I am a museum-going mom, a young mother of three young children (currently 5, 3, and 9 months), and a former student at Harvard Extension School in Cambridge, MA, in their program for Museum Studies. After a false start or two on the culminating thesis, struggling with a couple different topics that lost their appeal after a few weeks and the fact that a traditional thesis would be read out of love by my husband and parents and politeness by . . . well, probably no one else--only to get dusty on a bookshelf. Finally I realized that what I really wanted to do was share my passion for little ones at the museum with the world (or whomever will read my ramblings here!).
There has been much research about children in museums, but most of the studies have looked at elementary school-aged children and teen-agers. Preschoolers, toddlers, and infants in the museum environment have not been addressed as carefully or thoroughly. While children's museums, science centers, zoos and aquariums are museums that are naturally well versed in the needs and desires of young children and their caregivers and well prepared to serve a young community of museum-goers, art and history museums have only recently begun to focus on their youngest audience.
I hope to contribute in my small way to the museum field by being honest about how I and my kids approach our museum adventures (tips and tricks of what has worked for us to feel most successful in our trips) and musings on how I've seen museum experiences enhance the informal learning (i.e. PLAY!) that is the optimal way for preschoolers (and their chaperones) to learn.
So here we are, at the very beginning of an adventure into uncharted territory. At least, I'm 97% sure (after a couple google searches) that this is the first blog by one museum-going mommy for other museum-going parents, grandparents, and sitters of young children! I hope what you find here will inspire you to take any little ones in your circle to museums with more confidence and curiosity. I especially hope you will chime in with comments and questions, advice, and most of all personal experiences of being in museums as a young child or with young children.
You can expect to find the occasional article with a scholarly bent (a small hope that that Master's education isn't going to waste), as well as tips and tricks from one museum-going mommy to another, book recommendations, anecdotes of my own trips to museums with my little crazies in tow, and an overall enthusiasm for being at museums with young children's energy enlivening the space and little voices echoing through the galleries!
