At what age to start cultural trips with a child?

What age is it appropriate to take a child to the circus, museum, or theater?

Psychologists will tell you that everything is individual, but if you want specifics, the average child is ready to visit the theater from 3-4 years old. The founder and director of the Moscow Puppet Theater Sergei Obraztsov once said that taking a child to the theater before the age of five is a crime against him. But the generation is different now, and the children"s entertainment industry is developing. And who among us has not been bribed by a poster of some play "for the little ones"? And if friends took a one-and-a-half-year-old child to the "Concert in Crawlers", you also want to immediately buy tickets and start introducing your child to the beautiful.No psychologist knows your child as well as you know him. For example, now I know that my son doesn"t like clowns. He won"t even pick up the funny smiling mask that we were once given. You must admit, it"s good that I learned about this antipathy not during a circus performance. Then it would have been impossible to avoid children"s tears. If the first experience of a cultural outing turned out to be negative, this can discourage the little one from attending any cultural events. A vivid example from the blogosphere:

Kitten: "I probably won’t take my daughter until she is ten years old." And only then, if it piques her curiosity. I remember vividly being dragged to ballets and operas starting when I was four years old. Please don’t criticize me for being grounded—they ingrained a steadfast dislike. But I enjoyed my recent visit to the Mariinsky. At last, matured."

It is evident that the cultural program was a poor choice. However, I can relate to those parents! You want your child to love the theater, after all, and you don’t want the word "museum" to conjure up images of something uninteresting.

Let"s start taking the child out into the world

Watch the baby. Watch how he reacts to unfamiliar surroundings and a large number of people, how he perceives something unusual, big, noisy, incomprehensible. For children under three years old, a zoo, street walks with a children"s program or open-air concerts (for example, in Mayakovsky Park, Literary Quarter) are very suitable. At the zoo, the baby will see animals familiar only from pictures, in life size. This experience is much less stressful than in the circus. For you, such trips are a good way to get to know the child better. And for him, it is training in resistance to stressful situations. Yes, yes, positive impressions are also stress, and the child needs to learn to cope with it. The most common consequences are overexcitability, poor sleep, a feeling of fatigue, capriciousness. Personally, in my early childhood, my temperature rose every time we had to go to the circus, theater, or even to visit. A wise mother solved the problem simply – she stopped warning me about the purpose of the next walk. Therefore, when the end point of the route suddenly turned out to be a circus or my grandmother"s apartment, I felt great and got maximum pleasure from what was happening.

Circus

If this is the first trip, you need to prepare the child as much as possible for what he will see in the arena. Anything will do – videos, cartoons, books on this topic. To avoid fear of animals, tell how trained animals differ from wild ones. An uncle dressed in a bright clown costume should also not be a surprise for the child. It is better not to buy tickets for the first rows, because sometimes the artists come out into the hall, and at first it is better to avoid direct contact. How the child perceives the performance largely depends on you. Start creating a sense of celebration at home. Choose festive clothes together to emphasize the solemnity of the moment. Mask your own excitement. I categorically do not recommend using phrases like “it’s not scary there,” “don’t be afraid”. This will only make the child wary: if mom warned, then there is something to be afraid of. Study the program in advance. Tell the child what he is about to see. Come to the circus a little earlier than necessary. Let the child get used to the new environment, get used to the crowd, relieve his tension by buying some bright little thing. All this will come in handy if you can’t wait to show the circus to a child of 2-4 years old. At a later age, children already have more extensive personal experience, and there should be no inadequate reaction.

