Today the app runs screen time on the money model: earn a balance, a caregiver "hands it over," it zeroes out. But screen time isn't handed over and it doesn't leave. It's a consumable you own and draw down, over and over: earn a little, use a little, earn more, use more. This is a mockup of how it should work. Nothing in the app has changed.
Money stays exactly as it is. The debt-then-settle model fits it. The ledger math (earned − used) is identical under the hood; what changes for screen time is the framing, who spends, and the daily rhythm.
The reward card shows spendable screen time as something she has right now, not a running total that climbs.
The home card shows her screen-time wallet: what she owns and can spend, led by today.
Still earned − used, but shown as "yours to spend," with today's earned and used underneath so the cycle reads as a flow, not a score.
Screen time is a stock you own, not a debt you're owed. Leading with "today" stops a saved-up balance from looking like it only ever grows, the exact "keeps building" feeling Michele reported.
The person who actually uses the device is the person who draws it down, even in a caregiver-backed circle.
The wallet detail: what's available, a one-tap way to use it, and the week's earn / use cycle.
She taps Use some and draws down her own wallet. No caregiver hand-over step for screen time.
Nobody hands over minutes. She just uses the device. Making the caregiver "give" each time added load and caused the drift that overpaid Jack (tapping "give" against a stale number).
The spend is lightweight and hers. On purpose, the app does not lock anything.
The use action: pick an amount (or all), confirm, wallet ticks down.
Honor system. No iOS Screen Time lock, no countdown, no app-blocking. Just a self-reported draw-down.
Commercial "earn screen time" apps enforce at the device level. Maddy deliberately doesn't: "caregiver = support, not surveillance." For a 21-year-old, autonomy is the point. The honor system is a feature, named as trust, not a missing lock.
For screen time, the caregiver's job is the rules and the agreement, not clicking "give" all day.
The caregiver defines how tasks convert to minutes, holds the shared agreement, and watches the rhythm.
They configure earn rates and the deal once. There is no per-use "give" button for screen time.
Making the caregiver hand over each minute was conceptually wrong, added decision-load (against the "minimize caregiver load" principle), and is where the ledger drifted. Support, not surveillance.
Earning and using shown together, so the balance is obviously a difference, not a hoard.
The honest earn ↔ use cycle over the week, with the current wallet as the running difference.
Each day shows earned and used. The wallet number is just what's left over.
Makes using visible (the direct antidote to "it keeps building") and reframes screen time as a living rhythm instead of a one-way tally that only grows.
She starts a session when she uses her time, and the real elapsed minutes draw down the wallet.
A soft session timer. Pick a countdown (a budget for this sitting) or count up (an open session).
It runs while she uses her time; the companion offers one gentle, dismissible nudge; at zero it eases off. It never locks or alarms. Actual elapsed time is what draws down.
Time-blindness is core to ADHD, so an external time cue is real help. It also makes "use" honest instead of a guess. Gentle, self-controlled, with a count-up option: sensory canon plus autonomy, and no countdown-anxiety.
Enough to notice the pattern and reach out. Never a stopwatch, never a lock.
An after-the-fact view of the week's earn/use rhythm and recent sessions, plus a warm note channel.
Aggregate and recent, not a live "using it now" feed. The in-the-moment nudge lives on Jack's phone; the caregiver's reach-out is async and warm.
Rhythm-level awareness is support; a live feed is surveillance. Subject-controlled sharing keeps it consented, and the granularity thins as Jack graduates.
The screen-time loop lives with the subject. The circle wraps around it at two distances: the inner ring (full picture, so they can support) and the outer ring (shared wins only, so they can cheer).