Are Museums on Your Wish List?

How to survive museum visits with kids.

We lived in the Paris suburbs the year that Charlotte was three. Every first Sunday of the month, the national museums were free. We would head into the city for the day to join the crowds visiting the Louvre or the Pompidou or climbing the towers at Notre Dame.

Easter fell on the first Sunday in April that year, so after our Easter egg hunt, we headed for the Orsay, the impressionist museum. We needed to wait a bit to get in, but it wasn’t long before we were inside and wandering through the art galleries.

We’d found that the best divide and conquer solution for us was for Andy to keep Teddy and Carmen engaged and for me to handle Charlotte, at least at first. Charlotte and I played I Spy as we walked through the museum. Could she find a boy without shoes? A house with a purple door? A person eating an apple? Which of the boats in the painting of the harbor was the biggest? The smallest? Her favorite?

After an hour or so, she announced that she was hungry and wanted to eat the snack she had brought. She put her little hand into the pocket of her corduroys and pulled out a handful of what had once been chocolate Easter eggs. I stifled a giggle at her face when she realized that chocolate had melted in her pocket and steered her quickly toward the bathrooms. In the hall outside the bathrooms, I painstakingly unwrapped each egg, scooped up as much of the chocolate as I could, and popped it into her mouth. Then I dropped the chocolate-covered tin foil into the trash can, we washed our hands, and the two of us headed off to rejoin the others.

Are there lessons to be drawn here?

First, you might want to check your kids’ pockets for chocolate Easter eggs before going to a museum. They’re easier to peel if they haven’t melted ahead of time. Here are a few more tips:

Museum visits can be a lot of work with kids, but they’re also rewarding if you don’t overdo them.

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