While I think my kid is totally amazing and is definitely a great traveler. I don't think luck has anything to do with it. She has traveled all over the world - Greece, Italy, England, Iceland, Turkey, Russia, Croatia, Finland...the list just goes on and on. And she has loved all of them, just as she loved Disney and Universal! How did we make that happen? How do we get to go on amazing trips with a kid (who is now eleven, but started traveling at two and a half)? Over the next few posts, let me share some tips with you that might be a help.
Tip One: Start Small
I would start small. Take a day trip somewhere that you want to go, but you aren't sure your kid would like. We are lucky enough to live near NYC, so one day trip we took was to MOMA. What 5 year old wants to go to MOMA? Well, mine, for starters. We picked a time when they had a cool exhibit going on - in this case, it was Jackson Pollack. Pollack is the guy who splattered paint on canvases, sometimes by throwing paint at it, sometimes by standing up on a ladder and dripping it. That's something kids can get into, right? Making artistic messes?
I spent some time with her in the month preceding the trip focused on getting her ready for the visit to MOMA. We looked at Pollack paintings and tried to figure out how he made them. We talked about art in general - did she think that this throwing of paint on a canvas was really art, since its something anyone could do? And we talked about why it was, in fact, art - the fact that this was a new concept that now you see everywhere as decoration - on t-shirts, billboards, backpacks, whatever - but he was the first. And we did some splatter painting ourselves to see how our versions would come out.
Then we went to the museum and she was actually excited to see them in person. We saw the Pollacks and she thought they were awesome - because she knew what she was looking at before she got there and had some of the story behind it. And then we wandered some of the rest of the museum to see some of the odd things they have there, again considering "is this really art?" I kept a close eye on her to see when her interest and excitement started to wane, and then we called it a day. Had I kept lugging her around, showing her artwork after artwork, she would have hated it and cried and never wanted to go again. When we left the museum, we went to a cute little place that served ice cream and bakery goods in pretty bowls and plates, as sort of a reward for her being so awesome.
Now, imagine if I had just decided to take her to an art museum to see what I wanted to see. Imagine if I expected her to look at the art the way I do. Imagine if we had spent 4 hours there and then went home. This would have been a very, very bad day for all involved.
This is step one of creating a kid who loves to travel - introduce it slowly and in a fun way so they get into it. They don't realize they are learning, they just do it.
Breakdown of Step One:
- Go somewhere local to start to introduce sightseeing to your kids.
- Don't plan a full day to sight see. Just take an hour or two. Don't over do it.
- Prep ahead of time with fun facts, pictures of what they will see, and examples of how it fits into their lives.
- End the excursion with something fun as a reward...and so that the last thing you do is something cool that they want to do.
Moral of this story: Before expecting your kids to spend a week in the art museums of Florence appreciating the Michelangelos, prime them first. Try it out on a small scale for a few hours and prime the pump before you go. It'll make things better all around.
I'll be breaking down some more tips for you in the next few posts. Trust me - you can get your kids to love seeing sights other than Mickey and Donald!
