Best Motivation for Boys...Ever!

We've hit gold! Well not literally...but it's as good as. If you have boys who like to play Nintendo all day every day, I think you'll agree. Lately we've decided that we've had enough of our boys begging for Nintendo all the time and not wanting to do anything else, so we've strategized and come up with this...These are our Nintendo dollars. The boys are only able to play on Saturdays and only for the amount of minutes (dollars) they earn during the week. This way, we're able to keep them motivated all week long, but only let them play one day and be able to easily control the amount they play. After all, they can't get upset about turning it off if they know beforehand how much they can play and know that the amount is completely controlled by them! And it works!
We have been able to use this system to motivate them to keep their room clean, get ready for bed quickly, be nice to their brothers, and do their chores...all without the complaints we used to get non-stop! I am in love with this system!


Our 3-year old is perhaps the most easily motivated by this. He gets so excited about the pictures on the dollars (all his favorite characters) and loves to put them in the sleeve their dad made for them on the fridge. So, so awesome! Try it out!

Here's a word file I created if you want to give this a go.

Nintendo Dollars word - .doc

I simply printed out two pages per set that I wanted. Then hubby did initial cut and used a lightbox to get the dollars in place to glue together so it would be double sided. Cut the final time around dollars and had laminated at local paper store. Done! BTW, this is helpful to teach them about real money too and they have fun trading the dollars in when they get five ones, two fives, etc. So it's motivation and a learning experience!