Using TimeTokens for teaching children to manage screentime
When Big Girl wanted to watch a Barbie show this afternoon she came to the TV room with a 30-minute TimeToken and a timer to ensure she didn’t spend too much time watching TV.
Wow. She suddenly seemed very mature.
Her TimeToken was from the new TimeTokens screentime management set we’ve been testing, and I can see that it is a great way to reduce the number of screentime meltdowns.
TimeTokens (£14.95 including postage) was invented by London mumpreneur Amanda Bucknall and her seven-year-old son, and it’s designed to help teach children aged 5 to 10 to limit their own tech time by giving children a weekly allowance of tokens that they can trade in for screen time.
The set features an orange wallet for the tokens, a parent-child promise contract detailing the weekly allowance and when the screen time can be used, 7 hours of paper TimeTokens in 5 to 60 minutes, a golden ticket and an LCD timer. When children keep on track, they’re rewarded with the special golden ticket to do a fun “ING”activity like bake-ING, ice skat-ING or camp-ING.
Amanda mentioned that TimeTokens works particularly well for 6 to 9 year olds, but I can see even now that 4.5-year-old Big Girl has stopped complaining about us turning off the TV if her timer beeps.
It has helped her understand that it’s fine to watch TV sometimes, but there’s so much else we want to do as well. Yesterday she watched TV for five minutes and then used her timer to read a book for five minutes.
I think TimeTokens is a useful tool for parents who find themselves arguing with children about when to turn off the TV or hand over an iPhone or iPad.
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