WFMW: Electronic Game Tokens

I've seen a few friends on Facebook asking for advice on what to do about kids video games and TV time in the summer.

Here's what Works For Me.

1. Keep them busy. (Yeah, I know this is easier said than done, but bear with me here.)

• Make a list with the kids of activities and outings. Plan at least one a week. (Here's how that works for us.)
• Have a regular library day.
• Check into free programs offered by your local park and local library. Have the kids tell you which ones they are interested in. 
• Get around to doing some of those "someday" projects together....plant a garden, make your own salsa, build a model, paint that old bookcase, learn a craft, etc.

2. Keep a routine.

• Have a morning and afternoon list of chores, just like you do during the school year. (Here's how we get our chores done and make it fun!)
• Have regular day for library, park, swimming, or other weekly activities.
• Keep a weekly calendar on your fridge. Write the plans for each day on it. 

3. Keep electronics in check. 

And now we get to what this post is all about. Here's my token system for balancing electronics with other, more mind engaging, activities. We used this last summer, and it worked great.

It worked so great in fact, that my kids expected it this summer.

To enact this system, here is what you need:

• two sets of tokens, one red and one blue. I found a pack of bulletin board border at the dollar store with red and blue stars on it. I cut the stars out and voila. Plastic card chips (like for poker) would also work.
• one basket for each color token.
• two jars or cups for each child. One is their "bank" and should stay in their room. One is a "deposit box" and should stay in the kitchen, office, or family room (whatever tends to be your 'command center').
• stickers for decorating the "banks" and "deposit boxes", including some way to put each child's name on each of those two items.
• a TIMER! This can be on your stove, on your microwave, on your phone, or a small kitchen timer. I'd recommend more than one.  

 Here's how it works.

At least fifteen minutes of a pre-approved activity equals ONE token. I don't round up and I don't let them "save" extra minutes. Keep it SIMPLE or you will be overwhelmed. If a child reads for 23 minutes, the child still gets ONE token. If the child paints for 37 minutes, the child gets TWO tokens. See how that works?

When a child receives tokens, they go in that child's bank in their room. Any tokens I find on the table, floor, etc, are mine again. 

TWO tokens may be turned in for thirty minutes of electronic entertainment. Three for 45 minutes, and four for an hour, etc. I don't let them cash in a single token for just fifteen minutes. Ever try to get a child off a computer or a video game system after just fifteen minutes? It's ridiculous. I just don't go there. I haven't yet had a need to limit how many tokens they can turn in at once. If they hand me 8 tokens, I don't have a problem with them goofing off for two hours, if it fits in the schedule already in place for that day.

Physical exercise and activity earns RED tokens. Creative or mentally engaging activities earn BLUE tokens. Yes, we make a distinction. Keep reading and you'll learn why.

On any day, three RED tokens must be turned in before any BLUE tokens may be turned in. This keeps my kids active and healthy.

Tokens that are turned in for electronic time go in that child's "deposit box" in the kitchen. That lets me keep track of how many red tokens have already been turned in from each child.

Already scheduled activities, like library trips, nature hikes, and tae kwon do, DO earn tokens. So, if we go hiking for an hour, I give each child four red tokens when we get home. If we are at the library for half an hour, that's two blue tokens when we get home.

The list of pre-approved activities for each kind of token is written on an appropriate colored index card and posted in the kitchen. The kids help me brainstorm the list of activities and that really cuts out arguments and debate later.

The kids are responsible for making note of when they started and stopped each activity. I've got other things to do than be everyone's personal secretary. If they can come to me and say, "I started reading at 2:10 and now its 2:56, may I have my tokens?" They get two tokens. If they say, "I've been working on this drawing for a while." But have no idea how long a "while" is, they get just one token. (Even a child who can't tell time can write down a numbers from a digital clock face. Keep a small pad of paper by your microwave for this purpose.)


When tokens are turned in for electronic time, the kids must set a timer and abide by it. Once again, I'm not into being a personal secretary for an eight year old.

A list of free activities is written on a green note card and kept with the activity list as well. These can include the electronic games which you decide have some redeeming value. Or creative writing on the computer, or a specific educational program.

On Saturdays and Sundays, we do not use the token system....provided bedrooms are clean and other assigned tasks have been accomplished. Also, I can suspend the token system at will. (Like if I need to run an errand by myself and am leaving Sweetling as the babysitter. Free wii time, baby.)

Tokens can be lost for whining, arguing, poor behavior at a store, etc.

