Letting kids earn screen time with exercise.

What kinds of activity actually work at home?

Short, clear and countable beats long and vague. A child can see the end of “20 star jumps”; “go and get some exercise” has no end. Mix these five kinds so the same muscles aren’t working every day and so there is always something that suits the mood.

• Strength: squats (hold a chair back if a full one is hard), wall sits, press-ups against a wall or on knees, carrying the shopping in.
• Cardio: star jumps, skipping, running on the spot, a steady jog to the end of the road and back, a scooter or bike loop, stairs.
• Mobility: toe touches, arm circles, cat-cow stretches, slow lunges, reaching for the ceiling then the floor.
• Balance: standing on one leg while brushing teeth, walking a line of tape heel to toe, a tree pose, hopping between cushions.
• Recovery: slow stretching, a few minutes of steady breathing, a gentle walk. Counting these as earning days stops the whole thing becoming a grind.

Add the things your child already loves: a dance to three songs, a kick-about, trampolining, a walk with the dog. Walking counts. A good earning list has at least one item the child would do anyway.

How do I keep it fun rather than a chore?

• Offer a choice, not an order. “Squats or star jumps?” gets a different answer from “do your squats”. Two or three options a day is plenty.
• Keep sessions short. Five to ten minutes, finished, beats thirty minutes abandoned. Children can always do a second round.
• Let it get harder slowly, and let it get easier. If 10 squats were easy for a week, try 12. If they were a struggle, go back to 8 or use the chair. Going backwards is not failing; it is how you find the right level.
• Do some of it with them. A parent doing wall sits badly is the best advert for the whole scheme.
• Celebrate honestly. “You did all three” is enough. Avoid fake streaks and badges that punish a missed day; the goal is a child who still wants to do this in six months.
• Don’t compare siblings. Each child’s level is their own. Two children doing the same exercise can be at very different stages, and both can be doing well.

How do I keep it safe?

The same advice we give on our support page applies to any home exercise, with or without an app. Children should use an appropriate exercise level, move in a safe space, and follow parent or guardian guidance. Stop an activity that causes pain, dizziness, or unusual discomfort. None of this is medical advice; if your child has a health condition or an injury, ask their doctor what suits them before you start.

• Clear the space. Enough room to fall over without hitting anything, and nothing slippery underfoot.
• Shoes or bare feet, not socks on a hard floor.
• Start gently. A minute of marching or arm circles before anything fast.
• Low impact when it’s needed. Marching instead of jumping, step-ups instead of burpees. A child who is tired, unwell or recovering can still earn.
• “Something hurt” always ends the activity, no questions and no lost minutes. Make this rule explicit, so a child never pushes through pain to keep a reward.

Should exercise ever be a punishment?

No. The whole scheme depends on movement being the good thing, the thing that unlocks the fun. The moment it is also the consequence for a slammed door (“right, 50 squats”), it becomes the bad thing, and the scheme is finished. Keep three lines clear:

• Exercise earns; it is never a penalty. Behaviour needs its own, separate consequences.
• Earned minutes are not taken away. Once banked, they are the child’s. If you need to stop screens tonight, pause screens tonight; the bank is still there tomorrow.
• Keep it about doing, not about bodies. The reason to move is that it earns screen time and feels good to have done. Leave weight, shape and “burning off” out of it entirely.

How much exercise for how much screen time?

Pick a simple rate and a weekly ceiling, and let the ceiling do the hard work. A simple rate is roughly one minute of screen time for one minute of movement, rounded to easy numbers: a ten-minute set of three activities earns ten to fifteen minutes. Pay a little more for the harder options, so there is a reason to choose them.

The weekly ceiling limits how many new minutes can be earned through effort each week, so set it first. Without one, the exchange rate becomes the argument. With one, a child who has hit the week’s limit by Friday has done a lot of moving; whatever is already banked stays spendable, and earning starts again next week. The ceiling does not decide when minutes are spent, so agree the spending rules separately: which session lengths are allowed, and when screens are off regardless of the balance.

Two more decisions worth making up front. Does walking to school count? (We’d say yes, within a daily cap, because it rewards something you want more of.) And do you want a small guaranteed daily amount that doesn’t have to be earned, so that a child who is ill or has a bad day isn’t shut out? Either approach works, as long as it is decided once and written down.

What about a child who hates sport?

Most of the list above isn’t sport. Mobility, balance and recovery activities are quiet, slow and private, and they count. Walking counts. Dancing in a bedroom with the door shut counts. If a child finds celebrations, timers and cheering stressful, turn them off and let the number quietly go up. And for a child who would rather do anything than exercise, remember that chores can earn minutes too; the point is a child who does something real before the screen, not a child who becomes an athlete.

How does MoveToPlay do it?

MoveToPlay is a screen time app for kids on iPhone, iPad and Apple Watch. Children earn screen time by exercising and doing chores you approve. Minutes go into a bank that never expires, and on an iPhone or iPad you can lock the apps you choose until that time has been earned.

Each day the app picks three activities as Today’s Quest, from strength, cardio, mobility, balance, and recovery, within the limits you set: difficulty, low-impact only, the equipment you have and the places you can exercise. Completing one banks minutes, and your child can swap an activity for an alternative before starting it. Exercises get harder after repeated “Easy” ratings and ease off after repeated “Too hard” ratings, with honest regressions like a chair-supported squat instead of pretending every child should hit a full one on day one. If something hurt, they can say so, and you’ll see it. Calm Mode turns off celebrations and haptics for kids who find them too much. There are no streaks, no guilt messages and nothing designed to pull a child back into the app.

You set a weekly maximum on what your child can earn through their own effort (movement activities, walking, and approved chores together; guaranteed daily minutes, parent bonuses and refunds are outside it), how much each exercise pays out, which play session lengths exist, and optional guaranteed daily minutes (off by default). If you turn on Apple Health steps, walking can earn minutes as well, within a daily cap you set. There is a companion Apple Watch app (watchOS 11 or later); Apple Watch can start and track play sessions but doesn’t lock apps itself. App locking is optional, applies on iPhone and iPad, and uses Apple’s Family Controls; with it off, play sessions run on the honour system with a visible countdown. There is no Android version.

Free to download, and setup is free. To use the app, a parent starts the Annual or Monthly Family subscription (new subscribers get a 2-week free trial, then it renews unless cancelled in Settings) or buys Lifetime once for $19.99 (US price). Read how MoveToPlay works and the questions parents ask, or download it on the App Store. The other guides cover Apple’s free Screen Time tools and chores for screen time.