Tickets Please

The past week the most common phrases heard in our house have been "do you have a ticket for that? "; "you did great, you get a ticket"; and "sorry, you lose a ticket". In a great attempt at cutting back on our t.v. and video game time I devised a system of t.v. and playstation tickets we all earn by going above and beyond what is expected of us. Each of the kids have a set of four 15 min t.v. tickets and a set of four 15 min playstation tickets. They earn them by doing chores before they are asked, or doing acts of kindness for each other; they lose them if they hurt each other with words or actions, if they don't get their chores done, or if they behave disrespectfully.

The last week has been full of the regular ups and downs, but we have cut down on screen time by about 50%. Mostly because I have a system to keep track of how much we are actualy watching. I have held myself accountable to the ticket system as well, I earn tickets and when they are gone they are gone no exceptions. My night time t.v. watching is way down and I am spending my time trying to do bible study and prayer as well as keep up with the house. We are all getting more down, there is less arguing, and everyone is taking care of each other ( this of course applies only to those old enough to understand)

I am trying to replace my time previously spent with the t.v. filling myself with scripture and the nourishment of the Lord, and it is reallly refreshing. I highly recomend taking the time to moniter how much of a day is spent in front of the screen, it was really eye-opening to me one day last week when I realized that the kids had 4+ hrs of screen time in one day; I tried to justify it by the fact that most of them were not well that day but the reality was it was excessive. Cutting down on screen time has forced ust to find other ways to spend time together and we have begun interacting in much better ways: playing dolls or action figures, reading, playing games, coloring, making up stories, and other fun activities are our favorite passtimes now and we are much better for it.