Techy Tuesday - Technology Tickets

       All Summer long, every chance my children got, they had their DS, IPod touch, or asking to play the Wii or watch Netflex. Children now a days are all about technology, technology, technology, and yes we made them that way because look at us. I always have my iPhone, I work on the computer, go to school on the computer, and have an iPad mini. Technology is around our kids constantly at home and at school, so of course they are going to have a love for it. Now that school is back in and is their main focus, or at least should be, we had to come up with some way to regulate their time that would be good for both us as parents, and make them happy as well.

 I began searching for other ways parents had regulated the technology use in their house and found something that would work well with for us, Technology Tickets. This system allows us to give our kids 7 hours a week to play on their DS , iPod, Wii or Netflix. The kids can also earn more tickets by behaving at school, helping around the house without being told, helping out their siblings,etc. We have raised our kids with the moral that hard work always pays off and you have to work and earn everything and anything in life. Just like with chores and earning an allowance, the kids also will earn time for their video games and other activities.

     These technology tickets can be made however you would like and the way it will will fit your family . Some of the others that I found  were for only 30 minutes and the children received 14 of them for the week. Its much easier for us to do hour increments. I did these very simple and just in a regular word document. I made the first one and just copied and pasted the amount I wanted. I went with 10 per child. I also printed out a rule sheet for the kids so they understand the rules and everything is clear for them. Next, to make the tickets durable for the kids, I layed out a piece of  wax paper and used modge podge to put a clear coat on the front and back of them. Make sure that you paint the modge podge over the top and move to another piece of wax paper to dry, Once dried, flip them over and do another coat on the other side. I then let them dry for 24 hours. Once the tickets dried, I glued them to the kids favorite colors of construction paper and had them cut them out. All kids love cutting stuff up, so they enjoyed this. Once they were cut out we went over our rules for the technology tickets and began using them.

     My daughter is 6 and she thinks they are awesome. My son, 9, does not like them. I knew he wouldn't but as they are using them and getting use to them I've noticed that he is getting the hang of it and everyday there is less complaining about only getting to use their technology for an hour or two hours a day. I noticed yesterday they didn't even use any. I think this is going to be  great for our  family and will help keep the kids focused and not playing their games so much and give them more time to learn and explore other activities.












      Is the use of video games and electronics excessive in your home? How do you help regulate the time the kids get on their devices? or do you allow it to be whenever they want? Let us know how you manage their time.