Tips on visiting museums with your kids

THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO TAKE YOUR KIDS TO ART MUSEUMS AND GALLERIES.

For those of you who have unrealistic expectations (like I did) about taking your kids to museums, I have compiled a list of suggestions that will make your trips more fun, engaging for your child and will create a life long fascination with art for your kids.

1. FIRST: Put aside your own expectations for seeing art. For YOUR experience, visit the museum another day without kids!

2. Choose times that are not too crowded. Summertime is a perfect time to take them during the week at times that are less busy.

3. Do not spend too much time in the museum. Kids have a different attention span and you can land up making them dread the long, laborious museum visits that you are subjecting them to. Remember, your aim is to make them want to come back!

4. Make it about their choices. Ask them which piece they are drawn to and go and stand in front of it. Or go into the museum shop and ask them to choose a postcard of a piece that they like and then play a game by finding it in the museum. Create a scavenger hunt.

5. Ask lots of questions to engage them: What do you see? what are the people feeling? What are they doing? What time of the day do you think it is? etc. etc. More engagement means more interest.