Teaching Parents How to Engage Kids with Art

Museums provide a unique interactive experience of getting up close to things we only see in books or on television—they can bring what is taught in schools to life.

But for some families, because of language, cultural or economic barriers, museums may be seen as intimidating places where engaging children with art is a challenge.

ArteJuntos/ArtTogether aims to remove those barriers. The bilingual program is designed to expand the literacy skills, social assimilation, and connection of new immigrant families—primarily of Hispanic origin—in Westchester to museums.

"We work with whole families—we teach parents how to ask questions about books and art, so that they can do the same with their children," said program director Jennifer Rabley. 

And it works. The Katonah Museum of Art recently completed a five-year-pilot program with ArteJuntos at Tarrytown's Even Start Family Health Literacy Partnership. Their success led to a recent grant award of $115,338 from the federal Institute of Museum and Library Services, allowing the program to expand ArteJuntos from a collaboration with one organization to four partners in three towns: Neighbors Link, Mount Kisco; First Steps program of Park Elementary School, Ossining; and the John Paulding and Winfield L. Morse Schools, Tarrytown.

"We believe parents are their kids' first teachers," said Rabley. To that end, topics taught to parents include the role of art in our lives, art as visual language, the power of reading picture books with children, and museum resources for families. After completing the program, parents and their children visit the KMA's Learning Center and attend picture story and family day events.

In the past, books like The Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle, have been used to teach critical thinking skills. This fall, How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz's will be incorporated in conjuction with the museum's upcoming Mapping: Memory and Motion in Contemporary Art exhibit.

A by-product of the literacy program is improved parenting skills, said KMA's Director of Education, Karen Stein.

"Because ArteJuntos builds on the parent's desire to better their children's lives, there is a transforming impact when parents participate in their children's education. It increases the potential for success in school and in life," she said.

And seeing parents so empowered by the fact that they can docent their children around the museum, navigate the institution, and understand how to read a work of art and a picture book is rewarding work, said Rabley.

New to ArteJuntos is the Neighbors Link Parenting Class, which will bring parents of 5th grade Mount Kisco Elementary School children enrolled in the Neighbors Link Learning Links after school program to the museum.

In all, the program will impact over 100 families in year one, and almost 200 families in year two.