Children & Milestones

How it works

The mechanics of this kit, plainly — what runs and when, where the data lands, and what you look at.

• Childhood sweep runs mondays · 7am and keeps the Your children dashboard fresh. Mondays — keeps the record true and the due list current. Reads nothing you haven't named.
• Growing up runs quarterly · the 1st, 8am. Every quarter — one card per child: what is due, which way growth is moving, what was logged since last time.
• What is captured lands in the Children record, which lives at Data/Children in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Growth record, which lives at Data/Growth in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Health record, which lives at Data/Health Record in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the Milestones record, which lives at Data/Milestones in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• What is captured lands in the School reports record, which lives at Data/School Reports in your vault — yours to open, search, and edit like any other file.
• The Your children dashboard reads from the record and shows, at a glance: your children · weight · height · head circumference · due and overdue · coming up · health record · the story so far · school reports · what this is.

The wiring, in one breath: Wren holds Child capture · Child capture writes to Children · Children shown by Your children · Your children kept fresh by Childhood sweep · Childhood sweep files into Health record · Child capture logs into Growth · Child capture keeps Milestones · Wren holds Report filing · Report filing writes to School reports · Wren holds Appointment prep · Wren runs Growing up.

Getting the most from it

A kit earns its place when it changes what you look at and what you say, not when it is installed. This is the rhythm that makes it pay.

• Put each child on the register once — name, date of birth, sex at birth, the practice — and say the measurements as they come: "10.8 at the health visitor". The growth charts draw from the first reading and every one after it, against the published reference for their age.
• Read a chart for where a reading sits and which way it has moved, and take that question to the health visitor or GP. The board draws the bands and names their source; it never says what a position means, and neither does Wren. That is deliberate.
• Say the jab, the temperature, the fall, the appointment in passing — one sentence, and it is on the health record against the right child. With two children Wren asks which; it never guesses.
• Drop a school report in the vault and say whose it is. Report filing keeps the teacher's comment whole rather than summarising it, and files the term as a row you can find in a year.
• Before a check-up, ask Wren for the brief. It comes back with the recent measurements and their direction, everything logged since the last visit, what is outstanding and the questions worth asking — facts to take in, never conclusions.
• Keep the firsts in your own words. "Said dog at the park, pointing" is a milestone; a reflection about how you felt watching it is a journal entry. Wren keeps the line between the two.

Make it yours

Nothing here is fixed. The pieces are ordinary agents, routines, records and dashboards, so anything you know about shaping those applies. Retire whatever earns nothing.

Things people usually change first

Say any of these in chat, or edit them on the kit’s page in the app.

• Which channels the sweep may read, if any — the school, the nursery, the surgery — each enabled or disabled by name.
• Which measurements you keep. Head circumference matters in the first two years and most people stop after; the chart simply stops with you.
• How you want a child referred to — a nickname, a middle name — said once and remembered.
• When the Monday sweep runs, and whether you want the quarterly card at all — or just the board.
• The register itself is yours to edit: a new school in September, a year group, a practice you have moved to.

Your first run

Installing starts a short setup conversation — not a form. Answer roughly, correct later.

1. It opens with a conversation, not a form. Wren says once, plainly, what this record is — yours alone, never shared, never a judgement on a reading — and then asks about the children one at a time: what to call them, date of birth, sex at birth (the growth reference is published for girls and for boys, and that is the only reason it is asked), school or nursery, the GP practice, allergies. Each child goes on the register as you speak, and you can stop whenever you like.
2. Then, lightly, whatever you have to hand from the earliest days — a birth weight, a length, a head circumference, the jabs you can read off the red book. Anything you don't have is simply left blank; nothing chases it.
3. Nothing reads your email or your calendar out of the box. If you mention that the school or the surgery write by email — reports, appointment letters, immunisation reminders — Wren offers that one specific check by name, and only what you switch on is ever read, going back two years the first time so the record gains its history.
4. From the first Monday, the Childhood sweep recomputes what is due and overdue for each child and stays silent unless something needs you. Once a quarter, Growing up sends one card per child — what is outstanding, which way each measurement moved, what was logged since last time. Until there is a child on the register, both stand down.
5. While the register is still empty, the kit's page, its board and a fresh chat with Wren quietly offer the way in; nothing nags.

Watch the first pass, then tell it what you would have done differently — that correction teaches it more than any setup could.

The essentials

Learning, preferences and run costs work the same in every kit — so they are covered once, in the Kits guide.

Living with a Kit — the Kits guide →

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