It's a familiar scene in many homes. Dinner is finished, the kitchen is finally clean, and a parent has a few minutes to catch up on something before bedtime. A child settles onto the couch with a tablet, completely absorbed in whatever is happening on the screen. For a little while, everyone gets a chance to unwind.
There's nothing particularly unusual about this. Screens have become part of everyday family life, and they can offer entertainment, learning opportunities, and a welcome break during a busy day.
But imagine that same child spending twenty minutes on a screen in a completely different way.
Instead of watching a video alone, she's laughing with her grandfather in another state as they try to solve a mystery together. They're making predictions, disagreeing about which clue matters most, and laughing because Grandpa has come up with a theory that makes absolutely no sense. When the call ends, she runs into the kitchen to tell her mom what happened and announces that she and Grandpa have already decided what they're going to investigate next time.
Both experiences involved a screen. Both lasted twenty minutes. But what happened during those twenty minutes was remarkably different.
In one, the child enjoyed something. In the other, she experienced something with someone.
And that difference deserves more attention in the conversations we have about children and technology.
We've Become Very Good at Counting Screen Time
Parents today are surrounded by advice about how much screen time children should have. We set limits, monitor apps, establish device-free dinners, and sometimes feel guilty when a particularly exhausting day ends with more television or tablet time than we intended.
Much of that attention comes from a reasonable place. Children need sleep, physical activity, face-to-face interaction, imaginative play, and opportunities to explore the world beyond a screen. Technology shouldn't crowd out the experiences that support healthy development.
But counting minutes only tells us how long a child was using a device. It doesn't tell us much about what they were doing, how engaged they were, or whether another person was sharing the experience.
A child watching cartoons, a child video calling a parent who is away on business, and a child reading an interactive story with Grandma may all appear in the same screen-time total. Yet the experiences involve different kinds of attention, participation, and interaction.
This doesn't mean the amount of screen time is irrelevant. It means duration is only one part of the picture.
For families trying to make thoughtful choices about technology, another question may be just as important: What is my child experiencing during that time, and who, if anyone, is experiencing it with them?
Children Don't Just Need Entertainment. They Need Connection.
Think about some of the experiences children remember most fondly. It might be baking cookies with Grandma, building a blanket fort with Dad, inventing a ridiculous game with an older sibling, or taking a walk with an aunt who always notices the most interesting things.
Often, the activity itself is fairly ordinary. What makes it special is the person sharing it.
A child may not remember the exact recipe or what the finished fort looked like, but they may remember how Grandma let them sneak an extra chocolate chip or how Dad pretended the fort was a secret headquarters. Those moments become part of the story of their relationship.
Shared experiences give people something to notice, respond to, laugh about, and remember together. They create opportunities for conversation that might never happen if everyone were simply sitting across from one another trying to think of something to say.
For children ages 5–9, this can be particularly valuable because so much of their world revolves around imagination, discovery, play, and growing independence. They are developing their own opinions, testing ideas, asking questions, and discovering what interests them. When an adult participates in those experiences, the child has an opportunity to share not only what they know, but how they think.
The activity becomes a way of getting to know each other.
And that matters whether the two people are sitting at the same kitchen table or connecting from opposite sides of the country.
There's a Difference Between Watching and Participating
Imagine two children enjoying a story about a mysterious island.
One watches an animated adventure unfold on a screen. The story is entertaining, the characters are funny, and the child enjoys finding out what happens.
The other child is sharing a story with her aunt. When the characters discover a strange footprint, they pause to decide what might have made it. The child insists it's a dragon, while her aunt thinks it belongs to an enormous bird. They invent increasingly ridiculous explanations before continuing, and when the answer is finally revealed, one of them gets to celebrate being right.
Neither experience is inherently wrong, and watching a good story can be enjoyable in its own right. But the second experience creates opportunities that go beyond following the plot. The child is expressing ideas, listening to another perspective, making predictions, and participating in a conversation with someone she cares about.
The story becomes something they are creating meaning around together.
This is an important distinction when thinking about active and passive screen experiences. Digital activities can invite children to make choices, solve problems, create things, and communicate with others. They can also encourage very little participation beyond watching what happens next.
Of course, simply tapping buttons or choosing between options doesn't automatically make an experience meaningful. What matters is the quality of the engagement and whether the activity gives a child opportunities to think, imagine, respond, and connect.
