Magical Museum Time

If I could wave my magic wand, I would give every family a year's membership to a local museum! We are so lucky to live in a city with many museums. Sharing a museum with a child is a very special joy.

In art class we try to become better observers. We look closely at pictures and objects, we discuss and analyze what we see and how it makes us feel, then we express our own ideas in our art. Visiting a museum is a chance to practice those skills, and to have fun as a family.

Many museums have become hands-on and interactive, which is fantastic. I hope you will also visit hands-off museums, and I will explain my reason. As a young mom I invited an acquaintance to go see a special exhibit at an art museum. She responded, "Why? You can't buy what you see at a museum!" It's been twenty years, but remembering that still makes me sad. Are the only things worth seeing and experiencing in life for sale? Even preschoolers can learn that there is much to enjoy at a museum without touching or buying. They can learn, too, that they need to behave appropriately in different places. Collagemama is always dismayed when children of all ages behave at an orchestra concert as if they were at a football game. Who let the dogs out, indeed?

What we see at a museum can energize and inspire us long after a Happy Meal toy has been forgotten. A museum visit might be a special one-to-one parent-child outing for the "big sister" or "big brother" at your house while the younger children (and other parent) stay home and take naps.

Go often to the same museum with children, at least once every 2-3 months. Children learn through repetition. They feel safe and proprietary about the objects and building. Each time you go, be sure to see their very favorite thing, but don't try to see everything. You needn't bother about reading the labels on the art or science displays. Just sit down together on the floor or a bench in the middle of the room. Chat about each object. What does it look like to you? How does it make you feel? There's no right or wrong answer. This is a sensory refueling moment. If your child says the Mark Rothko painting looks like a "bandaid in orange juice" it's okay. In between talking, allow time to be quiet and just look. I can tell you that both parent and child will have an intense personal aesthetic connection to that painting forty years later because of the "bandaid" description.

One of my favorite Dallas museums is small, free, playful, and closely related to children's art endeavors. The MADI Museum is at the corner of Carlisle and Bowen. Take 75 south to the Blackburn exit, go west, then turn left on Cole. Cole becomes Carlisle.

*****5/5/07 Please note that the MADI Museum no longer has its wonderful facade. It has changed its focus and mission. It is still interesting, but a better choice for families might be the Valley House Gallery.