Keep Your Kid’s Mask on a Lanyard

Lanyards are often used to keep our most precious objects — keys, for example, or a whistle if you’re a coach or referee — safe and easily accessible. And there is nothing our kids need more now to keep safe and easily accessible than their masks. That’s why, especially if they are young or prone to losing things, a mask lanyard may be the solution to a problem we never thought we’d have.

Mask lanyards work the same way a lanyard for eyeglasses works — by attaching to each ear piece with a clasp of some kind. You take off the mask and it drops to hang safely around your neck, rather than be left on a table or desk (which may now be contaminated by germs), lost forever to the black hole that is the school’s “lost and found” or, even worse, to be traded with a friend. You know little kids are going to want to try on each other’s masks, and the lanyards will hopefully slow them down long enough for a teacher to intervene.

[referenced id=”930742″ url=”https://www.lifehacker.com.au/2020/06/make-little-kids-the-family-mask-monitor/” thumb=”https://www.gizmodo.com.au/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2020/06/26/hytuspis1vckefu0yszz-300×168.jpg” title=”Make Little Kids the ‘Family Mask Monitor’” excerpt=”I don’t know about the rest of you, but the novelty of mask-wearing has officially worn thin in my family. My nine-year-old son thought they were pretty cool at first — he even wanted to create reasons to have to wear them — but now he sees them for the…”]

If you do a basic search for kids’ face mask lanyards on Etsy, you’ll find a variety of styles ranging from about $4-$6 for something very basic to $14-20 if you want a fun fabric, beads, or other personalisation. I personally purchased three of these from the CAVEXAboutique Etsy shop — one each for my son, my husband, and myself, because a mask lanyard is a thing we can all benefit from right now.

I suggest opting for a lanyard that is lightweight (you don’t want one so heavy that it pulls on your mask) but functions well enough to protect your investment in all those Spider-Man, Pokémon, and Frozen masks.