Michelle asked a great question in the comments of the previous post and rather than answer it there I thought I would pull it out and give it the attention it deserves.

She asks:  How do you schedule time for the kids to play on the computer without listening to them fighting over whose turn it is and who got to play longer, etc.

I grew up as an only child, so all of these sibling relationships are new to me.  When I was a kid I could do whatever I wanted, leave my things laying around knowing that no one was going to mess with them, be assured that the last Oreo would still be in the box when I returned home from school.  The importance of shouting shot-gun when leaving the house or the horror of having someone breathe on me in the car were not things I grew up knowing about.

Now as the parent I have learned all these things, and my husband the youngest of four children, tells me that it is how siblings relate to each other.  I choose to believe him and think of all the fighting as building tools for their future relationships.

Kids can fight about anything. Mine have even had fights because so-and-so was “thinking of looking at me!” So that part is completely normal I think.

I have tried a few different solutions over the years to try and alleviate the fighting over the computer. There is no perfect system, I don’t think. But my kids do know that if they can’t resolve their arguing I will resolve it for them. And my resolution is to turn the computer off.

Back when we only had one computer each child was allowed one hour per day. That worked for awhile until GASP the days we actually went places and there was not enough time in the day for each child to have their hour long turn. If one person had a turn and everyone else did not the world would surely come to an end. There was so much complaining about this system, because my oldest son felt that one hour was not long enough to accomplish what he wanted to do.

So then we went to a ticket system where everyone was given 10 tickets that were each worth half an hour per week. This way they could play longer or shorter. If we went out for a day no one felt like they were missing out on something. We stayed with this system for a long time.

Then my older children got their own laptops and there were only little kids left who don’t have attention spans that are that impressive. So now I will log onto Handipoints when I am making dinner and they will take turns, half an hour each. As long as they know that they will have their own turn, the fighting has somewhat ceased.

You know unless someone decides to breathe on someone or look at them funny.