Sometimes the most valuable interaction isn't with the technology at all.
It's with the person on the other side.
Shared Experiences Give Families Something to Talk About
Anyone who has tried to have a long conversation with a young child over FaceTime probably understands how quickly questions can run out.
A grandparent asks about school, the child says it was fine, and after a few more questions, both people are searching for something else to discuss. The grandparent wants to connect, the child loves their grandparent, and yet the conversation doesn't seem to go anywhere.
When families are together in person, they rarely depend entirely on conversation to maintain their relationships. They do things together, and the conversation grows naturally around those experiences.
Distance removes many of those everyday opportunities, but it doesn't have to remove the experiences themselves.
A grandparent and grandchild can draw together from different homes. A traveling parent can share a bedtime story from a hotel room. An aunt and nephew can work through a mystery, compare discoveries, or invent an ongoing imaginary adventure.
Instead of asking a child to describe their day, the adult becomes part of something happening in the child's day.
That shared experience gives both people something to respond to, and it often creates conversations that continue long after the activity ends. A child might remember the ridiculous creature they invented with Grandpa or bring up a question from last week's story. The next call begins with something familiar rather than another round of introductions.
Over time, those experiences become part of the relationship's shared history.
The Value of Doing Something Together Goes Beyond the Moment
One of the loveliest things about a shared experience is that it doesn't necessarily end when the activity is over.
A child who reads a story about an unusual animal with Grandma may spend the next afternoon looking for pictures of similar creatures. A parent who invents a fictional world with their child may receive a drawing of a new character a few days later. An aunt and niece who begin a weekly mystery might spend the days between calls collecting possible clues.
The experience gives them something to carry forward.
This is one reason shared activities can become such meaningful family rituals. They create anticipation, familiarity, and a sense that something belongs to the people participating.
For children, that sense of continuity can be especially comforting when someone they love isn't physically nearby. The relationship doesn't exist only during the moments when the screen is on. There are memories from the last experience and ideas waiting for the next one.
A child begins to think of someone far away not simply as a person they occasionally talk to, but as someone who is part of their everyday world.
Grandma is the person who knows about the mysterious island. Dad is the person who helps invent the next chapter. Aunt Sarah is the person who always has the most ridiculous ideas.
Those are small connections, but repeated over time, they can become something much larger.
Meaningful Screen Time Doesn't Have to Look Educational
There's another part of this conversation that deserves attention. In our efforts to make screen time worthwhile, it's easy to assume that every digital experience needs to teach children something measurable.
We look for reading practice, math skills, vocabulary development, or educational content that justifies the time spent using a device.
Learning is valuable, of course, and technology can provide wonderful opportunities for children to explore new subjects. But not every meaningful experience needs to look like a lesson.
Sometimes children benefit simply from laughing with someone they love.
Inventing a ridiculous story, creating a silly character, guessing what might happen next, or solving an imaginary problem together can offer opportunities for creativity, communication, and cooperation without feeling like schoolwork.
Children also need experiences that are enjoyable for their own sake. Shared laughter, playfulness, curiosity, and imagination are important parts of family life, even when nobody can point to a specific academic skill being practiced.
The goal doesn't have to be turning every minute into a learning opportunity.
Sometimes the goal can simply be enjoying one another.
What About Families Who Can't Always Be Together?
For families who live apart, the distinction between screen time and shared time becomes even more important.
A parent traveling for work may not be able to help make dinner or sit beside their child at bedtime. A grandparent living several states away can't easily stop by after school. Military families, divorced or co-parenting families, and extended families separated by geography often have to find different ways to participate in one another's lives.
Technology can't replace physical presence, and it shouldn't be expected to. A video call isn't the same as a hug, and an online activity can't recreate every part of being together in person.
But technology can make shared experiences possible when they otherwise wouldn't happen.
The opportunity isn't simply to see someone's face on a screen. It's to read the same story, solve the same mystery, create something together, or continue a tradition that belongs to the relationship.
For a child, those experiences can communicate something important: Even though we aren't in the same place, we can still have things that are ours.
That feeling of being included, remembered, and connected is what makes the experience meaningful.
Creating Better Shared Experiences Online
One of the challenges for families is that knowing shared experiences are valuable doesn't necessarily make them easy to organize.
