An Allowance That’s Measured in Minutes, Not Cents

By JULIE BICK
Published: November 25, 2007

HOWARD AND LIZZIE SHERMAN, ages 15 and 9, know that they need to complete all their homework and chores in order to receive their weekly allowance. The amount may be a little less than usual if they’ve misbehaved, or a bit larger if they have done some extra work around the house.

When the children want to use their allowance, though, they don’t go to the mall. They turn on the family’s computer or television because there’s a parallel economy in place at the Sherman home, with a currency most often known as “screen time.”

Screen time can be spent playing computer games, watching TV or movies or, for older children, visiting social networking sites like MySpace or instant messaging with friends. This new currency, used in a growing number of households, works as an allowance because screen time is highly valued by children and teenagers, and usually restricted by parents.

They may feel that their children’s time would be better spent reading a book, playing outside or talking directly to another person, according to Richard N. Bromfield, a psychologist on the staff of Harvard Medical School. But for the most part, screen time is seen as acceptable in moderation.

Families dole out the commodity in a variety of ways. Some have their children keep a log book of time used, or have them “spend” it from a stack of 30-minute allotted “tickets.”

For parents who don’t want to keep track themselves, there are devices that will turn off the television or computer automatically when the user has reached a time limit — (although some of today’s children may be more likely to know how to reset the device than their parents do). Some families grant extra screen time based on how much a child reads or practices piano, for example, or the number of days that they’ve avoided fighting with a sibling.

Kathleen Dayton of Seattle lets her twin 10-year-olds, and their little brother, age 7, earn extra screen time for minutes spent on extra math drills. “We reinforce things they’re learning in school,” she said, “and screen time is a really a strong motivator — it makes math happen in my house.”

Household chores stay out of the equation, though. Setting the table, unloading the dishwasher and putting away groceries, come with being a family member, Mrs. Dayton says: “They’re not negotiable.”

And while she sees the value in doling out screen time, she doesn’t want to overdo it. “Screen time isn’t evil — it’s fine in small doses,” she said, “but I feel pretty mixed about giving them much extra.”

The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no more than two hours of screen time a day, and many parents feel that less is better.

Screen time can be a useful currency for teenagers who might be earning their own money through baby-sitting or other jobs, leaving parents looking for a new form of incentive or punishment.

Karen Vekasy of Stow, Ohio, said that as her son Mike Bailey “grew out of being sent to his room” at about the age of 11, she found that “electricity” — the family’s name for screen time — was his most valued commodity. “It’s entertainment to him and it’s social because he meets his friends online,” she said.

Mike, now 15, earns additional time by assisting his mother with office projects including PowerPoint presentations and video editing, or helping his grandfather with grocery shopping and other household maintenance. “I like the system,” Mike said, adding that it made him more likely to do extra work and less likely to break household rules.

Ms. Vekasy also used a reward of extra electricity to encourage Mike to start volunteering at a hospice. “These days he enjoys going, but without the incentive I don’t think I could have convinced him to try it out,” she said.

Sarah Chana Radcliffe, author of “Raise Your Kids Without Raising Your Voice,” (BPS Books), views screen-time allowances as a great motivator for children. She takes a long-term view of it. “Which adjectives do you want your child described as when they are 20?” she asks. “Do you want them, for example, to be known as responsible, respectful, generous and determined? Then start rewarding them for those behaviors from a young age and slowly phase out the rewards as the actions become more automatic.”

She tells parents to find a currency that their children care about, like screen time.

Mrs. Dayton sympathizes with her son’s desire to check sports scores on the Web and spend time on a Wii game console. “I read the news online; I do my e-mail,” she said. “I like my screen time, too.”

A household’s screen-time allowance system may morph over time. A few years ago, the Shermans, who live in Basking Ridge, N.J., established the rule that all homework, chores and instrument practice had to be completed before their children were allowed to turn on the television or play a video game. “It made sense in theory, but it turned out the kids would just rush through their work in a slapdash way, to get to the electronics,” their mother, Amy Sherman, said. “So we got rid of the weeknight time entirely.”

The Sherman children have learned to abide by the system. Howard knows he needs to keep his grades up or he won’t be allowed to join his friends at the local Friday night video game hangout place. His little sister Lizzie takes care of her real pet dogs before she feeds and pampers her Webkinz, penguins or other online pets. Mrs. Sherman says her children’s screen-time allowance has taught them about prioritization and how putting in extra effort can yield more of what they want out of life.

Dr. Bromfield, the author of “How to Unspoil Your Child Fast,” (Basil Books), cautions parents not to overuse household currency systems. Children are motivated both externally by pleasing their parents or by getting a reward, he said, as well as intrinsically, where they want to do the right thing, or high-quality work, because it feels good inside to do so.

REWARDING all a child’s good behaviors with toys, points, money or screen time can override the child’s burgeoning sense of self-motivation. “When used too much, rewards can quash a child’s internal desire to do well and do right,” Dr. Bromfield said. “Then a child’s attitude may turn to: ‘What’s in it for me?’”

As long as screen time or another reward system is part of a larger arsenal of flexible parenting strategies, Dr. Bromfield said, it can be very effective.

