Pennies for Minutes

It's Spring Break at our house!

Yay!

That means sleeping in, playing outside, reading books and...
screen time.

Yes, for my kids, they LUV their screen time - TV, Netflix on the tablet, XBOX, DSi and computer games.

I knew I had to somehow limit our screen time this week, so I racked my brain trying to come up with a good system and this is what I came up with.

Two cups and 8 pennies.

Each child has a cup that starts out with 4 pennies every day.  Each penny is worth 30 minutes of screen time.  They can choose when to spend their pennies during the day, but a few rules apply:

1. You must play something for 15 minutes after using a penny before you can use another penny.
2. You cannot save pennies for the next day - use it or lose it (not that I think that's going to be a problem).
3. Screen time applies to anything with a screen.  So no trying to sneak in something I didn't specifically state on the list above.

For the most part the kids are excited about the new system.  Of course this kind of thing brings out the imagination in David.  He tries to think of ways to get around it and earn more screen time.

"Can I add pennies from my piggy bank?"

No.

"Can we add more pennies on our birthday?"

No.

So, we'll see if this system lasts but for now, it works for us.