Lockout box

Darren Wright

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I was cleaning up the garage the other day and had a little chuckle when I came across this. It was one of a couple of lockout boxes I built one summer when my oldest had turned 12. He hadn't been doing his chores that were given to him to have done by the time his Mom and I got home from work. For punishment his Mom told him that he couldn't watch TV for a week. We'd get home every day and chores were still not done and TV was warm...hmm. So necessity, the mother of invention, prompted me to take drastic measures. I built one of these boxes for each TV in the house and locked the plug inside of it so it couldn't be plugged in. There were fits thrown and you'd have thought his life was over, but...chores started getting done after that week of grounding was over.

I decided to put in on the shelf and pass it on when he has kids of his own. :)
 

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I wish I had had a couple of those when my son was about 12-15 years old. We had the same problem!!

On second thought, my mother could have used one when I was that age, too!!
 
That is some true family woodworking. :p

Great call on saving it to pass down to him. I'll bet it gets a big laugh out of him in a few years.
 
Kudos Darren! Especially keeping it to pass along. Much more elegant than my Mom's solution - cutting the plug off.:rolleyes: Nobody got away with calling Mom's bluff especially me!:D

Vaughn called it right. When he's old enough you'll both have a good laugh.

Wes
 
I used to take the plugs off altogether.:eek:
And leave them on top of the T.V. :eek:
The kids soon learned who was in charge though. :)
 
Great solution Darren!

We did it a bit differently at the Tokyo Abletts' house, we got one of them coin operated things like they have at a hotel, put your coin in the slot, watch TV for an hour.

I gave the two girls 5 coins each per week, they could watch TV, or save the money, and it was their money.

At first, they watch TV, but after a while, they have learned that they would rather save the money. We don't watch a lot of TV at our house, I'd say my wife watches the most TV, mostly to wind down for an hour or so at night when I'm still at the L shop and the girls are sleeping, but she mainly watches DVDs of show she likes.

We recently counted all the money we collected in the last year, it is just over 44,000 yen, at 100 yen an hour, that works out to only 1.2 hours a day the TV is on, I'd bet that is a fairly low number compared to before we got the box. The best thing is, we now have a "New TV and New DVD/HDD/VHS Machine Fund".

My kids also read a LOT more books now. :thumb:

Cheers!
 
I just have to pass on this story.

We had a cousin of mine living with us when I was a little guy. He was old enough to be left at home to take care of me when my folks were going to be gone for a while. He had the same TV addiction. The plug in for the TV was centered on the back side of my folks bedroom closet so Dad installed a switch in a electrical box in the closet & ran the power through the switch & on to the plug in. When ever my folks left my cousin in charge of me Dad would just flip the switch off so there was no power to the plug in. My cousin was puzzled about this but never figured it out.
 
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