What do salad dressing and the internet have in common?
It’s not every day that a food analogy works so well to make a point about productive screen time for kids. Actually, it is every day. How much better to understand the importance of what we let feed kids’ minds than to map it to what we literally feed on.
So here’s yet another food-to-screen time epiphany 🙂.
The tyranny of separating layers of a vinaigrette …and of the internet
Yours truly was settling down to dig into a delectable winter salad when she nearly made the mistake of drizzling on the dressing before shaking the bottle. The HORROR! If you’ve ever poured on a vinaigrette before mixing it, you understand. It is disgusting and almost impossible to fix what happens on your plate.
Vinaigrettes separate because they can’t help themselves. Frustratingly though, we are the ones who separate the internet by creating boxes around how kids use it like, “for fun”, “for school”, “for enrichment”, “for learning”, “for keeping in touch” etc.
But the reality is, the results really are better for the kids (relate to much yummier) when we take in all these parts together! For example, learning should be thoroughly mixed with fun.
For kids’ screen time, Shake the internet well before using
If you remember anything from this post it’s this: imagine there’s a label instruction on the side of the internet that tells you to ‘shake well for best results’. You wouldn’t ever just drink the layer of the oil on a salad dressing and leave all the other parts now would you? No! You mix it up to get that ‘best result’ intended. Same should go for your kids’ screen time.
Since you can’t literally grab the hold of the sides of the internet and shake it, here are some practical tips on what to do to get these ‘best results’ for the kids.
Shake well – Make kid’s screen time include a variety of content (But don’t do work to pull together that content yourself)
So the goal is to give the kids an eclectic mix of content. This doesn’t mean you have to pull together that content yourself.
You could make your own salad dressing but is it really worth the effort – or as good? For most of us, taking advantage of the expertise of others is the way to get that perfect balance. Someone has picked the ingredients, chosen the right proportions and maybe even put it in an appetizing bottle (as opposed to the suspicious unlabeled jar that sits in your fridge).
Bring that idea to getting balance in kids’ screen time. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel. Anetapacks, (playlists but for websites and apps for kids) should be an obvious solution here. Alternatively, any mix of 2 to 4 of the Gem of the week recommendations would do. If screen time in your home is primarily TV, be comforted that several of the Gem of the week recommendations are TV shows that will give them thoughtful wide-ranging programming. Check them out!
Guide kids to have screen time in appropriate proportions to their other activities
Salad dressing is a good reminder of the importance of relative proportions. It is not soup! While the ‘best results’ comes in part from shaking to mix the parts, there is an implicit understanding that you won’t drown the rest of the meal even in the well-mixed dressing.
Similarly, you need to support kids to get their screen time in proportion so that all the other yummy things that can go in their life don’t get drowned out.
Here is the thing though, like with dressing, we all have our different preferences for proportions – heavy, light, medium, on the side…maybe even not at all! Figure out what the proportion is in your household that gives that ‘best result’.
Ok. This analogy has been beaten thoroughly. So I’ll stop. But before we part, Remember how the same ingredients of oil and zesty whatever goes into the vinaigrettes can be so terrible when not mixed together? Think of that as the sub par experience of the internet your kids are getting if you do not do any of these things before using.
