I try to limit Little Bear’s tv viewing to an hour a day but it’s hard to keep track of how much he watches and also to stand firm in the face of pester power, not to mention the tantys that occur at switch off time. So for the last three days we’ve been trying a new thing:
Every day I draw up a circle on the fridge with white board marker, divided into twelve segments representing five minutes each. The segments are shaded in as tv time is used up. Little Bear can watch tv whenever he wants for as long as he wants until the circle is full, then no more tv til tomorrow. It’s worked really well so far, Little Bear has autonomy over his tv viewing and can also see how much time he’s using. There’s been some suggestions that we could start a new circle once the old one is full but the pestering and tantrums have toned down because I say yes to tv a lot more and he can tell when his time is going to be up.
