Why take your children to the museum? All. The. Time.

Schools and Families Officer Rebecca Shellenberger looks at why it is a fantastic idea to introduce young children to museums

As schools and families officer here at the museum and a member of the local community, I get a lot of feedback from friends about the museum. One of the most frequent phrases is, ‘oh we haven’t been there in ages.’ So, full disclosure, I love museums. All museums. This concept of not visiting with frequency your local, nationally recognised museum is just a concept that I can’t relate to. But as I said, I love museums, and now so does my family. But why doesn’t everybody love museums? I was chatting with a friend a couple weeks ago and she admitted that, as a family, they don’t frequent British museums, but will seek them out in other countries. She is not interested, presumably because she grew up learning about British history (but there are other types of museums!). Another friend pointed out, ‘we just aren’t as cerebral as your family’. But I would argue that museums are one of the rare places that actually level the playing field. The entry fees are generally low and, once in the museum, there are usually free activities to participate in. The knowledge is there for anyone to absorb…you do not need to walk in through the front door already an expert, and even if you leave and have only learnt one thing, that is a win in our book. Museums strive to be accessible to all levels and all abilities. There are museums for every mood (quiet or lively) and any interest, and they are here for you…not ‘other people’, you. When you purchase that ticket, no one is worried about your socioeconomic status, or your diagnosis, or your interfering in-laws. You showed up, and that is all that matters. My degree is in Anthropology, which is the study of man. In the coursework I learnt that one of the metrics we can use to measure the success or resilience of a society is whether the population supports things such as arts and culture. So, when my friends tell me that they went to a museum on the weekend, it makes me happy because I love museums, but it also makes me feel just a little more secure within my society.

But what does this have to do with children? Children learn from our example of course, but we can also teach them from a young age that museums are for them, always. Now, I could lay out some statistics here which would state some very obvious facts about parents exposing their children to academic opportunities, but I think I’ll present this anecdotally.

When my daughter was two years old, we had a family membership at the closest museum to us – a science and space museum. It was big, had a café, and was the perfect place to plant ourselves on a snowy day. We went to the museum probably once a week to see if they had set out any new colouring sheets, and we browsed the exhibits discovering new things all the time. She didn’t have a particular love of space, but the museum did have a spectacular set of huge, but lightweight building blocks (moon rocks of course). She would lift these blocks high above her head and she felt so strong and so big. This space was for her. And, consequently, by the ripe old age of three my child knew more about space than I had learnt over the course of more than 30+ years. She knew the planets and nebula by sight, and even gently pointed out when a presenter mistakenly had a photo of the Ganymede labelled as Io. At three years old she had confidence in her knowledge, and the confidence to raise her tiny hand in the air in order to point out the mistake. I would love to take credit for this, but I did not do that, the museum did.

Our children need to know that knowledge of the world is not gatekept. It doesn’t matter what they do with the specific knowledge gained because, more importantly, learning about their world through places like museums helps them to understand their place in it.

We are running a trial stay-and-play session for children aged under 5 at the museum on January 8^th. If you would like to see how your little one gets inspired by the museum environment, why not book your place here.