I had the pleasure of having four grandkids over last week, however, I couldn’t help but notice that they were all glued to their devices (as shown below).
I thought they were here to have quality time with ME!!! This led me to invent the point system, where a kid could earn points by doing non screen time activities. Points were easy to earn it just had to be by doing something active. Going down the zip line earns points!!! They loved it. They actually got really greedy for points. GD #1 helped me hang a door but when I dropped a screw I heard, “I’ll pick it up for an extra point.” I agreed to everything because for me ‘points’ are a fiat currency. At one point when they were tallying up their points GD #4 started crying because she did not have as many points as GD #2, her sister. “Well, I made the pancakes and you didn’t!”, exclaimed GD #2. But Gamma is a magnanimous ruler, so I said to GD # 4, “You get five points because you are making such a big fuss!” You may wonder what the points are good for. You trade them in for minutes you can stay up past your bedtime. Perhaps this is a deterrent to an actual parent in implementing the system, but it works for me!
Thanks to the point system I had a lot of takers when I wanted help walking the dogs down by the river and I was able to catch GD #1 in a Gaugin – like pose for my most recent painting.
Note: Thanks to Dorn you may see an email signup on the blog now. Please sign up so we can figure out if it works!