A Screen Time Money Maker

I saw this idea in the October issue of Family Fun magazine and knew that I wanted to remember it for the future. The basic idea is that you give your child 7 $1 bills for the week. Each $1 bill represents 1 hour of screen time (TV, video games or computer games), and every time they engage in an hour of time, they have to hand over $1. The cool thing about this is that they get to keep the leftover money at the end of the week, which teaches them to discern whether or not they really wanted to watch a certain show or if they wanted to save a little extra money that week. This would really come in handy if your child is at the age where he/she wants to buy things - what a great way to teach money management! Since they obviously can't get a job to earn money, this will show them the value of a dollar in a different way. I'm still trying to figure out how I'll use this concept with two boys. I can hear it now, "But Mom, that was Owen's pick for a show, why do I have to give over a dollar too?" This idea would work great in the vacuum of a one child household, but I'm sure it can be modified to fit your needs too. What do you think? Do you have ideas for how to limit your child's screen time? Are you going to let them watch TV at all? Do you already catch yourself letting them watch too much? (Are you secretly slightly afraid that they are going to start monitoring your screen time when they are old enough to understand this? I am! : ))