No Phone Zone

Jada's newfound phone ownership represents a huge opportunity for Amy and I to play carrots and sticks.  On the carrot side, she spent the whole summer proving her maturity just to get the thing.  On the stick side, we can take it away.

In fact, late last week and into the weekend, we did take it away.  She knows no screen time until homework's done, and Aaron ratted her out for futzing around on her phone while she was allegedly doing her reading homework.  She fessed up and I called for a three-day ice-out period on her phone.  In other words, no screen time for 72 hours.

She didn't take it as hard as we thought at first, but the time of punishment seemed to drag on longer than she figured.  Plus, she has a sleepover coming up and can't wait to play with her phone there, so when I warned her that another infraction might jeopardize her ability to bring her phone, that really seemed to get her guard up not to mess up. 

So hopefully she's learned her lesson. Carrots and sticks is all it takes.