When my son was around six years old I got tired and frustrated with being his media manager. “Mom, can I watch TV?” “Mom, can I play a computer game?” Etc.. So we had a family meeting to discuss how to manage our son’s media with out having to be the bad guys and to empower him a little in making his own decisions. What we came up with was a ticket system. At the start of the week (a day and time of his choosing) he would receive 14 tickets. Each ticket represented one half hour of media time to be used at his discretion. We defined media to be any sort of movie or TV, books on tape (trust me on this one, it’s all he would do if we let him) and computer games. He was allowed one movie freebie at a friend’s house and one we watched as a family. This method has been tried and true in our house for six years. We have not had arguments and our son has learned that if he uses up his time on the weekend he won’t have any for the rest of the week. What he has learned from this experience has been invaluable.
So, to make a long story even longer, I was in the clay studio one day and managed to fashion a little retro looking television out of red clay. I made it a vessel and included little holes to put pins in after it was fired (for antennae). It came out so cute. I decided to give it to my son. Somehow we came up with the idea to exchange our ticket system for a bean system and the little TV became the perfect little holder for the beans.
I have since made more TV’s for Etsy, with matching vessels.
