I thought I would give an update on our ticket system that we started a few months ago.  As a quick recap, Jackson earns tickets through doing jobs in our house or things I think he needs to do for himself as he gets older.  Each ticket is worth 5 minutes, and he can redeem them for any type of ’screen time’ - TV, computer games, movies, playing Gavin’s iPod, etc.

The system has really worked well for him, and has not gotten old.  He will save his tickets for a certain goal (although sometimes they burn a hole in his pocket!).  And it has totally grown with him as I had hoped from the beginning.  He no longer earns tickets for getting himself dressed or wiping himself on the toilet, as those are things I now expect him to do.  Here are the things he does get tickets for now:

- when he buckles himself in the car both ways, he will get 1 ticket (I was hoping to ‘retire’ this reward as well, but this is something we still have to push him to do)
- he is learning to take a shower on his own, so when he does he gets 3 tickets (we still have to help him rinse his hair, but he’s only done it 2 times so far, so I’m sure he’ll get the hang of it.)
- unloading the silverware in the dishwasher (usually every other day)
- matching all the socks for me on my laundry days (twice a week)
- clearing and wiping the table after each meal

He still gets a ticket when he cleans up his whole room which is often littered with legos, lite brite pegs, jenga blocks and all of his little cars.  He does a great job cleaning, usually.  Sometimes he will ask for extra things to do, but I will only allow this if he has actually done all of his chores for the day up to that point.  If he whines and complains about clearing the table and sacrifices a ticket, I won’t find an extra job for him to do to earn a different one.  But when he has earned all he can, I’ll have him wipe down my kitchen cabinets, dust the base boards, or something like that to earn more.

So, all that to say is that this system has worked great for us so far.  He has not watched a TV program since before Christmas, as he much prefers to redeem his tickets for an iPhone game or computer game.  But today he has saved up 18 tickets and will watch a movie he got for Christmas that he has only seen once so far, “Cars.”  Very exciting!

We started a new system with Jackson a couple weeks ago, and it’s been working really well for us, so I thought I would share.  I got the basic idea from a woman in my homeschool group, and I changed it up a bit to fit our needs.

This system accomplishes 2 goals for us and Jackson - it motivates him to do his jobs, and it manages screen time in our house (which includes TV, computer games, Daddy’s iPhone, and the Wii).

Here’s how it works:  Jackson does jobs to earn tickets, and then redeems the tickets for screen time - each ticket is worth 5 minutes.  I made a chart using clip-art for Jackson of his ‘jobs’ that he needs to do each day.  Some of them aren’t really jobs in the normal sense, but things that I was having trouble getting him to do each day.  For example, he wanted us to still get him dressed in the morning when he is perfectly capable of getting his own clothes on (evidenced by the number of times he got out of bed and chose his own ‘matching’ outfit to come proudly show us!).  With 2 younger sisters who DO need help getting dressed, I don’t feel that it should be a part of my day to spend time dressing someone who knows how to do it.  Same goes for buckling himself in his car seat.

So for right now, the following 6 jobs earn him a ticket:

• getting dressed in the morning (I lay his clothes out for him the night before)
• buckling himself in his car seat (so a chance for 2 tickets each time we go out - there and back)
• taking care of himself after doing his… uh… business on the toilet (again, not something I cared to do for him every day!)
• emptying the silverware basket from the dishwasher
• cleaning up his room at night
• getting dressed into his pajamas

If he whines or complains about doing anything, it disqualifies him from receiving the ticket.

The following things *may earn him a ticket, but it will be at random:

• obeying the first time
• having a good room time (he has to stay in his room for 1.5 hours after lunch while the girls nap)
• going to sleep without coming out or calling for us

I then made a separate chart for him explaining what he can buy with his tickets.  4 tickets is worth a 20-minute TV show, 6 tickets is worth a 30-minute show, and anywhere from 1-6 is worth the equivalent time on the Wii, computer games, or playing games on Gavin’s iPhone (which Jackson LOVES to do).  He can even save up and spend 18 to watch a movie.

So far it’s been working great.  He doesn’t bug me anymore about watching a show or playing computer games, he knows that if he has the tickets he is welcome to buy the time.  If he does everything each day, then he could get approximately 6 tickets a day, enough for one TV program, an amount of time I am completely ok with.  Sometimes he’ll save them up like today when he bought a 20-minute program, then a 30-minute one, then 10 minutes on the iPhone.  Then he was out of tickets, so will have to wait. (but he had saved up his tickets for a couple days to have that many).  For me, it frees me up from having to do things that he can do for himself.

I like that it gives me the freedom to remove and add jobs as things change.  Once his current job becomes his normal behavior (like getting himself dressed), then it will no longer be a job for him - instead if he does not do it and it takes up my time, then he will have to pay me for my time.  I can also add in tickets that are worth 10 minutes, or something like that - higher value ones for higher value jobs.  It is also helping him with time, as well as counting by 5s.  When he understands that 4 tickets is 20 minutes, then it will help him know that the number 4 on his clock means that it’s 20 minutes after the hour.

As for Morgan… she just gets the benefits of Jackson’s choices. :)  She actually does not care too much about TV, so when he chooses to watch a show she’ll sit and watch, but doesn’t ask me otherwise to watch anything.  When she’s ready we’ll start some sort of system with her.

We’ll see if this system works for us in the long run or not.  So far so good.  I had been wanting to put something in place for a while now, but didn’t want anything elaborate or something that seemed like it would putter out after a few weeks.  I had also wanted something to manage the screen time in the house, as Jackson’s requests for it were almost constant.  So taking a general system that a friend does (the idea of tickets) and adding in our own jobs and our own rewards, I hope we have a system that will last us for a long time.