The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.
~Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care
I'm not a huge Spock fan, but I agree with that! =0)
We needed a system to limit Grace's TV watching. The more TV she watches, the crabbier she gets. Anyone else noticed this? Grace is also all about having stuff, really anything, if she thinks it's hers, she's thrilled and quite protective of it. I wanted to come up with something that would make sense for the way she's wired, so now we do 'TV Tokens.'
I just made these in Word:
Printed them, x 2, cut them out, glued them together so you could see the token on both sides, heat laminated them, and cut them out one more time. Now we have a small supply of tokens.
Heat laminating them, especially after the paper has been cut to size, makes them really sturdy and we haven't lost one yet because they are pretty precious, to Grace.
We keep these high up on our refrigerator door in a magnetic clip. Grace generally gets two tokens a day which usually get handed out when she comes home from school. She can get them taken away for misbehaving - a consequence she hates! and interestingly enough, the fight to watch more is gone. "I'm sorry, you have used all your TV Tokens for today. You will have to find some other fun thing to do now," works great for us because she understands the payment system. There is really no arguing with us because she chose to spend the tokens and now they are gone! This has really only failed when we have failed to give her the tokens... parental failure.If you want the pattern and can't print from the jpeg above, send me an email and I will send you the Word document!
And a quote the could have been written about us (me):
The beauty of "spacing" children many years apart lies in the fact that parents have time to learn the mistakes that were made with the older ones - which permits them to make exactly the opposite mistakes with the younger ones. ~Sydney J. Harris
i like your pretty tv buttons but how bout going totally tv free--like the whole family doing it for awhile. we did it every year for a week and it's wonderful and now we have no tv at all--we have one but it's just hooked to the wii and occasionally for movies that's it. the kids read more and we hang out more.
ReplyDeleteby roald dahl
ReplyDeleteThe most important thing we've learned,
So far as children are concerned,
Is never, NEVER, NEVER let
Them near your television set --
Or better still, just don't install
The idiotic thing at all.
In almost every house we've been,
We've watched them gaping at the screen.
They loll and slop and lounge about,
And stare until their eyes pop out.
(Last week in someone's place we saw
A dozen eyeballs on the floor.)
They sit and stare and stare and sit
Until they're hypnotised by it,
Until they're absolutely drunk
With all that shocking ghastly junk.
Oh yes, we know it keeps them still,
They don't climb out the window sill,
They never fight or kick or punch,
They leave you free to cook the lunch
And wash the dishes in the sink --
But did you ever stop to think,
To wonder just exactly what
This does to your beloved tot?
IT ROTS THE SENSE IN THE HEAD!
IT KILLS IMAGINATION DEAD!
IT CLOGS AND CLUTTERS UP THE MIND!
IT MAKES A CHILD SO DULL AND BLIND
HE CAN NO LONGER UNDERSTAND
A FANTASY, A FAIRYLAND!
HIS BRAIN BECOMES AS SOFT AS CHEESE!
HIS POWERS OF THINKING RUST AND FREEZE!
HE CANNOT THINK -- HE ONLY SEES!
'All right!' you'll cry. 'All right!' you'll say,
'But if we take the set away,
What shall we do to entertain
Our darling children? Please explain!'
We'll answer this by asking you,
'What used the darling ones to do?
'How used they keep themselves contented
Before this monster was invented?'
Have you forgotten? Don't you know?
We'll say it very loud and slow:
THEY ... USED ... TO ... READ! They'd READ and READ,
AND READ and READ, and then proceed
To READ some more. Great Scott! Gadzooks!
One half their lives was reading books!
The nursery shelves held books galore!
Books cluttered up the nursery floor!
And in the bedroom, by the bed,
More books were waiting to be read!
Such wondrous, fine, fantastic tales
Of dragons, gypsies, queens, and whales
And treasure isles, and distant shores
Where smugglers rowed with muffled oars,
And pirates wearing purple pants,
And sailing ships and elephants,
And cannibals crouching 'round the pot,
Stirring away at something hot.
(It smells so good, what can it be?
Good gracious, it's Penelope.)
The younger ones had Beatrix Potter
With Mr. Tod, the dirty rotter,
And Squirrel Nutkin, Pigling Bland,
And Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle and-
Just How The Camel Got His Hump,
And How the Monkey Lost His Rump,
And Mr. Toad, and bless my soul,
There's Mr. Rate and Mr. Mole-
Oh, books, what books they used to know,
Those children living long ago!
So please, oh please, we beg, we pray,
Go throw your TV set away,
And in its place you can install
A lovely bookshelf on the wall.
Then fill the shelves with lots of books,
Ignoring all the dirty looks,
The screams and yells, the bites and kicks,
And children hitting you with sticks-
Fear not, because we promise you
That, in about a week or two
Of having nothing else to do,
They'll now begin to feel the need
Of having something to read.
And once they start -- oh boy, oh boy!
You watch the slowly growing joy
That fills their hearts. They'll grow so keen
They'll wonder what they'd ever seen
In that ridiculous machine,
That nauseating, foul, unclean,
Repulsive television screen!
And later, each and every kid
Will love you more for what you did.
Crys -honestly, it scares me. What will *I* do, can I watch my shows (see, they are not just 'the shows I lie' they are 'MY shows') and I don't know that I want to give them up. But I'm thinking about it!
ReplyDeleteLove the poem, you knew I would! Reminds me of Shel Silverstein.
Love the idea. I just did my own version before I found this blog. I looked for other people with similar ideas before I started (but obviously not hard enough). My son's big issue isn't so much TV, but video games. So we have generalized 'electronic tokens'. To Crys: we also have gotten rid of cable TV and only watch movies now and again. This token idea is brilliant for a myriad of things though. Love it! -I realize this is one of your older blogs, but it's new to me!! :) Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThanks, Heather! Now that our Grace is older, it would probably be smart to revisit this and make electronic tokens instead as we have the same issues with video games.
DeleteI should make an adult version for myself to limit iphone time... but that's where I keep all my books now!