And parents can aim to use it to their best advantage. Or, as Mrs. Sherman says: “My son doesn’t ask for more computer time. He asks if he can do the dishes this week.”


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TV Tied To Blood Pressure In Obese Kids

Doctors Recommend Limiting Television To 2 Hours A Day And Forbidding TV While Eating

(WebMD) A new childhood obesity study links watching lots of TV to high blood pressure in obese children.

The researchers advise parents to heed recommendations from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) about limiting kids' TV time.

The AAP doesn't recommend TV for children aged 2 or younger. The AAP recommends no more than one to two hours per day of educational, nonviolent programs for older children.

Other tips include removing TVs from children's bedrooms and forbidding TV watching while eating, note the new study's authors, who included Perrie Pardee and Jeffrey Schwimmer, M.D., of the pediatrics department at the University of California, San Diego.

Television and Obese Children

Pardee, Schwimmer, and colleagues studied 546 obese kids and teens (average age: almost 12).

The children sought obesity treatment between 2003 and 2005 in San Diego, San Francisco, or Dayton, Ohio.

The kids had an average BMI (body mass index, which relates height to
weight) of 35.5, putting them in the top 5 percent of BMI for their age and sex.

The kids' parents reported how much TV their child watched on a typical day.
Children aged 8 and older helped their parents report TV time.

More than three-quarters of the kids -- 78 percent -- reported watching at least two hours of TV per day.

The children got their blood pressure recorded once for the study. Nearly half of the children -- 43 percent -- had a blood pressure reading that was in the hypertension range.

The heaviest children were the most likely to have a high blood pressure reading -- and to watch lots of TV.

Children who watched 2-4 hours of TV per day were 2.5 times as likely as kids who watch no more than two hours of daily TV to have high blood pressure.

Cause and Effect Unclear

The study, which is due to appear in December's edition of the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, has some limits.

As an observational study, it doesn't prove cause and effect. That is, the findings don't prove that watching TV raised the kids' blood pressure; other factors may have been involved.

An editorial published with the study raises these questions for further research:

# Why is obesity increasing while TV viewing isn't increasing?
# Why does obesity increase in adolescence, when TV viewing decreases?
# Why do boys, who watch more TV than girls, show less obesity and more physical activity?

"Focusing on just one set of behaviors may not be enough," writes editorialist Stuart Biddle, Ph.D.

For instance, Biddle points out that turning off the TV doesn't make for a more active child if that child just starts playing computer games.

Biddle works at the School of Sport and Exercise Sciences at Loughborough University in Leicestershire, England.


By Miranda Hitti

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/10/30/health/webmd/main3432331.shtml

Parents limiting kids' TV time; education a concern

November 1, 2007

BY STEPHEN OHLEMACHER

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Parents are taking a more active role in raising their children than they did a decade ago, setting greater restrictions on television watching and reading more to youngsters, the Census Bureau reported Wednesday.

The findings suggest that adults are reacting to a more dangerous world, while both parents and students are dealing with increased competition to get into good colleges, experts said.

"Whether it's a realistic panic or not, things like school shootings or child abductions or pedophile predators, that has a certain group of American parents pretty worried," said Angela Hattery, a sociology professor at Wake Forest University.

The report is from the Census Bureau's 2004 survey of income and program participation, which had a sample of 46,500 households. The results were compared with answers from the same survey questions in 1994.

In 2004, about 47% of teenagers had multiple television restrictions, including limits on program types, the time of day they could watch and how much they could see. That compares with 40% in 1994.

Nearly 71% of children age 6 to 11 had such limits in 2004, compared with 60% a decade earlier.

"All you have to do is own a TV," said Hattery, a parent. "I'm shocked at what you can see at 8 o'clock."

Parents also are feeling peer pressure to spend more time with their kids, and guilt when they don't, said Elizabeth Cooksey, a sociology professor at Ohio Sate University.

"We've really moved into this cultural expectation that this is what good parents do," Cooksey said. "It's more a cultural consensus, that if we are going to be parents, we are going to have to put time into it."

More parents read to their children in 2004 than a decade earlier. Wealthier, better-educated parents were more likely to do so than parents with lower incomes and less education.

Overall, 51% of parents with children age 3 to 5 said they had read to them at least seven times a week in 2004, compared with about 47% in 1994.

Students also are feeling pressure at school, with increased testing at all grade levels and tougher requirements to get into college.

It is no wonder: About 85% of parents said in 2004 that they expected their children to graduate from college.

To help, there were significant increases in students taking classes outside the regular school day, including lessons in music, dance, languages, computers and religion. About 29% of teenagers took such classes in 2004, compared with 19% in 1994.

The share of teens who played sports dropped during the decade, from 42% to 39%.

In addition to improving a college application, extracurricular activities help students feel accepted among their peers, said Ellen deLara, an assistant professor of social work at Syracuse University who works with adolescents.

"The notion of being activities that are worthy, whether it is community service or the band, that is extremely important to them," deLara said. "Adolescents who don't have the opportunity for that may feel alienated at school or in society in general."

http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071101/NEWS07/711010353/1009