dragons in the flower bed Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Poll coming. I'm wondering how to limit use of our iPad & iMac by my sons. They're not spending as much time reading and playing and pursuing hobbies as they should be. We will still use these devices in schoolwork, and the kids will be allowed to read ebooks at bedtime, no matter what. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impish Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I use what I call the 'Chip Method'. My kids have to earn poker chips for any electronics time. Certain colours are certain amts of time. They earn them by doing school work and chores. No chips, no electronics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dragons in the flower bed Posted February 25, 2012 Author Share Posted February 25, 2012 My kids have to earn poker chips for any electronics time. Certain colours are certain amts of time. They earn them by doing school work and chores. I don't want them to be able to earn too much time. I want them to have big chunks of time free to play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hsmom Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Well I make mine earn time for such things. They have to read a book to gain time. But they are limited to 1 hour a day for weekdays and weekends they can get up to 2 hours. For my little buy it is 1 book for each hour. My older ones have to read a few chapters or a small chapter book. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Impish Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I don't want them to be able to earn too much time. I want them to have big chunks of time free to play. That's the lovely thing. They can't. ;) For us, the poker chips are white, 5 mins, red, 10 mins, blue 15 mins, green half an hour. So, for Tazzie, he gets 15 mins for reading me a book. 10 mins if he does a work sheet neatly and properly. Picking up the livingroom might net them 10 mins. It would be up to you how much time each subject/page/chore would be worth. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Punks in Ontario Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 I'm not sure how to answer your poll, but we allow 30 minutes on weekdays after they've spent at least 1/2 hour reading and 1/2 hour outside. They are responsible for making sure they stick to the limits or they lose their privileges for a few days. It also has to be after 3:30. Weekends are a bit freer. Now I've found that that's a lot harder to enforce with mobile devices such as ipods and ipads.:confused: That said, I'm thinking of restricting it more mostly because of the mobile stuff. I may go to no games until after supper, or more radically, none on weekdays. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
*Jessica* Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 We tried both of your options but neither worked well for us. We've settled on 1 hr per day after all school and chores are done. The only time we do more than an hour for each child is if we decide to do a family movie night, which happens once a week, at most, in our house. My boys are back to playing and reading for hours, but are still happy to have an opportunity to play games every day. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris in VA Posted February 25, 2012 Share Posted February 25, 2012 Didn't vote--it's a toughie! Do you want to break a habit or encourage moderation? Personally, I find going cold turkey and just not having something that's become "addicting" is much easier, in the long run, than trying moderation. If it's just in moderation, I always feel I'm left lacking and wanting more. Does that make sense? So maybe try an electronics fast for a while. Could you just stop using it for schoolwork and ebooks for a couple of months, then see what you can add back in? IDK--this is a weird analogy, maybe, but it's like a food addiction in that you have to eat, but you have to use moderation, vs an alcohol addiction, where you have to give it up completely. Sometimes it's harder to do the first than the second. If you are going to use the computer a little bit for school and reading, it may just be more difficult to give it up for games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nd293 Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 We have been working on cutting down on TV and electronics for a while. In my experience variable or "negotiable" rules are much harder to enforce than absolute rules. They are harder for younger children to understand and adapt to, and they are harder for the desperate parent to stick to. We tried a 1hr a day rule - it was easy for me to allow the hour to slip into longer if I wanted "free babysitting" and it was difficult for ds5 to understand how long an hour was, and why his sister might be watching when he wasn't (even if he'd had his hour). We tried a 1hr after 5pm rule - that was better, but I got tired of being asked if it was 5pm at 7am, and then every half hour thereafter until 5pm. Last week we had a TV-and-electronics-free week as punishment. It worked so much better that we will be implementing a simple no-electronics-during-the-week rule henceforth. We actually used to do this when dd11 was about ds's age, and it worked well then. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pamela H in Texas Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Well, as I mentioned in another recent post, they only get any screen when I want to let them have it. THat isn't often or at regular intervals. You ask, the answer is no. They have had about an hour in the last week. I'm sure they'll have a little more when I'm recuperating from surgery. If you wanted to allow a little more than that, you might say X amount of time to be used Friday (afterschool) through Sunday. I completely and totally agree with a fast. The best times we had with my son as a preteen were the times he wasn't allowed on the computer AT ALL. We would fast for months. Sweet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JudoMom Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 The official rule is that my boys get 30 minutes on school days for their Fires (games, email, etc.