Movie Time

Although I intend to have a weekly movie night, it's too soon to be sure how that will end up playing out, exactly. If it were entirely up to me, I would choose never-before-seen (by my children) films, we'd all watch the movie as a family, then discuss it.

But it won't just be up to me. My husband should have some input (I'm thinking of having him pick the movie every other week) and my kids will no doubt want to have their own input. And what about re-watching movies? Some of the best choices deserve to be seen more than once - how will those fit into the schedule? I've thought of adding a second time slot, this time with whatever the children pick.

I've also thought of giving them 'points', earned during the week for doing chores or finishing school work which could be spent on 'digital time' (movies, TV show episodes, gaming, whatever). So each day a child has the potential to earn enough points to watch a single half-an-hour episode show per day, or could save up the points and watch a full-length movie at the end of the week. In this way, the child has an opportunity to both exercise his/her choices, and also practice the concepts of spending and saving a resource.

Honestly, the above concept seems to be the best compromise between not letting the kids go overboard with too much time in front of the TV or computer and not letting them experience the shows and movies that 'everyone else' gets to see. A firmly limited amount of time that's earned might be used more wisely than if a child is given a vague boundary around how much time is acceptable. Granted, at this point I don't have kids, so the theory may be easier than actually living this out. We'll just have to wait and see.