More than a third of our visitor's at the Gomez Mill House - oldest house on
historic register
in Orange County, NY and the oldest extant Jewish residence - are children
with organized school groups, religious schools or with parents.  Children
are most welcome here. My idea is to let children have a nice time and learn
"something" so that maybe in the future when Mom and Dad talk about visiting
a museum, the child will think; "Mill House wasn't so bad, maybe this other
museum won't be bad either."  I enjoy having children visit us after one of
the local state sites and hearing how much more friendly we are and how much
they have enjoyed visiting us. A number of times I have had the child come
back on the weekend after his school group visitwith his parents. This is
dynamic positive feedback.

Recently, we had a major event here and caught two children who ran away
from the tour and Mom and Dad and began to jump on the bed in the master
bedroom. Parents? Dad is the president of a major auction gallery!!

So, yes we encourage children. And, yes, you better watch any and all of
them. Not particularly more than their parents need watching though. Kids at
least have just recently been taught in school about how to behave on a
field trip. Mom and Dad - well, it's been a long time.
I do think that basic instructions like, "Stay on the rug" won't even keep
adults from "trespassing." I have had the experience of saying "Please don't
touch" and have an adult pick an item up and say, "I'm not touching it, only
showing it to my husband!"  However, one trick I use is to tell the children
in the group that no one is to touch anything and would they please watch
the adults.  "Ha, Ha!" But this works on controlling the touching and
picking up from both groups.

Bill Maurer
Director
Gomez Mill House
www.gomez.org