How to Prevent My Son from Skipping Through Anki Cards?

Anki Help
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Hi everyone,

I use Anki with my son, but sometimes he just keeps pressing [Good] without even reading the cards, which means he doesn’t learn anything. :downcast_face_with_sweat:

Is there a way to make him study properly? I’ve searched through the options and the add-on list, but I haven’t found anything useful.

I’m looking for something that (for example, but I’m open to other ideas!):

  1. Require him to type the answer (hiding the [Good] button, somehow…)
  2. If the answer doesn’t match the correct one…
  3. Automatically mark the card as [Again].

This would be especially useful for certain decks with short, fixed answers, like multiplication tables!

Any ideas? :blush:

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Sorry, I forgot to mention that the intention is to use “Anki Mobile” on an iPad.

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No. But you’re a parent, so I’m sure you already know that! :wink:

Anki is really a tool for a motivated learner – more than other apps are. If he’s not motivated to learn, you making it harder is just going to make him … not use it.

If it’s important to you that he study multiplication tables in Anki, you’re going to have help him figure out a motivation to do that. [You’ll notice I’m not suggesting anything, because I don’t know your kid and I don’t know your parenting style, and it’s really more about those than anything else.]

If it’s important to you that he study multiplication tables effectively, you might be better off with a more specific app – like Khan Academy, or even Duolingo Math.

[And even if there are any add-on solutions that would accomplish some of those goals, they won’t be usable to you in AnkiMobile.]

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Yes, I know, I know.

It’s not that he’s unmotivated—it’s just human nature. Like all of us, kids tend to take the easiest path and prefer playing over studying. That’s completely normal, right? :sweat_smile:

The real challenge is that children don’t yet grasp the long-term importance of learning. This isn’t just about my son—it applies to most kids. Unfortunately, that makes it difficult for them to use Anki effectively, which is a shame.

The multiplication tables were just an example of where the method I suggested could work well. Of course, it wouldn’t apply to every subject—just to specific cases, like short, fixed answers (e.g., numbers).

Thanks for the recommendations on Khan Academy and Duolingo Math—I’ll definitely check them out.

And yes, you’re absolutely right about the add-ons. Unfortunately, they don’t work with AnkiMobile. :upside_down_face:

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@jhhr do you think JS can be used here?

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Depends on if AnkiMobile has a setting to hide answer buttons like AnkiDroid does. Then it’d be possible to

  • hide the normal answer buttons in the settings
  • construct custom answer buttons in the template (front and back). This is just html and css. The buttons are disabled at first.
  • use JS to make a timer that counts down and then enables the buttons. So you need to wait X seconds on the front, and then Y seconds on the back.

That would prevent tapping through the cards. Though it doesn’t force the kid to read the card, nothing will really, except actual motivation.

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Does AnkiMobile have API to make the buttons functional though?

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Oh, right. Seems flipping to back at least can be done with JS. Maybe this webkit.messageHandlers.cb.postMessage API can be used to tap answer buttons as well? Though if the normal buttons are hidden, maybe it actually stops working.

If there’s an addon that already does this (forced wait times on answering), it’d be easiest to switch to using a Windows 11 tablet and install desktop Anki on that.

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Hi I’m a hobbyist developer of add-ons for Gamification of Learning, finding ways to make learning enjoyable for children and students is one of the goals of my activities.

I’m looking into ways to prevent such cheating because I’m developing my add-on Leaderboard which is prone to problems with cheating. In my opinion one of the ideas for a workaround is to combine a card template for multiple choice questions with an add-on for automatic answers.
e.g. The button is auto pressed depending on the choice and the number of seconds to answer the question. But this is just an idea and there are no such add-ons so far (I plan to develop in the future), also add-ons are not available for mobile.

Basically most children are curious and like to study, according to some surveysonly about 20% of children do not like to study until they are about 6 years old, and about 60% of children like to study.
So the reason why children do not like to study is because of school education, when children reach the age of about 16 years, more than 60% of them dislike studying, and only about 20% of them like studying.

These are some of the reasons why children dislike studying.

  1. Forced to study by parents or teachers.
  2. Study content is too difficult.
  3. Parents and friends do not study together.

So in my opinion the workarounds are these.

[1] Let them study freely.
Ideally way, the children will prefer to study independently, students who get high grades in exams are children who prefer such learning. Education by monitoring and punishment works partially, but only while the educator is monitoring, so it is less effective than independent learning.
The most risky thing is that the children will hate studying, even if the children learn all the cards perfectly if they hate studying they are likely to drop in their grades afterwards, but if they like to study, their scores will be higher later.

[2] Study with children.
Basically children are imitators of their parents. Psychologists say that even a one year old baby recognizes the importance of a smartphone because their parents use it all the time.
So if parents study Anki their children are more likely to imitate them and become interested it. If parents tell their children to study with Anki but they do not study Anki at all it will be less convincing for the children (If so, it is better to at least pretend to be using Anki).

[3] Use tools that children prefer.
Anki is an advanced learning tool that even college students may find too difficult to use. So for children I think it is more appropriate to use paper flashcards. The Leitner system is a simple way to reproduce the spaced repetitions used by Anki. (Use flashcards and some boxes.)
Also in the past all students only used paper flashcards because digital devices did not exist, and even today some college students prefer to study with paper flashcards rather than apps, so paper flashcards are a practical learning method even today.

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I agree with this. Digital screens are not suitable for children.

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