Creating a Kid-Friendly World

When I was a kid, the last thing I ever wanted to do was go to a museum. What was the appeal? They were big, airy buildings with pictures of people I didn't know on the wall. I was dragged kicking and screaming to the MFA a couple of times, and yawned my way through some of the great art museums in Spain when I went with my mother on a school trip in the eighth grade.

Too bad I didn't have a chance to experience some of the cool museums out there for kids today.

What kids need aren't pictures to look at or things to admire behind glass - they need stuff they can touch, twist, taste, paint, bounce, roll or explode. They need things to climb, crazy twisty slides to slide down, cameras pointed at them so they can see themselves TV, miniature stores and restaurants to play in and dress-up clothes to try on.

A children's museum should be for children, should have no "don't touch" signs, and nothing worth looking at should be more than 4 feet tall.

Thankfully Boston has one of these places, and it's about to get even better. The Children's Museum has been closed for months, undergoing a huge renovation, and it's reopening on April 14. The old Museum was always a little crowded, but even the older exhibits always caught Owen's eye. The new museum is going to be bigger, newer, and redesigned to make "visitor flow" (whatever that means) even better. The crowds may be a pain in the beginning, but next rainy Saturday we're totally going.

Luckily there are lots of places out there today that seem to get it. Even the North Shore Children's Museum in Salem -- it's small but wide open with toys everywhere, tubes you can shove stuff in, liquids you can mix and a big table filled with pieces of paper, glitter, little baubles and plenty of glue. What's not to like?

But unfortunately the best ones don't always last. That was the case with Brujitos, a fabulous find we discovered just weeks after moving to Salem. It was a small place in dowtown with toys and climbers for toddlers, a cafe with healthy-ish food for both kids and their parents, and the best chocolate chip cookies I think I've ever had. We were regulars for about 2 years, but they mysteriously went out of business last year.

Thankfully new places keep popping up. My sister works at an incredible place in Charlotte, NC - Imaginon took a children's library and children's theater and merged them into a fantastic kids haven filled with cool exhibits, little nooks for kids to hide in and an awesome area called the Story Lab that encourages kids to not only write,but to be creative. If you ever get down there, check it out.

I'm glad that society seems to have finally recognized the need for kid-friendly places that are actually geared toward kids. I'm not sure what changed -- maybe it's that the parents of the under-5 set have rolled up their sleeves and created places their own kids would like. Or maybe people have started listening to the research that shows that kids are just generally happier when they're busy.

I don't know which is true, and I don't really care. I'm just glad to know that when the kids start getting antsy on rainy Saturdays or cold Sundays, we have plenty of options. And none of them involve art museums.