A grandparent may love the idea of reading together but struggle to hold a book where a child can see it clearly over video. A traveling parent may want to do something more engaging than asking about school but have very little time to prepare. An aunt may be excited about creating a regular tradition with her nephew but unsure what kinds of activities will keep him interested.
Real family life is busy, and meaningful connection shouldn't require adults to become professional entertainers.
This is part of the thinking behind Bailey & Beau Co.
We created Bailey & Beau around the belief that technology can do more than entertain children or help families see one another. It can also provide a place for people to share experiences, especially when being together in person isn't possible.
In the Reading Room, children ages 5–9 and the people they love can experience interactive stories together, with opportunities for imagination, conversation, and shared discovery. The story gives everyone something to participate in, rather than leaving the adult to carry the interaction alone.
The Activity Room offers another way for families to connect through experiences centered on creativity, curiosity, discovery, problem-solving, and imaginative play. Instead of simply watching something happen, families have an opportunity to participate in an activity together.
These experiences are designed to fit into real family life, with approximately twenty minutes of shared time that can become part of a weekly tradition, an evening routine, or an occasional adventure.
The purpose isn't to encourage families to spend more time on screens. It's to help them make some of the time they already spend online more meaningful.
And the same philosophy applies when families are physically together. Sharing a story or activity can be a wonderful way for a parent and child sitting side by side to enjoy time with one another, too.
The Best Experiences Leave Room for the Unexpected
One of the things that makes shared activities so memorable is that they rarely unfold exactly as planned.
A story may lead to a question nobody knows how to answer. A drawing challenge may turn into a conversation about an imaginary pet. A child might insist on taking the adventure in a completely different direction than the adult expected.
Those unexpected moments are often where the connection happens.
It's tempting to measure the success of an activity by whether everyone finished it, followed the instructions, or reached the intended outcome. But when the purpose is family connection, those aren't necessarily the most important measures.
A child who interrupts a story to share something personal may be offering a more meaningful moment than the next page could provide. An adult who follows a child's imagination rather than insisting on completing the activity is showing that the child's ideas matter.
Sometimes the activity is simply the doorway to something neither person could have planned.
Twenty Minutes Can Become a Memory
We often imagine meaningful family time requires large blocks of uninterrupted attention. A full afternoon together, a carefully planned outing, or an elaborate activity that everyone will remember for years.
Those experiences can be wonderful, but they aren't the only way relationships grow.
A short shared experience can create a surprising amount of connection when people are genuinely engaged with one another. Twenty minutes spent laughing over a story, solving a problem, or imagining something together can become a familiar part of a child's week.
What gives those moments lasting value isn't necessarily their length. It's the attention, participation, and relationship they contain.
A grandparent who returns every Sunday for another adventure is creating something a child can anticipate. A traveling parent who makes time for a shared story is keeping a familiar part of the relationship alive. An aunt who remembers what happened during the last activity is showing that the experience mattered to her, too.
The memories accumulate, often so quietly that nobody realizes how important they've become until much later.
Maybe the Question Isn't How Much Screen Time
It's understandable that parents want guidance about technology. Screens are everywhere, digital experiences are constantly changing, and finding a healthy balance can feel complicated.
Time limits still matter. So do sleep, movement, offline play, age-appropriate content, and the many experiences children need away from devices.
But when we think about the role technology plays in family life, it may help to look beyond the number of minutes and consider the experiences those minutes contain.
Was the child simply occupied, or were they engaged? Did the experience invite imagination, conversation, creativity, or discovery? Did it create an opportunity for someone important to become part of the child's day?
Not every screen experience needs to accomplish all those things, and there is nothing wrong with enjoying a favorite show or having a little quiet entertainment.
But when we have an opportunity to turn screen time into shared time, we may be giving children something that lasts much longer than the experience itself.
Years from now, a child probably won't remember how many minutes they spent looking at a screen on an ordinary Wednesday evening.
They may remember the night Grandpa couldn't stop laughing at the ridiculous animal they invented together. They may remember how Dad always made time for a story when he traveled or how Aunt Sarah somehow managed to turn every mystery into an adventure.
And what stays with them may not be the technology, the activity, or even the story.
It may be the feeling that someone wanted to spend that time with them.
Because the most meaningful part of a shared experience isn't always what we do. It's who we get to share it with.