In 2008 I want to live a more culturally-rich existence.... with small children. How?

[Gameboy]

Following on from my earlier thread about my rediscovery of Radio 4, I've realised that since the kids came along (eldest is now 8, DS2 is 5) I've let all my more 'cultural' hobbies and interests lapse to a large extent.

• I used to sing in a choral society, and also play in an orchestra (many years ago!)
• Used to go to the theatre more
• Used to read the Sunday papers from cover to cover and be 'up' on current affairs
• Visit galleries & museums

We DO try to do more culturally-rich stuff with them, but sometimes it's so tortuous I feel it's not worth bothering. We've tried the backpacks at the London Museums, been to a few kid-friendly theatre productions, hauled them around a few galleries etc. However it always seems to end up with DS2 whingeing, and us spending a fortune in the over-priced coffee/gift shop.

This is not what I aspire to. Is it possible to combine culture and children, or am I deluded in my aspirations?!

All tips gratefully received

move to wales

?

I think 5 is a bit young to expect them to enjoy theatres/galleries and stuff like that. Maybe you should just take up some of your previous hobbies and hope that the exposure to it via you encourages your DC to do the same in time?

It wasn't until I was at secondary school that those interests surfaced for me so that's why I'm wondering that primary age isn't the best time to introduce them...

Go and live in a inner-city multicultural community and send your DC to the local primary school

I think that to genuinely appreciate culture you actually need to have a fair knowledge of history, literature etc, which most primary school age children will only be int he early stages of acquiring. It is possible to take them to enjoy the arts, but in doing so you have to be very slective with what you expose them to, and be prepared to explain much of it at the same time. Which won't necessarily be the expereince that you remember pre-kids!

Your first 3 should all be acheivable but minus kids, and you need to plan in order to sort out childcare etc. But if you're looking for a famly experience and don't want to limit yourself to to say the Science museum, then you are probably going to have to wait a few years in order to give your kids time to have read enough to make sense of what they see. Some kids get this earlier than others - my 6yo god-daughter is a history fan.

My boys love and always have loved museums and exhibitions of all sorts, and many are very child-friendly now.

But, and it's a big but, taking a child to a museum or an art gallery is a very different proposition to going yourself. Even now (they are 8 and 10) we have to focus the visits around their needs rather than adult needs. Sometimes we will take turns to occupy the children whilst one of us goes off on our own, and ds1 will spend as much time as I wish in certain settings, and obviously we get pleasure from their pleasure, but it isn't the same. Particularly in art galleries - they love art galleries, but will spend, ooh all of 60 seconds looking at a single painting! Which leaves me very frustrated.

Completely possible to combine - but deeply depends on its being your genuine idea of fun. (Is it?) - really not in anyone's interest as a "duty", I think.

We do masses, & always have, but always strictly little & often (& carefully chosen too) - quick whizz round an exhibition with a yodeller in the backpack, targeted Brit Mus trip to just the gallery that fits that week's fixated interest, bedtime (funny) poems occasionally instead of stories, concerts but only when you know you can escape if need be.

It's like getting to enjoy long walks - you have to build up the interest & the stamina over a good long while (and, of course, without them twigging that you are doing that building-up - they should just think Hmm this adventure is sort of unusual & quite fun; and the trip should be over before the whining beds in).

Actually gift shops are your friend there - pick some intriguing thing & it can colour the whole experience - make them remember whatever it was as the fantastic source of that favourite thing. (I love gallery gift shops.)

gameboy
my four year old said to me the other day 'when are we going to the galleweeee?'
i take my 5 kids to a fair few galleries museums etc and this is how it works for us

1. low expectations - no one too excited!
2. speed round - i dont linger unless its really interesting them. my parents could stare at a botticelli for hours. that is a no no with young children. see what is there enjoy it for what it is
3. coffee shop/cafe is a yes!
4. gift shop is a no no - apart from tate where there are some fab books etc for kids

i am quite childish and tbh easily bored - i want them to enjoy art - i find museums better than they were in my day - saw fab miffy exhibition at Manchester art gallery - quite by chance. i do 'reward' them with food/picnic as i want their memory of the experience to be good does that sound wrong?

My DC love museums, galleries etc. We recently went to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park and they loved Andy Goldsworthy's work. My DS age 8 had already learnt about it at school and knew more about it than me. I swear by inner-city primary schools for teaching children about art, history, culture etc.

mimizan ysl is fab - mine saw the barbara hepworth there - i feel so proud of the kids for actually enjoying it!

Yes Paula, we went on a grey,wet november day, but all my DC 2,6,8 thought it was great, and my heart was bursting with pride at their knowledge, observational skills, and questioning of the curators even if my patience was wearing thin!!

excellent thread...

I think your kids are definitely the right age for galleries - mine (well the older two: 8 and 3) love em and I just ignore all the snotty looks from people when they use them to run up and down...

we reintroduced music by getting a teacher come to the house: taught me and DH piano and guitar respectively and started the youngest on guitar but it wasn't till he started learning at school that it worked...

Theatre/concerts: short of a babysitter, think you'll just have to find things you can take them to: lots of places in big cities have child friendly concerts and plays that aren't just crapola... If you're in NW, Royal Exchange and Library theatres and Bridgwater Hall in Manchester are excellent...

