All my kids talk about getting every year for Christmas is video games if they don’t go downstairs and find Gears of War 2 under our new flocked christmas tree I do not know how they will survive. It makes me a little nuts since I do all I can to get my kids outdoors. I would prefer to get them something like new football equipment or bikes, really anything they can do outside. Alas, I suppose boys will be boys. Fighting with them is just too much work.

After saying that I guess I should get to the point that I’ve developed a few ways to control their television addiction. I do a couple of things in an effort to force them outside. First off I limit their time every day to one hour (they can earn more). I have discovered that limiting the time is key to everything else because then they know time above and beyond that is to be earned. I do give them some ways to earn more time in front of the television. That leads me into my second trick. They have a few options to earn more television time, either playing outside or doing some chores for me. I like the chores option because it is nice for me to have a few less things to do, and the reward for them isn’t bad either. I intentionally made it with the purpose of them getting around one hour of television time for every one hour they spend on chores.

The number two way they get more television time is by spending some of their time outside. For every hour they spend outside they get fifteen minutes of video games. Like I say this isn’t a huge payoff, but I also don’t really think asking them to be outside is a huge thing to ask. This mostly pays off for them on weekends. They spend all day outside on Saturdays and earn themselves a couple of hours in front of the television. I do not even mind if they play a night of video games after a good day outside.

That being said I’m ok with one or two ending up under artificial flocked christmas tree this year if it has the effect of getting my brats outside and getting some stuff done around the house for me. They had better like the games they’re getting, because I know I’ll like my “gift” of one more thing to use “against” my boys.

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