Who Knew Giving Them What They Wanted Would Give Me What I Wanted
As the mom of three boys, ages 13, 10, and 8, I am constantly trying to find new ways of encouraging them to be the best versions of themselves that they can be. This week, that meant letting go of something I thought was very important.
When my oldest son started kindergarten, my husband and I created the rule of no screen time on school nights. This meant absolutely no iPads, Kindle, television, phones, or any electronic device of any kind from 3:00pm on Sunday until 3:00pm on Friday. Admittedly, there were times when we both really wanted to give in but, for eight years, we stuck to the rule every school night. We were proud of ourselves for encouraging them to spend extra time on school work, play outside, read a book, or find some other creative way to spend their time.
Recently, our youngest son has been struggling with his grades. Unlike his older brothers, a bad grade doesn't bother him and classwork is seen as a race to complete rather than something new to learn. Another rule my husband and I have always had is that they all three be treated equally, and have the same set of rules, rewards, and punishments. So we knew we had to come up with something that would encourage our youngest to slow down and actually focus on his schoolwork, but would also be a good system for all of them. Then, like a smack in the face, it hit me. Screen time. The one thing they can all agree on 100% of the time is wanting screen time. We called a family meeting and discussed school expectations for behavior and grades, asked them to come up with a way they can earn screen time on school nights that they thought would be attainable and fair.
Here's our families new agreement, which we all five signed in agreement and have posted in our designated homework area for quick reference every evening:
Minutes are earned daily and cannot be carried over into a different day. On days we have other activities to do, it is possible you will not have time to use all of your minutes.
If minutes earned are negative, you will spend those minutes in your room with extra homework to work on.
1. Behavior at school:
Pink +5 minutes
Purple +4 minutes
Blue +3 minutes
Green +2 minutes
Yellow - 2 minutes
Orange -4 minutes
Red -5 minutes
1. Grades on papers brought home:
A +5 minutes
B +4 minutes
C -2 minutes
D -4 minutes
F -5 minutes
2. Homework behavior
Reminders -1 minute each
None +5 Minutes
I was skeptical, because, after all, eight years of no screen time on school nights had worked and kept them interested in more than just what “Unspeakable” or “Dan T D M” is doing in Minecraft. To my surprise, after just two nights of our new agreement being in place, I'm regretting not having this system in place from the beginning! Our oldest son brought home his graded papers, that typically “get lost” or are “forgotten”. Our middle son, who has always been a straight A student, is still encouraged and is trying to find new ways to improve in other areas. Our youngest, and most strong willed child came home, excited to tell me about papers he did in class, that he was confident were A's, because he had taken his time on them. They all also completed all homework without complaining.
The change is not drastic, night one they each earned less than three minutes but were still so excited just to have the opportunity to play a racing game on the iPad. Night two, earned a few minutes for two of them but cost minutes for one of our sons. There was no complaining, they each did their screen time or served their repercussions and did not whine, complain, or beg to get out of it.
While this reward system may not work well for others, I wanted to pass it along in the hope that it might work for someone else out there struggling to find something positive to motivate their children.
I want to give a special THANK YOU to Andi Ervin, who very graciously accepted the challenge to be Macaroni Kid Parkersburg's FIRST guest writer, and as far as I'm concerned, hit it out of the park ( haha, our kids play baseball together). I'm hoping I can talk her into being a series regular, because as the mother of three boys, I'm sure she has more wisdom to offer!! Thank You again Andi!!!
Ashley Starcher, Publisher/Editor, Macaroni Kid Parkersburg
