Riot and Frolic

The Children's Museum is a great place to bring your kids.  There's interactive exhibits, lots of room to burn energy, cool ways to learn without it feeling "learny", and, of course, other kids.

In other words, anarchy.

There's no telling a toddler to wait their turn to drive the fire engine. 

There's no way for a polite 8 year old boy to tell a stubborn almost-2-year-old with a death stare that she needs to release and relent that fire engine steering wheel once she gets it. #henniebadger

There's no reason a Type A nine-year-old starts off quietly organizing the play kitchen and very quickly proceeds to run a monopoly on the food trade in the neighborhood.  She puts her sister in charge of managing the farmers market and when another kid says something about The Family Business, you realize your kids started their own mafia.  

There's a very fun interaction when a 3-year-old boy convinces a girl and her mom wearing niqabs to "Get on the dinosaur train!"

On the plus side, I've seen few instances of bullying in this anarchic world of young people.  Literally one that seemed on purpose and then a whole bunch of other instances where some small person had no equilibrium and knocked into another small person.  

Generally speaking, the older kids watch out for the toddlers in a completely glorious and indifferent way (casually brushing a kid's hand away from getting stuck somewhere, moving them to the side of the stairs as they cruise by) and the toddlers watch and learn covertly from the older kids.  

As the caretakers uselessly follow their charges around, we nod and smile politely and possibly strike up a conversation, but it's not really our time or place.  But maybe it should be.  It's a pretty simple world these kids like: never stop moving, talk to everyone, stand your ground, have fun, be loud, and learn stuff.

Boom.