Wii Unity
I have always been pretty much an anti video game kind of Mom. Nothing against video games, just that I knew that my boys would become obsessive over owning a game system the way they have obsessed about their computer time. The way we have it arranged is that they each have one day a week that they get computer time, and they get two hours. Two hours seems like a lot, but when its only one day a week it really isn't.
Last year we had a chance to play a nintendo wii at Grandpa's house. The boys of course, loved it, and we were surprised that we enjoyed it too. The boys knew better than to ask about getting one though because I had vowed we would not ever get a game system. A lot of time and thought went into the decision to change my mind though. At Christmas the boys received Christmas money, as did D and I. We decided to save our money up to get a Wii. However, we didn't want to just go out and get one and by this time they were pretty much sold out anyhow. So we saved our money and we devised a points system. Each of us in the family needed to earn 1000 points in order to be allowed to play on the wii. We set our money aside and finally bought the wii at the end of February, but left it in its packaging as none of us had reached our 1000 point goal yet. D set up a chart in Excel with a graph that showed how many points we each had and we would update points for that day in the evenings at bed time. The boys earned small amounts of points for getting ready for school on time, laying their clothes out the night before, brushing teeth, taking showers and etc. They earned points for doing their homework and they earned points for doing chores. Eventually they would ask if there was something they could do to earn Wii points. We came up with special projects, extra chores and etc. Only one of five of our boys knew how to tie his shoes. Mostly because I have always gotten them shoes that either velcro or have elastic in them, and partly because of fine motor skill problems. We offered 50 points if they could learn how to tie shoes. Now four out of five know how to do it (we aren't too worried about the four year old yet) and the one that already knew earned points for teaching his brothers how. The four year old earned points for learning to write his own name, and there were many chores and a lot of hard work on everyone's part to earn points. D and I did extra cleaning projects around the house, and were motivated to do things we had been putting off. We were also motivated to earn our points first so that we could get to understand the system before the boys started playing. Now everyone except for one has earned all of their points, and the one left will probably earn the rest of his points by the end of today.
We are resetting our 1000 points and once everyone has earned the 1000 again we will buy a new game for the wii that we decide on together. One of our rules is that it has to be a multiplayer game. Part of what changed our mind about getting a game system was that the wii allows for multiple controllers and we can have a lot of family members play at the same time. There are also a lot of E rated games available. Playing on the wii is not going to be an every day occurrence, and D and I will decide when we will have special family wii days and fun things like wii tournaments that we can all participate in. We are looking at it as a way to bring our family closer together, and to teach all of us about the value of hard work with our points system. So far it is going well.
Last year we had a chance to play a nintendo wii at Grandpa's house. The boys of course, loved it, and we were surprised that we enjoyed it too. The boys knew better than to ask about getting one though because I had vowed we would not ever get a game system. A lot of time and thought went into the decision to change my mind though. At Christmas the boys received Christmas money, as did D and I. We decided to save our money up to get a Wii. However, we didn't want to just go out and get one and by this time they were pretty much sold out anyhow. So we saved our money and we devised a points system. Each of us in the family needed to earn 1000 points in order to be allowed to play on the wii. We set our money aside and finally bought the wii at the end of February, but left it in its packaging as none of us had reached our 1000 point goal yet. D set up a chart in Excel with a graph that showed how many points we each had and we would update points for that day in the evenings at bed time. The boys earned small amounts of points for getting ready for school on time, laying their clothes out the night before, brushing teeth, taking showers and etc. They earned points for doing their homework and they earned points for doing chores. Eventually they would ask if there was something they could do to earn Wii points. We came up with special projects, extra chores and etc. Only one of five of our boys knew how to tie his shoes. Mostly because I have always gotten them shoes that either velcro or have elastic in them, and partly because of fine motor skill problems. We offered 50 points if they could learn how to tie shoes. Now four out of five know how to do it (we aren't too worried about the four year old yet) and the one that already knew earned points for teaching his brothers how. The four year old earned points for learning to write his own name, and there were many chores and a lot of hard work on everyone's part to earn points. D and I did extra cleaning projects around the house, and were motivated to do things we had been putting off. We were also motivated to earn our points first so that we could get to understand the system before the boys started playing. Now everyone except for one has earned all of their points, and the one left will probably earn the rest of his points by the end of today.
We are resetting our 1000 points and once everyone has earned the 1000 again we will buy a new game for the wii that we decide on together. One of our rules is that it has to be a multiplayer game. Part of what changed our mind about getting a game system was that the wii allows for multiple controllers and we can have a lot of family members play at the same time. There are also a lot of E rated games available. Playing on the wii is not going to be an every day occurrence, and D and I will decide when we will have special family wii days and fun things like wii tournaments that we can all participate in. We are looking at it as a way to bring our family closer together, and to teach all of us about the value of hard work with our points system. So far it is going well.
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