Today I wanted to share with you a printable that my husband created for our summertime chores and monitoring our computer time with the kids. These tech and chore tickets can be printed and used with a simple hole punch to signify if the child has used their tech time or has completed their chores.
I really wanted to spend quality time with my kids this summer and I find that screen-time really distracts them from our time together. These tech tickets have made us all more aware of how much screen time we are using and have been a great way for us to monitor the amount they are getting.
Each child gets one chore ticket and two tech tickets for the week in our house. The chore ticket must be punched before they can start with their first hour of screen time.
My children are 10 (almost) and 6. This is our current list of chore activities that must be completed. I don’t punch the ticket itself until the end of the day, but morning chores have to be completed to redeem the first hour of time, then evening chores are completed and the second hour can be used.
6 Year Old Chore List- Get dressed, tidy room, make bed, sweep (with a quick vac) under the table after each meal, meal helper every other night, (help prepare and set the table for dinner), 15 minute tidy at the end of the day, and assist mom with laundry sorting.
10 Year Old Chore List- Get dressed, tidy room, make bed, wipe down both bathrooms, meal helper every other night (help prepare and set the table for dinner), 15 minute tidy at the end of the day, and assist mom with loading and unloading of laundry.
Reward- $5 weekly
Tech tickets grant the child one hour of computer or video game time. We do not count television time as tech time in our house. Kids can watch 2 shows daily on Netflix. We no longer have cable television so that has really helped us do a better job of not zoning out on the television.
A timer is set and once it dings, the card is punched for that hour. It is as simple as that!
We made an agreement that if the child wants to save computer/video game time that they can save and transfer the hours to another day. They can not, however, cash in on an advance on their ticket.
I will not lie, the first day was ROUGH. Two hours does go by quickly for everyone. That said, after the initial two days, we have really been enjoying our time together. We keep busy with fun outings and tackling our summer bucket list together. I find that breaking the day up with an outing seems to make the day go by faster and takes the focus off of the lack of screen time.
Today my son said, “Wow, that hour was really long!” It was funny how he was whining about the hour being too short the first day. I think we were all losing track of how much time we were spending on our respective screens.
Everyone parents differently. This parenting strategy works for us and I hope it will help someone else out there too!
Next week I will share more about something we call, “Face Time,” in our house that requires our kids to be screen-free and to make our family time a priority.
I didn’t want to waste anytime getting these printables out to you though because they are quickly becoming a valuable part of our summer time together and I think they could be valuable to you too!
Grab your Printable Chore Tickets.
Grab your Printable Tech Tickets.
Notes on the printable- There are three tickets per sheet. These are color tickets, but you can switch your printer settings to black-and-white or draft mode to save on ink.
How do you monitor screen time in your house? What does a typical chore list look like for you? I would love to hear your thoughts!
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Great idea. I’ll print these and use them on my kids.
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Amy Reply:
June 14th, 2012 at 9:28 am
Hope it helps with your summer, James!
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sharon Reply:
June 21st, 2012 at 8:16 am
Yes, I love LoVe LOVE this idea! I wish I was more savy on the computer to make things like this up for printing. My kids are going to think this simple idea ROCKS!!!! Thanks so much for sharing.
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Will you still be doing your Amy’s Notebook posts on Wednesdays? I miss them!
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Amy Reply:
June 14th, 2012 at 2:01 pm
I will try! Time management is a struggle in the summer since my kids are home. Thanks for understanding!
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Psst….did you quit doing your notebook on Wed? ;0
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I love the article on giving up cable. I was just wondering do you prefer one site more than another??
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I love these ideas. We are always looking for new ideas to help kids be motivated with chores. We are going to try this out. It is also nice to hear the responsiblity you put on your children. We have very similar chores for our kids & have been told that it seems to be a lot, but really it would take no more then 15-20 min total to get them all done. I don’t think that is asking too much, especially when you have 3 children & 1 on the way! Its a busy household!
Thanks!
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These are great ideas for the kids also age appropriate
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what my husband & I would do was to give each kid so many poker chips at the begining of each week. when they would act up, not listen, fight with other brothers/sisters, etc then 1 poker chip would be taken away. At the end of the week each poker chip that was remaining equaled $1 each. works GREAT every time….
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Where did your husband get the template to make the chore tickets? I wanted to make my own.
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Amy Reply:
March 29th, 2013 at 12:51 pm
He created it- I’m sorry that I don’t have a template that you can use. He made that one
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Is there anyway I can get the Adobe Illustrator file? These tickets have been great, but we were thinking of changing up the background to different colors. By the way, your husband did a great job on the tickets. He must be a designer.
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Amy Reply:
April 15th, 2013 at 10:33 am
I can ask him, Robert! I’m not sure if we still have it or not
I’ll post when I have an answer from him!
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Robert Morrow Reply:
April 24th, 2013 at 9:37 pm
Thanks Amy. By the way we are on our third week using the tickets and both of my girls are just loving them. And of course, my wife is a happy as punch. Three weeks of a clean and straight rooms. Thanks again for the idea.
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