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Screen time tickets

We printed out a bunch of these and started using them this week. Blue for the boy and pink for the girl. So far they’ve taken to them and they’ve already realized they can pool their resources to make them last longer. We’ll see how things go. I’m anticipating they’ll have to start rationing around Thursday. We’d been meaning to do something like this for a while and the recent Parenthacks post got me going.

If you’d like some, these come in 30 and 60 minute denominations and print 10 to a sheet on 8.5x11 paper. You can download tickets in blue, green, pink, silver, and black. If you have more kids than that, you can print the black ones on colored paper. You’ll also need a place to keep unused tickets (we clipped ours to the refrigerator) and a container for redeemed tickets.

TV tickets

These are high-resolution, print-ready PDF files. They are about 800 KB each. You will need a PDF viewer (like Adobe Acrobat) and a printer to use them. The files are each licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 License.

To download, choose your color and “denomination” (30 or 60 minutes):

Download black, 30 minutes, 60 minutes

Download blue, 30 minutes, 60 minutes

Download pink, 30 minutes, 60 minutes

Download green, 30 minutes, 60 minutes

Download silver, 30 minutes, 60 minutes

Comments

  1. Jason on 2007-05-15 07:04:11 wrote: These are killer. Thanks for making them up. We’ve been talking about limiting our 3 year-old’s TV time and I think I’ll give them a try.

  2. OMSH on 2007-05-15 12:11:58 wrote: I LOVE THEM! Linked you from my brain bits. We don’t have cable, but movies, computer time, video games, all the way to cyber pets … consume eye time. THANKS!

  3. Melissa on 2007-05-15 12:51:38 wrote: Thanks for these! They will come in handy.

  4. nick on 2007-05-15 13:27:18 wrote: These are awesome! Thank you. Now that you’ve done such a nice thing, what are the odds that I could request that you make a 15 minute version as well?

  5. John on 2007-05-15 14:01:44 wrote: I thought about making 15 minute denominations too but ran out of steam. I’ll probably get around to it eventually but no promises. What if you just cut the 30 minute ones in half? ;-)

  6. Shauna on 2007-05-15 15:22:16 wrote: I’ve been meaning to start doing this. They look great!

  7. jenB on 2007-05-15 18:17:09 wrote: This is fabulous!

  8. Chakolate on 2007-05-15 21:28:02 wrote: I love this - thank you for making these up. But (you should have seen this coming!) I’m not satisfied. What about 10- and 20- minute increments? Sometimes 10 minutes is all there is for a little computer time, and it’s a shame if he can’t use it because there isn’t time for a whole 30 minutes. Pretty please?

  9. Marla on 2007-05-16 07:57:52 wrote: thank you thank you thank you!!!!

  10. the SmockLady on 2007-05-16 08:08:30 wrote: Thanks for doing these. We have for many years had our children “buy” screen time, but I think they may like this way of “buying” even better. We have used charts, but for this, tickets and cash work better. Just in time for summer - School is out!

  11. Finally on 2007-05-16 09:24:05 wrote: Absolutely great idea – thanks for making these available!

  12. Katie on 2007-05-16 09:41:07 wrote: Great idea! Are the rest of you parents going to give yourself tickets as well and then actually stick to it? I can see myself turning in a ticket, reluctantly getting off the computer when my time is up, and then waiting for the kids to fall asleep before I race back!

  13. nick on 2007-05-16 12:24:36 wrote: 1/2 a 30 is better than not. I find that there are plenty of times in the day where my 6yo wants to just play on the computer or my palm pilot for 15 minutes before dinner or such. Even 15 minutes of TV before school (we don’t ever seem to have enough time in the morning for anything, really). If you can make ’em, awesome. If not, I will certainly make due with your terrific creations. thank you.

  14. Weekly Roundup #7 at MarloElaine on 2007-05-27 21:50:03 wrote: […] Screen time tickets Do you want a solution to help limit your children’s TV time while teaching them how to make their own choices? John over at flagrantdisregard has created tickets which can be printed and given to your kids. Head over to ParentHacks to read how the ticket system works. […]

  15. smriti.com » Ticket system helps kids track their own TV and game time on 2007-06-19 05:41:12 wrote: […] full article. And this post helpfully gives designs so that you can create the tickets yourself on your […]

  16. Should they presume to consume on 2007-06-26 09:51:54 wrote: […] too long ago, I posted a short snippet in Brain Bits about the screen time tickets designed by flagrant disregard. I bookmarked them with full intentions of printing the tickets out […]

  17. My Ink Pro on 2008-06-30 11:28:25 wrote: That is brilliant! The best part is that encouraging siblings to pool their resources for longer screen time also means they’ll have to learn to compromise for mutual benefit - so less fighting with you over their privileges, and less fighting with each other over sharing.