About Us

Who We Are

A Gamified Parenting App, that keeps parents accountable, reduces family friction and helps moms, dads & more connect and digitally communicate with their children and teens while preparing them with household responsibilities, money management and life skills for a successful future.

"Built by families for families to create

healthy habits and improve family culture."

Jody Swain - Founder

Our Method

The HFK R3 method is comprised of Recognition, Reward & Repercussion to influence positive behavior through play.

There are 2 components to the gameplay. Hired & Fired.

Hired - are the Jobs that get posted by parents and the kids can apply and complete for reward (no assigning tasks here).

Fired - are the Expectations or "house rules" set by the family that are meant to be followed. If a player is caught NOT following one of these family expectations they can get a warning X. Too many X's, look out you could get fired, and that goes for you too parents...

Our Vision

HFK is helping parents raise their kids in the digital age by building them up today to be the confident, independent, happy & healthy adults of tomorrow.

Our Mission

Our mission is to work together with families, professionals and educators to provide parents a digital tool to effectively communicate with their kids, nurture family bonds and empower those kids to contribute to their households in a meaningful way using gamification.

Our Story

Our Family became blended in January 2012. My husband Ted brought 2 kids (12 and 9 at the time) into our new family and I brought one child (4 at the time). As you can imagine, setting expectations for various ages and doing so as a step mom was difficult. My daughter knew the household expectations and when she didn’t follow them, I was always there to follow up, reward and recognize or provide consequences.

My expectations of her was much higher given the maternal relationship. His kids were a different story. Displeasure from their lack of household participation was relayed through my husband given his paternal relationship with them. Who was I to overstep and discipline his kids? I would however step up if it was absolutely necessary, but I would pick my battles carefully. It was like walking a tight rope not knowing which false move would topple me, or them, or all of us! Instead, it was much easier to just clean up after them, turn a blind eye to poor manners and hygiene and have my husband be their enforcer for the household expectations.

As life went on, and time passed, I began to feel resentment toward them and their lack of effort. I also felt disappointment in myself as their parent, I knew I needed to step it up if I wanted to prepare my kids for the real world.

I thought, "there must be a better way" for me to communicate expectations without causing friction - Hire and Fire your Kids was born!

The HFK Method combines motivation, competition, teamwork, recognition, reward, consequences and teaching kids the value of a dollar. After launching Hire and Fire your Kids in our home we were amazed by the results! We couldn’t believe how it helped and made an immediate impact on our household. The kids were engaged, having fun, self-aware and actively participating as a household member.

Hire and Fire your Kids worked wonders in our home, and we hope it does in yours too!