At the end of each day, tokens that are in the "deposit boxes" in the kitchen (ie--the ones they have redeemed for electronic time) go back to my stash. Tokens which are still in their banks in their bedrooms they may keep to use another day. I do not set a limit on how much tokens they are saving up. 

Here are some of our "pre-approved" activities for each kind of token. You may use this list as a start, but I recommend sitting down and brainstorming your own list with your children. They are more likely to be on board with the program if they have had some input.

Red Tokens:

• Wii Fit
• Wii Outdoor Challenge
• Tae Kwon Do
• swimming
• hiking
• biking
• jumping rope
• gardening

Blue Tokens:

• reading
• art and drawing
• writing stories, poems, letters
• making a card
• construction sets
• puzzle books (like sudoku and crosswords)
• research
• crafts
• designing (castle plans, spaceships, fashion)
• cooking
• sewing
• chess
• library or park programs

Free Activities:

• Wii Big Brain Academy 
• Wii Music
• watching TV while jogging on the trampoline
• puzzles
• toys
• babysitting time

And that's what Works for Me! Hope you find it helpful!

Check out other ideas on We Are THAT Family.

Day 13: Old West

Since we spent the evening doing laundry, we had to repack a couple of our clothing bins this morning. We didn’t get out of the hotel till 9:40. It was chillier this morning than yesterday, only 66 degrees with an expected high in the low seventies. This shot is taken from our hotel balcony this morning. See how we were suffering?

We drove just half an hour to Calico Ghost Town.

I loved all the costumed characters.

We spent a little time shopping in the stores and pressing pennies.
 

At one point our browsing was interrupted by a gun fight going on outside. I herded both the kids out to watch, but Sweetling quickly went back inside to escape the noise. Toa and I stayed to watch the drama. At the end of the fight, the dead men got back up and took a bow, the players introduced themselves, and then the sheriff invited all the kids to come forward and get sworn in as deputies. Toa scored a cool metal sheriff’s star.

It wasn't enough to keep him out of jail.

We also spent some time panning for gold, which was one of Toa’s wish list items for the trip.

And the kids made rope with period tools and methods.

Sadly, the real mine tour was closed,

But we did get to take a short train ride.

The tracks took us past some old miner’s shacks.

As well as a few of the many mine openings.

Under the hills around Calico there are nearly thirty miles of tunnels on fourteen levels.

The mine shafts were too small for any animals to pull carts, so the miners pushed and pulled the tiny little carts around the tunnels by hand. (I wish I had something near the cart for a scale reference. When the train went past it, I thought it was just a prop, it was too small to be taken seriously. But it was an actual recovered mine cart.)

The area is completely dry. When the town was still operating as a mining town, barrels of water had to be shipped in. Still the dessert hills were lovely in their own right.

In the fields were the round remains of when the Native Americans used the hills to collect the many colors of clay and minerals they used for their pottery.

When we got off the train, we took a few minutes to climb the hillside and explore the inside of the houses that remained.

I was surprised at how tiny they were. I didn’t take any pictures in the more intact houses, since they were so small and dark inside.


I got a glimpse of a lizard on the walk back to town, but he was much too fast for me to photograph.


Back in town, we took a moment to check out the bottle house, built in 1950 when the town was privately owned, but a popular feature despite its non-historic nature.

And I made the kids sit still for a picture. I'm so mean that way.

We ended the day having lunch in a saloon, complete with swinging wooden doors and a big mirrored mantel behind the bar. Personally, I got a giggle out of the fact that I took the kids to a saloon on Mother’s Day.

We spent a total of four hours in the ghost town, and yet, I was constantly glimpsing some other cool thing to look at.

Still, we weren’t sorry to leave the dry air and the blowing dirt behind when it was time to go. I couldn’t imagine living there in the late 1800s with no water except the barrels that were shipped in.



We stopped in Needles, California to get the oil changed on the van. We had put 3700 miles on it since leaving Cincy, so it was do. While the van was being serviced we went to the Jack in the Box next door for an early dinner. We need a Jack in the Box chain in Cincy. It beats Steak N Shake hands down.



On the road from Calico to Needles, and from Needles to Kingston, I sat in the back with the kids. We turned the middle seats around and popped the table up and spent a good 3 hours playing with and doing the activities in Cranium’s Big Book of Outrageous Fun.

A bit of our drive today took us past a few Rt 66 stops. I didn’t grab many pictures, but I nabbed a few.