And think differently. We have had some excellent times with lots of free castles cos we joined English Heritage...

I'm afraid you've no hope of reading the paper though until they leave home

youngest oldest

I definitely think the trick is to SPEED round. Just get them used to the idea of the environment, iykwim. So go and let them put their leg down the crack in the Tate Modern, but don't trail around loads of the galleries and avoid the shop like the plague!

Where I live there's a free open air 2-day concert every 2 years. Rock/pop on the Sat and Classical/Jazz/Blues on the Sun. The music is pretty good - they had a grant this year for the string section of the Royal Philharmonic to perform on the Sunday. There were also various local bands, singing groups etc. We all sat on the grass with a picnic, loads of the children's friends were down there, so they could play as well as listening to the music.

If you're in London you could come out on the train - it's a five minute walk from Hemel Hempstead Station. It's called 'Music on the Moor' and is run by the Boxmoor Trust. Shame you'll have to wait until 2009!

Music on the Moor 2007

Oh... and the National Trust have become pretty good at encouraging families. Join that - they have events throughout the year.

It probably goes without saying - but just to add - that although you do have to put in that careful planning & preparation effort at the beginning, it gets easier & easier (& more & more fun) the more you all get into the swing of doing cultural things.

Mine are 8 and 7 now and we've done so much that I completely know what they can cope with now & what they might like to move onto next - the ideas come effortlessly. And having them has made me see & do (& enjoy) all sorts of things I probably wouldn't otherwise have gone near, from raucous pantomimes to musicals to physical theatre - I think I am a much much more enthusiastic culture consumer than I was before I had them.

Our next outing will be to Men of Steel at the Soho Theatre - not the highest of culture, but it all adds to the mix ...

Thanks - lots of good ideas here.

we ARE already doing a lot of stuff, but as several people have pointed out, I guess I have to get more used to doing it in a child-friendly way.

We're not actually IN London, but about 40 mins train away, so I suppose we've probably tried to do too much on each 'visit'.

We went to the Tate Modern just before Christmas - they LOVED the crack, and there was a Christmas market which was fun.

We're already members of the NT, but maybe we need to start going a bit further afield, as I'm getting bored of all the NT place in a 20 mile radius! But we did enjoy some of the NT Open Air Theatre in the summer!

Sometimes I struggle to find the time to do all the advance planning, and we get to a weekend and think "what shall we do?" and then of course we have only limited options.

One of our best weekends recently was when we went to London and went skating outside the Nat History Museum AND then visited a few dinosaurs etc!

Does anyone have an recommendations for good websites for the South of England with advance warnings of lots of exciting things to do?? [hopeful icon]

There is this standard tourist board listing but I guess you already know about that (presuming I've guessed the right area) ... there's also a enewsletter you can sign up for, which could be good for the advance info aspect.

I get our ideas from: the Sunday Times "Booking Ahead" list in natch the Culture supplement; Time Out - the website does further afield than just London; reviews in the Metro randomly come across while commuting; libraries (every time we go away somewhere I collect a great bundle of flyers & mull through them in evening - again this is because that's my idea of fun); tourist offices (love them too); handout mags like Primary Times, Angels & Urchins & the Families [compass-point] franchise.

Dh does the visual arts side, & he knows everything that's going on, just by knowing.

Bink! Are you there?

I could have started this effing thread. Have sunk into a turgid swamp of non-cultural inactivity over the past seven years. And this thread is making me feel even more guilty.

Oh - just because this is one of my hobbyhorses, my main tip: find just one simple thing that will bring a particular event "alive" for them - & let just that sink in.

Anecdote follows (I've told this on here before so ignore if you've heard before) -

Decades ago (far pre-children) I was at that annual event when they bring out the Blake prints for display, & they had some Samuel Palmer pastorals as well. There was a (lovely) dad there, with his little boy who must have been around 3; he was showing his son the Palmer prints and saying "Do you see? He really loved sheep, and drawing sheep, so he put sheep in all his pictures? Can you find the sheep?" - and the little boy's eyes were sparkling as he went round spotting even the near-hidden ones.

Hello poppet, yes I'm here again. All well? - except the turgid sturge? You might like Men of Steel too?

Pick your targets.

You obviously do a great deal with yours already...or try to and that is all you can do. You can lead a child to culture but you can't make it enjoy it. We do childrens concerts at the Colston Hall in Bristol and a few more 'accessible' adult concerts where I know there will be some loud nicely triumphal music and an oppurtunity to clap along. Local arts centre does some good if somewhat lentil-weavery stuff which generally the DCs enjoy. Ditto small art exhibitions. Regular visits to smaller museums - they enjoy the familiarity of the exhibits whereas the one big hit somewhere like the Science museum can be a bit too much. We are planning that one with my eldest 2 this year. We are not in London so Science museum, British Museum trips have to be big productions.

Having said all that I really really want to go to some real grown-up concerts and I think my DCs would struggle. DH isn't into classical music either so I'd be going on my own. But I am going to do that this year.

have no idea why i suggested moving to wales sorry must have been smoking my old plimsolls again.

if you are north of london there are tons of historic houses that are interesting to visit, with lots of great gardens that the children would like, secret tunnels etc. also look for guided walks/tours around cities.

I'm fine, just uncultured. You on home email?