Tips for Visiting Museums with Kids

Bring along a notebook and pencil

Pens aren’t welcome in the galleries. Children can make sketches or take notes. This may help to restrain the touching impulse. (Note: Jackson Pollock’s paintings are easier to copy than those of Carvaggio.)

Help your child relate the paintings or sculptures to their own life

This is another way they can “interact” without touching. In their book, “Where’s the ME in Museum?”, Milde Waterfall and Sarah Grusin have some fun questions like “Let’s invite these people to dinner—what do you think they’d like to eat?” (If your kids are prone to nightmares, don’t try this with the paintings by Francis Bacon or Edvard Munch.) The Smithsonian suggests that you “pick a theme—like animals—and have your child find animals in the museum.”

Susan Delson, former editor-in-chief of Museums Magazine, warns parents not to bite off more than their kids can chew. You might want to limit your visit to one gallery and a snack at the café. Even if your child only wants to look at one painting, that’s okay. Talk about what you just saw right after leaving the gallery.  Some museum cafes continue to educate as they satisfy your hunger. The Mitsitam Native Foods Café at the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian has five stations, each of which serves indigenous cuisine from a different region of the Americas. 

Visit the museum gift shop

They have many fun items for kids. But some also can be overwhelming, and costly, so establish a spending limit before you go in to avoid tantrums inside.

• Children admire Van Gogh’s Starry Night.
• Josh Staiger

Postcards are an inexpensive souvenir that Jean Sousa, Director of Interpretive Exhibitions and Family Programs at the Art Institute of Chicago suggests using to set up your own museum at home. (You can also buy postcards before you enter the galleries and have a “treasure hunt” for the paintings.)

Don’t let the experience end when you leave the building

Ask what they enjoyed and why and encourage them to talk about their visit with friends and family. Don’t forget that the best way to instill a love of museums in your children is to have fun together!