Media Tickets

I spent the afternoon with my sister-in-law yesterday and had fabulous adult conversation. She mentioned how they had cut their TV time to one hour a day per family member. We talked about how this made more time for family time and decreased nagging and such. I have been wanting to do this for a long time and have just not implemented any sort of TV policy. I brought up the idea of tickets, giving each kid 7 one hour tickets and allowing them to allot their time for the whole week. So if there was a 2 hour special they wanted to watch they could turn in 2 tickets, which would mean no TV on another day. I also did not want the kids to turn to the computer or video games to make up for time they may have spent watching TV. Here is how the ticket reads:

THIS TICKET ENTITLES
(Insert Child's Name)
to 1 hour
of media time

It may be used for TV,
computer or video games.

I color coded the tickets and printed them out on card stock. I then made a sheet of 30 minute tickets so they can turn in an hour ticket, watch a half hour show and still have 30 minutes remaining.
Last night DS decided he wanted to use a ticket to watch a show with me. 1 down, six remain. Little girl woke up this morning and I showed her the tickets. I asked her what shows she would like to watch today and she said, "Franklin and Little Bear." I turned on the TV to see what time they come on. 2pm. While the TV was on her beloved Dora was just beginning. She asked if she could watch Dora and I told her she could and it would be her ticket. She thought about it for a second and said "No, I want to watch Franklin and Little Bear." YEAH!!!
She is currently contently playing in her room with her dolls and school is about to begin. These media tickets could be a very very good thing for our house.