Airspace
“Table manners for kids”
“Situation: dinner.” A Triangle-person is show sitting behind a plate. The plate has peas, some meat and potatoes on it.
“Identify plate airspace.” The plate has now transformed to holding a house, a car, and a forest with a couple of trees. There is a dashed-line cylinder rising from the plate, covering the area above it. It’s labeled “Plate airspace”. There is an airplane within the cylinder.
“Fork must remain within the plate airspace.” The Triangle-person is now smiling, holding the airplane above the plate, which now contains potatoes, a car and some peas.
There are certain things in life that seem easy, but are actually complex. For example take walking - it’s such a useful and foundational skill nearly all adults do perfectly - despite the complexity of balancing a shifting mass on two postcard-sized surfaces.
Not dropping food on your clothes is another such skill. It requires a good understanding of 3D geometry of space, the physics of gravity, and coordination of different motor skills. It involves half of the science known to humanity. Despite this difficulty most adults can nail it, which is pretty amazing.
So to help our kids, we have developed a “plate airspace” theory to assist with the development of this perennially thorny skill.