Kids and Museum Gift Shops

Posted by Jennifer W. Miner Apr 18, 2006

I remember being a kid and racing through any art museum my parents had the temerity to drag me to, mindless of whatever exhibit they thought would enrich my obviously blighted youth. What was I looking for? Why, the gift shop, of course! What else could possibly have been the point of bringing such a distracted and recalcitrant child to The Most Boring Place on Earth? Imagine my complete jaw-dropping shock when I was informed, yet again, that no, the museum store was not my personal playspace and no, I was not getting anything. I'd collect myself (and my jaw), and commence the next stage of youthful swag-acquisition. Those of you who have kids, or remember your youth with unfortunate clarity, will recall that each stage grows progressively louder, sometimes escalating to the tossing of the head and the stomping of the feet. This process was repeated so often in my childhood that it's surprising my parents ever took me anywhere, frankly.

They must have occasionally caved and bought me whatever doodad I saw as just reward for having suffered through my parents' attempts to give me culture and class, or I'd have realized the temper tantrums were futile. Research by psychologists has proven that unpredictable, sporadic rewards have a stronger reinforcement for behavior than do no rewards, or predictably timed ones. I think of this fact often when gearing up my kids for their own life-enrichment-through-art-museum-exposure. What I have done from the get-go is stick firmly to our "every 5 times" rule: Every five visits to a museum, aquarium or zoo gets each child one visit to the gift shop. No temper tantrums so far, and because they can predict when they are allowed and not allowed to get a treat at the end of a family outing, the pressure is off and they enjoy all the museums, zoos and aquariums that much more. Score one for the developmental psychologists!