Museums with kids, without the meltdown
Museums are free, indoors, and full of extraordinary things. They are also where family days out most reliably fall apart, usually in the second room.
Why the second room is where it goes wrong
In the first room everything is new and they are interested. By the second, they have worked out the format: you walk slowly, you read a small card, you say something appreciative, you move two feet left. That is the whole activity, and it is not one.
Children do not dislike museums. They dislike spectating. The gap between what an adult gets from a gallery, which is mostly internal, and what a child needs, which is mostly a task, is the entire problem.
Give them a job before you go in
The fix is a task that runs the whole way round, decided before you walk through the door. Not a worksheet from the desk, which is homework, but something short and slightly silly.
Find the oldest thing in the building
They will end up reading dates, which is the thing you could never make them do by asking.
Find something you could fit in your pocket, and something bigger than our car
Scale is the most immediately graspable thing in a museum and children pick it up instantly.
Find the angriest face
Portraits and sculpture become a genuinely funny hunt. Works in any art gallery in the world.
Find something you would steal
Slightly naughty, extremely effective, and produces the best conversations of the day.
Find something nobody else is looking at
Turns the quiet corners into the prize, which conveniently is also where the crowds are not.
Timing and the exit
Ninety minutes is the outer limit for most children, and an hour is better. Leaving while they are still enjoying it is the single strongest thing you can do for the next visit.
Pick three rooms in advance and let the rest go. A museum visited properly in three rooms is a good day. A museum route-marched in twelve is the reason they say no next time.
Do the shop at the end and budget for it out loud beforehand, because the shop negotiation is what people actually remember from bad museum days.
Photos, rules and the app
Most museums allow photography without flash, and a phone hunt works well in a gallery because the finds are unusual and the space is designed to be looked at. Check the signage, because some collections and most special exhibitions do not permit it.
Scavvi's custom items are useful here: write six prompts on the train in and you have a bespoke hunt for that specific museum. The verification does the arguing about whether a bronze counts as a statue.
Where photography is not allowed, the same list works spoken aloud. The prompt is doing the work, not the camera.
Want the version that runs itself?
Scavvi does the list, checks the finds and keeps the score, so you get to just be there. Free on iOS and Android.
Get Scavvi freeQuestions
How long should you spend in a museum with children?
An hour is plenty, ninety minutes is the ceiling. Leave while they are still interested rather than when everyone has had enough.
What age can children enjoy a museum?
From about three, if you treat it as a hunt rather than a viewing. Under three, go for the space and the running rather than the collection.
Can you take photos in museums?
Usually yes without flash in permanent collections, often no in special exhibitions. Check the signs at the entrance, and assume no in anything with loaned works.
What if my child is bored of the art?
Change the task, not the room. 'Find the angriest face' rescues a gallery that 'look at this painting' has already lost.