Now that we’re on the return leg of our journey, the Jedi suggested we make a few notes of lessons we have learned, so “we know what to do differently in a year or two when we take another road trip.”



The sun went down around 7:30, and we popped some penguin episodes in for the last part of the drive.

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Day 12: The Mother Road

After our awful night, we were slow getting started this morning. The breakfast area was pretty crowded. It had no hot breakfast option other than waffles. It only had one worker staffing the overcrowded, overbusy location, and she wasn’t very friendly or helpful (though, that might be due to being over worked and stressed.) And yes, I’m entitled to whine, because normally this particular hotel chain has great service, very nice rooms, and a decent hot breakfast buffet. I was really unpleasantly surprised at these lacks in this particular location.


Anyway, on the road we got, just slightly before ten instead of our intended 9am. We had to make a stop for some product to help de-odorize the van from last night’s mishap.

Our second unpleasant surprise of the morning was that though google maps put our next destination at just over four hours away, our Tom Tom was now telling us it was going to take nearly five and a half hours to get there. Since our next stop closed at 4pm, this was a concern. (And experience had proved the TomTom’s time estimations were more accurate than Google maps).

We decided to drive like the Californians did, which was to put greater priority on the flow of traffic than the posted speed limit. (Which wasn’t that hard to do, since there were very few speed limits posted.) We also skipped a lunch stop. Greasy fast food would have been asking for trouble anyway.

After our wonderful lesson on how to throw up in a paper bag, Toa laid down in the bag seat and Sweetling took the clean middle seat and we kept the windows down for a little while to give our deodorizer time to work.

We passed around the healthy snack bag a couple of times through the drive. Toa slept for a few hours and woke up his normal perky self. (He is currently throwing stuffed animals around the hotel room while the Jedi, Sweetling and I are all on laptops and netbooks.)

We hit Barstow California at ten after three and headed for the Route 66 Museum.

The museum was small, but packed full of nostalgia items.

The Jedi loved the classic Mustang,

But I preferred the Model T.

Complete with a "Horseless Carriage" license plate.

Personally, I loved that many of the items in their collection came with a narrative often told by the individual who had donated the item.

Including the old telephone switchboard. The first telephone operator said that she used to bring her knitting in to work on between calls, because there were so few phones in Barstow, she didn’t have much to do.

The Jedi talked to the couple manning the front desk. They had been from Cleveland, but had moved to California 10 years ago. As we were signing the visitors book, we noticed that someone from Norway had also signed in that day. The couple we were talking with said yes, the Norwegians sometimes had their motorcycles shipped to Chicago. Then they would fly to Chicago and ride their motorcycles down Historic 66 all the way from Chicago to Santa Monica, and then they would have their motorcycles shipped back to Norway and fly home. As we were leaving, someone from France was just coming in and going up to the counter. The Jedi thought I should practice my French and chat with him, but I went mind blank.

For dinner, we headed over to Denapoli’s Firehouse Italian Restaurant.

It was very nice. Good food, generous portions, super attentive and friendly waitress, and a bunch of old firehouse memorabilia. We stuffed ourselves to the gills. I tried to take some pictures of the big old pump on the second landing, but couldn’t get a clear shot of it.

Back at the hotel, the Jedi took Toa swimming (told you he was feeling better), Sweetling hung out in the room for some quiet time with her netbook, and I went to throw Toa’s disgusting clothes from yesterday in the coin operated machine in the hotel’s little courtesy laundry room. I went to the front desk to buy detergent, but she gave me a small box of detergent and a box of two dryer sheets and told me not to worry, the first boxes were ‘on the house’. See, this is the kind of service I’m used to.

So, now, I’m hanging out on the bed, waiting for the clothes to be dry. The Jedi is trying to cash in our point rewards for some free hotel stays, and Sweetling is chuckling over some Anime forum that she doesn’t want to share with me. Toa has gotten tired of throwing his stuffed animals from one bed to the other, and has climbed up beside me. He would like a turn to write.

Here you go Toa, knock yourself out.

I have just been handed my netbook back. He raised his hands above the keyboard to just pound on the keys. I said, “Write something real. You know how to spell.”

My netbook came back to me immediately. Writing something real and figuring out the spelling sounds suspiciously like work to the Toa. He would rather hang on my elbow and mess up my keystrokes.

Tomorrow is mother’s day gyghcgughoichi

Toa decided to write after all. Look how sneaky he was about getting in some random keystrokes. He is quite pleased with himself for this victory.

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