When our kids were little, one of my concerns was the amount of time they spent in front of screens. TV screens, computer screens, gaming screens, etc. We didn’t have nearly the amount of screens then that exist today, but one of the things I implemented that served us well for a season were chips (as in poker chips).
I would assign a weekly amount of chips for each child, depending on their age. Each chip was worth 30 minutes of screens. They could combine them in any way they wanted. When the chips were done for the week, they were done with screens. The added bonus was that not only was each chip worth 30 minutes of screen time, they were also worth a certain amount of money per chip. If they had chips left over at the end of the week, they could cash them in. This gave them an incentive to not use all the their screen time! This led to a very tender moment in time that I had not seen coming.
Our last four kids are all born in the summer. In fact, three birthdays are in July and one in the beginning of August! One year, when we were financially limited, our kids almost stopped using screens completely. When I asked why, they said they wanted to cash their chips in so they would have money to buy their siblings presents for their birthdays!
Please don’t picture perfect little children. They weren’t. (Possibly taking after their parents) But we were certainly touched and grateful for their hearts. Back to the chips. There were exceptions to cashing in chips for screen time. For example, homework didn’t count, family night movie didn’t count, anything that I wanted to promote that required a screen, wouldn’t count. This had the advantage that they considered family movie night a bonus because they didn’t have to use their chips!
Using chips for a season helped us regulate screen time while encouraging our kids to get creative and motivating them to cash them in as well. I’d love to hear if you have had success limiting screen time with your kids and how you did it.