart Kids is COPPA-compliant. The short version:

• Children do not create accounts, do not provide email addresses, and cannot receive marketing or make purchases. Only parents can.
• The only identifier the system stores about a child is the parent-chosen display name (a first name or nickname) plus the age band.
• No advertising data, no behavioral tracking, no third-party analytics, no biometric or location data.
• You can request a copy of all data we have on your family, or full deletion, by emailing privacy@parkersmartkids.com — we respond within 30 days.

Full policy: Privacy Policy.

Troubleshooting

My child completed a lesson but the dashboard didn't update

The dashboard fetches fresh data on every page load — refresh the page (Ctrl+R or Cmd+R) and the new lesson should appear. If it still doesn't, sign out and back in once.

My child accidentally picked an option and submitted

Submitted lessons are final — that decision is filed. This is intentional: the program measures real-time judgment, including the "I clicked too fast" moments. Use it as a conversation prompt rather than a retry.

The "Parent report" button does nothing

You need a child selected in the dropdown first. The button opens the report for the currently selected child.

I want to delete a child profile

Email support@parkersmartkids.com from the parent email on the account and ask to remove the child profile. We handle it within 2 business days.

My child outgrew their age tier mid-month

Email support to bump them to the next age. We do this once your child's birthday lands; we don't auto-bump because some families prefer to finish a tier before moving up.

I forgot my password

Use the "Forgot password" link on the sign-in page, or email support@parkersmartkids.com from the parent email on the account.

Glossary

Age band / age tier

The single-year age bucket a child is assigned to (8, 9, 10, … 16). Lessons are rewritten for each.

Decision

A single ranked-choice question inside a lesson. Each decision has 4 options. Each lesson has 6 decisions.

Lesson

A scenario plus 6 decisions, taking 10–15 minutes. The unit your child completes in one sitting.

Lesson slot / month slot

The position of a lesson within the sequenced queue for your child's age tier. Lower numbers are earlier in the sequence; later numbers build on what came before.

Tier

One of four labels (Strongest / Strong / Partial / Weak) assigned to each option. Tier determines point value (3/2/1/0).

Skill

One of the six measured capabilities (Reasoning, Judgment, Pattern recognition, Problem solving, Emotional intelligence, Decision quality). Every lesson tests all six exactly once.

Strong day

A weekday on which your child completed a lesson with an average tier-score of 80% or higher.

Streak

Consecutive weekdays with at least one completed lesson. Weekends and breaks do not break a streak; missing a full weekday does.

Monthly delta

The difference in average per-lesson accuracy between the current month and the previous month, in percentage points.

Rationale

The one-line explanation under each option on the grade screen, describing why that option is at its tier.

Spotlight

A specific decision the report calls out — one Strength, one Growth — worth discussing with your child this week.