Laurel Johnson Consulting Videos

My sister asked me, “what do you think about bringing toddlers to museums?” as we walked to our car after visiting the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, NM.
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What a great question! I would imagine that most museums (excluding children’s museums) are designed for adult enjoyment. We go to them because *we* are interested. I wonder about how much value a toddler could gain from an environment where they are hushed and told not to touch things. Basically a museum is the opposite of everything toddlers need and want to do: explore, run, climb, touch everything & use their voice.
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If you do want to take your toddler to a museum I would suggest:
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✨shifting your expectations! This won’t look like the days of yore when you could spend hours strolling through a museum, enjoying in-depth, uninterrupted discussions about art and life
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✨trading off supervision of the child with a friend, family member, or coparent so one can go at a toddler’s pace or run around/have a snack outside, while the other is able to linger with the art
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✨limiting the length of your stay (maybe an hour max)
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✨visiting when your child is well rested and not hungry (often the earlier in the day the better)
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…It also helps when your museum has a play area as inspiring as this one 😍