Many museums offer guided tours to visitors. Information usually is for adults or older children. Family groups often include young children who get bored quickly on tours and start running around and making a lot of noise. This makes life difficult for the tour guide who must talk over the noise while keeping an eye on the little kids to make sure they are not doing things where they could get hurt. These days few parents seem to be willing to control their children. (My parents would have killed me for doing these things while parents today just smile blissfully).

If the presentation is given on a level for young children, then most adults will be bored to death. Most museums do not have enough docents available to assign one to tours for taking care of the little children while another docent talks to adults and older children.

How does your museum handle this problem? How do you discourage visitors from including young children on tours without appearing to be an old meanie? Can you enforce a minimum age for guided tours without offending visitors?

Help! All suggestions are welcome. Thanks.

fk

One idea I'm working on, now that I have acquired three stepkids, is to use the theory that kids relate best to other kids. I'm not having as much success as I'd like here, even though all three of my stepchildren (ages 13, 11, and 10) enjoy accompanying me to the Museum. They're intimidated by my and the other adult volunteers' knowledge, which seems encyclopedic to them. There's also the problem of kids' natural shyness in a relatively unfamiliar environment. Other issues, such as a reduced ability to volunteer as often and the Museum having a damned slow year so far (it's rather hard to experiment with a new approach to customers when there aren't any!), haven't helped. Therefore, I haven't quite hit on the perfect formula yet. But, I think the overall approach has merit -- or at least deserves further exploration -- and it's a good way to get younger volunteers involved.

Well, I think it is a good idea to get kids on such tours and try to expose them to some of our history. One thing that seems to work a bit is to have them involved in some activity. Early in the tour invite them into a trolley and ask them to step on that silver button on the floor (the gong). The first one is usually hesitant, but then there is a line to let everyone try it, even most of the adults. At a signal display have a pushbutton that changes the color of the light.

For kids you could set up a passport type book for them to find the treasures on a self guided tour. This needs a box with rubber stamp for validating the book at each stop. But provides a souveneir activity and completed books can be rewarded upon exit with a giveaway coloring book or set of postcards.

One size fits all tours can be difficult, and we do not escort them into work areas, although we have set up and offered 'shop tours'.

Maybe, depending on the size of your facility, you can offer kids tours once per day, a history walk once per day, and a general tour as needed. By giving the visitors a choice you will enhance their experience and at the same time be able to direct expectations of behavior and content.

Bob Kutella

In addition to my railroad interests, I run a Victorian House Museum... a 7,000 square foot fully furnished house... the site also hosts the horse drawn Society for the Preservation of Carter Railroad Resources project, as well as being a historic farm with animals, fields of crops, a working blacksmith shop, and many gardens.

Fully one third of our guests inside the house are school groups, We have hosted 600 elementary school kids through the house in a morning. The other non special event guests are dominantly parents (or grandparents) with small children. To accommodate them we started a program of occasional "tot tours" These are shorter tours (typically 15 minutes, but tot tours vary in length more than the regular tours) catering to the children... Adults HAVE to bring a small child to join the tour. This helps us avoid the issues of an adult guest who expects our typical 45 minute historic tour from being disappointed, but also to avoid adult questions on a child's tour. These can be as simple as walking through the house (we call it a peek at the house), or as long as our regular tour, but talking to and emphisizing issues of interest to the children. The idea of an identified childs tour allows the mothers with baby strollers a chance to come in (we found many avoided the house out of fear that the child would misbehave).

Recently we have seen the demand for the tot tour increase dramatically, and we have started to offer them at most tour times... We start the tot tour first followed by the adult tour... In our case we have a staff member and guide present at the beginning of each tour. The staff takes the children in (with their adults) while the volunteer takes the adults and follows at a more adult pace. The staff member then has some time between the tour for their various staff chores, we offer a greater number of tours and both groups get a better tour experience.