Theater

Approach the choice of a performance with all seriousness, especially if it is the first in his life. Duration. If the child is fidgety, he will not sit through a 50-minute performance. At 2-3 years old, a child is able to concentrate for 30-40 minutes, provided that what is happening interests him completely and entirely. I know that in one St. Petersburg children"s theater there is a special "writer"s break". It opens with a poem by Yunna Moritz "Everyone in the world goes to the toilet on their own from an early age" and is brilliantly integrated into the overall structure of the performance, which is not interrupted, but seems to freeze in time and "wakes up" again when all the spectators are back together. Content of the performance. It is good if the child sees a story that is familiar to him ("Turnip", "Kolobok", "Teremok"). This will make it easier for him to get used to the darkness of the hall and the new environment. A production with songs and music is suitable for the first experience of getting to know the theater. If you decide to take your child to a puppet theater, choose a performance where live actors also participate in the action. You and I know that dolls are dolls. But for a child, these creatures are quite real. Remember the episode in "The Man from Boulevard des Capucines" when the cowboys first saw on the screen the train arrives? A child also blindly believes everything he sees. Unforeseen circumstances. I remembered a story my friend told me. She went with her daughter to a puppet show for children aged 3-5, as it was said in the poster. At the box office they said that the show was kind, the main characters were animals. And the seating in the hall was free, it is convenient for those who might suddenly need to run out to the toilet. It would seem that all the conditions were created for the children to feel good. And then the show begins with the loud, uncontrollable laughter of the first heroine, a monkey. Half of the children covered their ears because it was loud, half covered their eyes because it was unexpected, and one boy burst into tears so much that his grandmother had to take him out of the hall. Later, the boy returned calmed down, but when the cute pink monkey appeared on stage again, he practically had a fit of hysterics. The saddest thing is that the child will not be spoiled by the show, but by the theater as a phenomenon. To avoid such situations, I would like to urge theaters to describe their performances in more detail in posters or oblige cashiers to warn about moments in the performance that the child may not like.

Museum

Again, you think "the earlier, the better"? Then start from the age when you still carry your child in a "kangaroo". It is not particularly clear what benefit his development will bring from contemplating antiques or works of art, but it certainly will not be worse for him. The main thing is to take a break and not visit museums during the period when the child is eager to touch everything, shake it and test it for breaking. Of course, there are museums where all this can be done, but I do not remember any in Yekaterinburg. At about three years old, the child already clearly understands what exactly cannot be touched and why. Now you can think about where to take him. The main thing is that the museum is not boring and everything meets the interests of the child. My son was two and a half when I had to go with him to the Fine Arts Museum (just don"t hit him) to warm up. To my delight, his craving for animals was rewarded there. He enjoyed looking at cast-iron figurines of bears, deer and other animals. He briskly rushed through the halls with paintings, the sweetest attendants only had time to fly up from their chairs and sit down again, realizing that it was too early for us to talk about Repin. And recently we successfully visited a wonderful photo exhibition with him, where, of course, his favorite animals were also.

Briefly and to the point

The best age to introduce a child to cultural travels will depend on their interest and stage of development. However, it can be a great way to introduce them to new experiences. Some kids might be ready for museums or performances around age 5 or 6, when they can focus and interact more effectively. However, some kids might enjoy them as early as age 4 or 5. The secret is to start these activities gradually and pick outings that are suitable for your child’s age and attention span.

– It is never too late to start going to the theater and other cultural institutions. But it often happens to start going early and thus spoil the impression. If you are not sure about the outcome of a cultural outing, it is better to postpone it "for later". And you can organize a theater at home, with a real stage, curtain and a ceremonial turning off of the lights. – You need to prepare a child for any outing. He should imagine what awaits him. Preparation is only positive, we get ready for the trip only with a sense of celebration and fairy tale. – It is good if the child takes his favorite toy with him. If it is a doll or an animal, the child will subconsciously share the stress in two. If your baby is scared, focus his attention on the toy, because it is scared too, it needs to be encouraged, this will make the child mobilize and push his own discomfort into the background. – Study reviews, “torture” cashiers, you need to know exactly where you are taking the child. – Buy tickets to the circus not for the first rows, and tickets to the theater should be for seats from where you can clearly see the stage. It is better to sit closer to the edge if you think that the child will want to go to the toilet during the performance. – Take a bottle of still water with you so as not to stand in line at the buffet for a couple of sips.

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