TV Tickets

My kids watch too much TV. Of course they think they watch not quite enough TV, and would I kindly please turn it back on again thankyouverymuch? But secretly, they know they watch too much TV as well.

For awhile now I’ve been using a system that works reasonably well. Every morning I make up “show tickets” that are worth a half-hour of TV watching or playing games on the computer. They redeem them for the shows they’d like to watch, and when the tickets are gone, the TV / computer goes off. I’ve been giving them 2 tickets each, with the possibility to earn a ‘bonus ticket’ at the end of the day if they’ve cooperated and been good listeners. I’ve gotten tired of drawing up the tickets every morning, so I decided to create some on the computer so they’re easily printed out ahead.

TV tickets for both kids – I had to add the box at the lower right corner of the ticket so that I can check off when the ticket is used, otherwise they find them around after they’ve been redeemed and try to re-use them!

The best part about this system is it gets them to ration the viewing themselves – they have to choose which shows to watch, and to turn the TV off if they’re running low on tickets that they’d like to save for a later time. I haven’t really let them save them up for another day yet, but I suppose that’s a possibility. The hardest part is holding firm when the tickets run out and they’re still whining for TV, especially when its late and dinner needs to get on the table and I could really use the distraction! I know this will be an ongoing battle, and it will probably only get worse, but I hope that if I can get some control over it right now, it will make things easier later on. Fingers crossed!