You describe little kids as a problem?? Unfortunately, this sounds way to much like the story of some new some 20-something female grade school teacher who had no brothers or male cousins and who observes her first grade boys pushing/shoving/punching/engaging in general rowdiness with shock, then dutifuly tells every parent to take their kid to the doctor so they can be diagnosed with ADD and get a prescription for Ritalin, oblivious to the inanity of a doctor merely confirming a "diagnosis" of a disease that's a natural condition.

The problem isn't the kids, but your gig. I once heard a story that famous GE CEO Jack Welch espoused the idea that the first job of a CEO was to begin searching for his/her replacement. Given the demographics of this advocation, I'd say that should be the "prime directive" here.

The problems isn't that kids get bored and run around, but that you expect them to stand at attention while you proceed with the "no. 99 is a typical example of a 2-6-2 or "Prairie Locomotive" favored by the Dead Horse Gulch Railroad, which was a typical branch line with a lightly built right of way..."

I have 4 year old niece, like most sugared-up kids, you get her undivided attention for a cool five minutes, and she wants to touch and explore. If you think you can contain youthful exuberance, you need to rethink it. Its a lost concept in a world where 3 kids is considered an invitation to snicker at couple about their ignorance of contraception, but you accomodate kids not the other way around.

When R&N ran the Tunkannock trips, I used it as way to fan the flames & keep her going. We chased the train along the way. Here's the stuff I used to keep this little one attentive until she conked out in the afternoon for a nap.

1.) Participation- I gave her the scanner, explained how the railroad crews talk on special railroads and how the radio was her "job". While she has no idea about frequencies or dispatchers, by the end of the day, she figured out I was navigating based on what I heard.

2.) Emulation/Imitation. She had a set of bibs on, and a "grip" with a lantern, tally counter and punch. Girls especially love to "dress up". (I suspect at 4 it's fun, but at 8, not happening)

3.) Movement. Multiple locations, watching the train. We moved and I moved with her when she decided to run around a bit. Movement is obvious when you drive 100 miles, but you can have it walking around to.

4.) Accomodation. At times, she wanted to talk about other stuff, so we did. She got tired after a while, so up on the shoulders she went. We kept water and snacks in a cooler in the trunk. There was fresh clothes and stuff to clean up in case of an "accident", etc. I also planned for a "loose" structure, with opportunities for drinks, breaks, etc.

5.) Touch/Tactile Experiences. Once in Jim Thorpe, we had her explore the station, take pictures like she was about to climb the "CNJ" F units, go in the gift shop (and she of course wanted some kind of battery powered light spinning thing unrelated to the theme of the day-guess what, for 5 bucks I added to the thing.

A real good example of this is the learning center at the railroad museum of PA, where kids can go in, touch within reason, etc.

Look, I'm not stupid. I know in a couple years, it'll be "OMG, he looked at me" and a purse full of makeup and a cell phone will be the order of the day. But, maybe, just maybe when she's 30 or 35 and has kids of her own, she'll be telling them that "100 years ago, your great great grandfathers worked on this railroad...", we can go talk to your crazy great uncle @ shady acres if you want to know more.

The result? Watching the 425 on the way back, she said "i want to ride that train".

I bought tickets shortly thereafter.

Somthing tells me if you even try to have a minimum age-its an invitation to a lawsuit.

All good ideas but depending on your site and resources these may require some investment in time and resources to set up the tour program and support it. While I think that should be part of our mission and 'work', the organization and site will dictate a lot of this. No reason why the first steps should not be taken.

Everyone must know a grade school teacher. Take advantage of their summer downtime and try to get one out for a visit to use fresh eyes. Most will readily accept the 'consulting' position, at least for an afternoon. And they will be willing to point out things that might work and that might not.

And I bet bring back a school group for a tour once classes resume.

At the other end of the spectrum there are things like self guided tape tours such as offered at National Parks, etc. There are companies whose business it is to set up such a tour, rent or sell the 'wands' and even contract to maintain the system. For this you might have to charge the visitor a nominal fee, but they continue to be popular with adults - and that might free some of your volunteer docent time to focus more on a kid friendly version. The tape tour does not offer a true interactive experience with Q&A interaction, but the marketplace supplies evidence that it does work for some percentage of the adult visitors.

Bob Kutella