We bought my 4 year old a leap pad in which he won't put down without a fight. Any ideas or guidelines, stipulations, etc?
Give him a predetermined amount of time to play each day. Then set an egg timer. When the timer goes off, it gets put away. ANY amount of protest will result in less time (or no time) the following day. PERIOD. The key is to never ever give in.
I agree with Amie. In our house, game time is always after lessons and are timed. My kids get 30 minutes to an hour [depending on what the weather's like]. The timer can't be argued with. Once it goes off, they get off. Period. And, like Amie said, any arguments or fussing equals no game time the next day at all. It only took them losing it once to see I was serious, and the timer really does cut down on the kids arguing with me about how long they have.
Is he old enough to do a ticket system? Maybe you can let him earn tickets that are worth increments of time. My oldest got my granddaughter one for her 5th bday in March. She loves it but her mind is so all over the place that it quite often gets left here when she goes home everyday. It was here over the weekend lol. She loves using it mostly for the camera and video taking.
Great ideas! Thank you! The past couple days have been better. I give him a 2 min warning before shutting it off. He can't take it to the grandparents house because he is there to spend time with them. I let him have it a few minutes at a time. Wish me luck. Love those idea's.