--though they can always read books on them) and 2 hours on Saturday and Sunday for their Fires/Wii/computer games. However, dh has been in school (1 week left for this class) and I've been in a medication adjustment pit (finally getting back to normal) and it's been seriously out of control. Not this week, but next week, there will be much weeping and gnashing of teeth as I detox them. I have a friend who has her boys earn game time--the get 15 minutes of game time for every 30 minutes of music practice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cassy Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 It's funny, I was only complaining to DH this morning that I wish the boys had never been introduced to any kind of electronics at all. When the boys only played DSs and the Wii we developed a rule that they could only play of a weekend after lunch and before evening meal, and not at all during the week. That rule worked fine and everyone was happy. They have since started using the main computer in the sitting room much more for all kinds of things, looking up old cartoons and things on YouTube, finding pictures for DS4 to colour (he loves to colour any picture of Spiderman or Doctor Who :D), educational websites, etc. Some of these are OK, but then when I'm not paying attention they stray on to sites where they end up playing mindless video games again. This has become much more difficult to supervise, and I find that more and more I'm losing patience with their using computers at all. I really don't know what the answer is, but I'm beginning to agree with the idea of going 'cold turkey' for a while. It's sad in a way, because the use of computers is in many ways a very beneficial thing, but the overuse of 'rubbish' content is seriously worrying. It's really unpleasant having to monitor what they're doing on the computer all the time, and to nag at them when what they're doing is something you disapprove of. I do worry, though, about what it's all doing their young brains. I'll be reading this thread with great interest. Best wishes Cassy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thescrappyhomeschooler Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 We do screen time only on weekends, so that's what I voted for. Also, my kids know that family events and other activities take precedence over screen time, even on weekends. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DawnM Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 I didn't vote because we have kind of implemented both. No electronics before 4pm and then you get one hour per day IF all of your schoolwork is completed. We do allow weekend use a bit more freely. Sometimes the lines get blurred though and then it becomes a battle again. Sigh. Dawn Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SnowWhite Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 When we are limiting (we go back and forth depending on the family climate changes), we allow one hour of techie stuff after school or 3pm each day. Weekends are much looser, with us keeping tabs a bit and sending them outside if the weather is glorious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Halcyon Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 My kids are only allowed to do math games for screen time during the week, and that's usually 15 minutes to 45 minutes a day. On weekends, they're allowed 2-3 hours of screen time a day, which usually means from 7-10 am on Saturday they're either watching t.v. or playing games on the computer. Sunday we have church so they usually don't get as much screen time in. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frankcassiesmom Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 My kids earn 5 minutes of Xbox or Wii for doing their school each day, 5 minutes for their chores, and a 10 minutes bonus to make an hour if they are perfect that week. The two boys get a chance to get one extra hour for a big chore/job during the week that they can play on the xbox together. They get whatever time they earned early Saturday morning. My oldest can work in Photoshop in the evening before bed at night if he gets his school and chores done as he likes to make sprite comics, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laurel Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 What time do they tend to be finished with school work, chores, etc? I think what you're wanting is chunks of electronic-free time, so they can really get engrossed in their projects. With that in mind, I think banning electronics on weekends would best accomplish your goal. (And then the hope, of course, would be that they would get so into their projects on the weekends that they would want to continue weekdays...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alte Veste Academy Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 We do screen time only on weekends, so that's what I voted for. Also, my kids know that family events and other activities take precedence over screen time, even on weekends. This is us too, minus school things (Rosetta Stone and documentaries for history/science). The kids get 2 hours of time for electronics on Saturday and Sunday. If we're out all day, we're out all day. There is no make-up time later. Honestly, having electronics in our lives every day would accord it more value than I want there to be. This has been the rule from their earliest memory though, so there is no complaining. Honestly, many times they bore of electronics in those two hours and quit to draw, play, or ride scooters. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nmoira Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 Mine are allowed 30 minutes gaming each weekday after school, 40 minutes if the choose different platforms or a Wii game they can play simultaneously. Weekends these limits double. They may also choose to watch TV (Netflix or DVDs), between 6 and 7pm, though they usually don't. Movie nights don't have time limits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sassenach Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 1 hour on Fridays (after school), Sat and Sun. That's it and it works beautifully. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JumpedIntoTheDeepEndFirst Posted February 26, 2012 Share Posted February 26, 2012 I would give a time limit per day under certain conditions (conditions being finishing school work, doing chores, or any other normal obligations you impose). If you want you can say electronics only on M,W,F, and one weekend day or how ever you wish to organize it. I have chosen not to limit family screen time--ie we are all watching a movie or program together as an activity. I also don't include time spent on school related work (as approved by a parent) as screen time; this could be research, writing a paper, Rosetta stone, or a documentary assigned for history or science work. Time spent for outside commitments such as work on scout badges hasn't been included in our house thus far but...that would be up to the individual family. I also didn't include the time spent working on NaNoWriMo. I also haven't included exercise videos (one kid like to do yoga and Pilates). Those are all the screen time exceptions I can think of in our house. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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