Deb Fuller's point that children/family gallery activities help keep the 
kids busy is well-taken.  Our education staff created "scavenger hunt" 
laminated handouts with a grid of image details from various works in 
the collection.  The kids who take up the activity are focused, engaged, 
and, frankly, well-behaved.  They stay longer, visit every gallery, and 
often want to stay longer than their parents do.  It's an easy, 
inexpensive way to help parents and children enjoy and really see the 
works in the museum.

Someone else mentioned that children are not the only visitors engaging 
in disruptive behavior, and I agree completely.  It's easy to snark on 
children and "bad parenting," and maybe it's satisfying to some, but I'd 
rather have an ignorant child in the museum than a disruptive adult.  
Children are accustomed to taking direction, and most are easily 
re-directed.  Disruptive adults can be much more difficult to handle, 
and they should know better.  The kids obviously *don't* know better, 
but that can be rectified.

In our community, the museum was a forbidding and elitist place until 
the 1970s or 1980s.  Today we do everything we can to bring as many 
school-children here as possible.  Admission is free and we have an 
"adopt-a-bus fund" that provides bus expenses for school field trips.  
Older adults in town will tell me that they haven't been in the museum 
in decades, or have never been, but when I meet natives under 30, they 
have fond memories of the museum and have been here multiple times.  
They do not find us intimidating because they grew up knowing they were 
welcome here.  If you get kids to buy into the museum as part of the 
community, they'll grow up to be adults who recognize the value of the 
museum.

-- 
Jill R. Chancey, PhD
Curator
Lauren Rogers Museum of Art
PO Box 1108
Laurel, MS 39440
601-649-6374
[log in to unmask]
www.LRMA.org

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