When most of us were in grade school, art and music were fundamental parts of the curriculum. My teachers in Philadelphia took us on field trips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art and The Academy of Music. In Brooklyn, New York, my husband went on class trips to the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Brooklyn Academy of Music. As suburban New York parents, my generation of full-time homemakers was fortunate enough to escort our kids to performances like Leonard Bernstein's legendary Young People’s Concerts at Lincoln Center.
But today‘s two-career parents (my daughter and daughter-in-law hold two jobs each) spend much of their time chauffeuring their children around. Many lack the time (or the inclination) to expose the kids to culture. So do the kids' schools — budget cuts and the pressure to prep kids for standardized tests have forced many to drop art and music classes. Field trips to museums and concerts like I enjoyed are a thing of the past.
Grandparents can fill the void. We can expose kids to these joyous and beautiful areas of life — while finding another excuse to spend time with them. Don't wait until the kids are teenagers and expect them suddenly to fall in love with the ballet, the symphony, or abstract art. When one couple I know took their 17-year-old grandson to his first opera, he was bored because he'd had no early exposure to the art form.
My oldest grandchild, Cydnie, a 17-year-old high-school senior, sees the value of arts education. “It opens up a whole new world of texture," she says. "I know kids who haven’t been [exposed]; they can’t speak knowledgeably about certain things because they don’t have the background, for example, when we study plays in English. They’re not well-rounded and cultured.”
Educational experts go even further. "Worldwide, it’s been shown that the most successful students in science and math are those that have had art and music included in their curriculum," says Daniel Guyette, Dean of the College of Fine and Performing Arts at Western Washington University in Bellingham, Wash. "In the United States, it's now considered an add-on, but it's really the key to critical thinking and enhances students’ skills of communication."
My late husband and I had a passion for the ballet. When Cydnie began having sleepovers at our home, we got a videotape of The Nutcracker and watched it together several times. When we took her to a live Miami City Ballet performance, she loved it. She wanted to dress as Clara for Halloween, and I helped make her costume.
We followed the same routine with our other grandchildren. Anna, 13, now says, "Ballets are so pretty to watch. And music is at the heart of it, tying it all together." And I introduced my grandson Beryn, a high-school sophomore, to Renaissance art while we were on vacation together. Now he's eager to take an art-history course.
I hope I’m having some influence on building an appreciation for the arts in these young adults — and hopefully I'm improving their means of communications, too. It's well worth the effort. As a bonus, I have loving companions for all the performances and exhibits I want to see.
More ideas for enriching the lives of grandchildren:
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