EarnPlay: Screen-Time Bank

The American Academy of Pediatrics advises parents to closely monitor their children’s screen time. Do your children play a lot of video games? Then you need EarnPlay®! Designed to encourage good behavior, EarnPlay is the game-time manager that helps govern the amount of time children spend in front of a screen. In EarnPlay, children earn minutes by reading books and doing chores. Then they get to spend their accumulated minutes playing on their favorite video game system. When they run out of minutes, the alerts will chime, and it’s time to stop playing. If all goes well, they’ll soon be back asking for more chores!

Here’s how it works. In EarnPlay, each child gets a local account to manage their game-time (or ‘screen-time’). To earn minutes, he or she can complete a chore from the task list. The tasks and award amounts are easily customized to suit your household and family. When a child has enough minutes to play on his/her game system, just start their individual play timer using the play button. The timer will count down and alert you when their minutes are up.

EarnPlay also encourages kids to read books. By using the earn buttons, children can accumulate minutes while doing specific activities (such as reading). Simply start the earn timer when beginning reading and select again to stop when done reading. This is also helpful for tracking lengthy activities such as helping to work in the yard.

EarnPlay is a game-time bank. What makes EarnPlay unique is that the minutes are stored for future use. That means earned minutes don’t go away when you close the app or power off your device. So, EarnPlay minutes can become a valuable commodity for children and a precious tool for parents.

EarnPlay can be used for up to four children, and includes 4 separate timers that can be run simultaneously.

Do you ever have problems getting children ready for bed on time or getting ready to go quickly? Use the RACE function. These challenge timers can be used for anything on an impulse. When things get out of control just set the RACE duration and start the countdown. For example, let’s say you need them to be dressed for school in 15 minutes. Say to them “15 Minute Challenge for being dressed for school!” Then press the Select button for each child that completes the challenge in time. When the bell rings, the ones that finished in time get the award!

Solve arguments with the magic key. This rotating icon travels to a different child’s bank every day, and can be used for many purposes. Do your kids sometimes argue over who’s turn it is for things? This magic key can be a fantastic deciding factor. Just look who has the magic key for the day and that child will win. Once kids buy into this system it can be quite handy.

EarnPlay has a currency conversion option. We’ve all had times where kids want to buy stuff in the store and start nagging. Well, this option lets kids “cash out” their minutes in exchange for money. Each timer automatically calculates and displays the cash value of the child’s accumulated minutes using a conversion ratio set by parents in the settings menu. This option gives children even more reasons to help around the house or do good in school.

In our test households, EarnPlay became popular with parents because kids became eager to do chores. In fact, it was not uncommon for kids to even compete to do them!

KEY FEATURES:
- Encourages reading
- Motivates children to do chores and save
- Bank balances are persistent (saved for next time)
- Simultaneous timers and accounts for up to 4 children
- Turn Key for preventing arguments
- Challenge timer for quick chores or tasks
- Currency conversion for cashing out minutes for money
- No online use required
- Easily customized chore task list
- Customized child names and currency conversion ratio

When applying all these features consistently, EarnPlay can really improve your daily routines with children.