How 'Habitot Children's Museum' Helps Parents Raise Creative, Curious, and Confident Children

Nicholas Hill  0:00  
You're listening to acts of impact the show where we interview those who are making a positive difference in the world around us. I'm your host, Nicholas Hill. And today's guest is Gina Moreland. Gina is founder and executive director for Habitot Children's Museum, a hands on Discovery Museum designed specifically for children under five years old. We'll talk about how parents can connect with their children through creativity and play, the types of activities that work great for children in this age group, and how Habitot museum creates amazing experiences for those who visit. Let's get started.

Nicholas Hill  0:49  
Gina, welcome to the show. And thank you so much for joining us.

Gina Moreland  0:53  
Thank you. And I'm so happy to be here.

Nicholas Hill  0:55  
Yeah, I'm happy to have you here. I am so curious, why did you choose to focus on the youngest children? You know, we think about when I think about children's museums, I remember going when I was in elementary school when I was in middle school, but Habitot is actually focused on children in the earliest stages of development. What was it that made you want to start Habitot Children's Museum and what was going on to make you want to help in that way?

Gina Moreland  1:30  
Well, it is true that a lot of children's museums have focused on the older age ranges. But around the time I had my first child, I realized that most children's museums were not addressing the age group of the littlest kids. Now, I'd been a school teacher before a science educator. And I was very comfortable in a hands on space and what how kids would learn best, whether it was magnets, or crickets or going outside. And all of a sudden, I had this baby on my hands that was just incredibly inquisitive about the world, I never realized that till I had became a parent. And I realized that there was no place I could take him. That was really right for his development. Around the same time, this would have been in the mid 90s, there was a tremendous amount of research coming out about brain development in the early years, and all the synapses that were being formed. And how important was it was for there to be serious and meaningful investments in their experiences in these first five years. One more thing about that, that's kind of interesting. As a primary school teacher, I had my system down for how to teach this age group. And what I realized with my own child was that their learning needs were quite a bit different. They they don't, they can't read, for example, their skills are still developing, whether it's their hand to eye coordination, or their physical ability, they're still learning all about social interactions and how to navigate that world. There, there is a real need to have exhibits and experiences that really address the developmental needs of the youngest children, because they're not just an easier version of school age stuff. It really has to be designed for them. The core element of that one other thing is play. Little children learn through play. I mean, in fact, all of us do. If you wanted to learn how to downhill ski, you don't sit in a classroom and learn how to downhill ski, right? You get out on the slope on the bunny slope with maybe an instructor and you learn how to do it. And children are like that, too. But in spades, they really need to have their hands on things, their audio, and their visual senses stimulated. They learn in communication with other children and with their grownups. But it's really a very play based curriculum that they need.

Nicholas Hill  3:46  
I'm wondering what are some of the challenges that children face when it comes to getting enough play when it comes to getting enough creative pursuits in their daily lives? You mentioned that there isn't really that much investment in the youngest age children. Is there anything else that you see in that area?

Gina Moreland  4:06  
Wow, there's a lot of things going on right now in our world. I mean, I grew up in an era where you come home from school, and you go outdoors and play with all the neighborhood kids, and you wouldn't come back till dinnertime. And there was usually a lot of parents at home. And it was pretty safe for kids to do that. And the world has changed quite a bit. There are actually some researchers that have been tracking the number of hours that children spend in play now. And by play, we don't mean playing on a video game, we really mean this kind of experience that is very open ended, where they're creating their own path of play. They're making up their own rules or deciding what to do. It's very authentic. If you are one of those people that really paid attention and watched what kids do is they play you'll see just so many things going on so much problems saw me solving so many figuring outs of things, so many design and arranging of things. So many dramatic stories that they tell to accompany their play. There's just a tremendous number of things going on in play. I wanted to go back and address something about our mission, because, you know, we did want to include the parents and the caregivers. And the reason I say that is because most most of us grownups don't really know, nor don't haven't really studied education, you know, we become parents, and we kind of learn by doing as well. And there's not a tremendous amount of support for parents to help with their children's learning. And I think that what's going on in the last maybe couple of decades, as I've been watching the generations of parents come through Habitot , there's just a lot of anxiety out there. Honestly, I see parents really worried about their kids future, are they going to be able to earn enough money to have a home and to raise children? Are they going to get into the schools that they want them to get into, there's just a lot of, I think there's pressure that parents perceive now. And as a result, I think many are trying to fill that gap with a lot of structured activities after school programs and piano lessons and sports games and so many things that they can if they can afford to do it, right. So there really is a need to have a community center, where all kinds of parents are welcome, regardless of income, regardless of education background, where there are rich learning experiences for play for this age group that have really been thought through and designed and presented in such a way that parents can, can relax. I know that sounds a little bit crazy. But we really want parents to enjoy their children and to sort of get in the moment with them and participate or step back and observe or be attentive so that kids know that their parents are part of it. But there's also a role for there to be modeling, which our trained staff does a core a key example is our art studio. Because very accessible, parents love it, because they want their kids to have art. But they don't necessarily want this giant mess in their house, we have an art studio with a with a giant pain of a wall, you know, with easels that have all kinds of pink caddies is what I mean. And this 10 foot eight by 10 foot wall is like a huge mural for little kids. It's not a piece of paper, it's not an easel, it is a space where multiple kids are creating artwork together, we also have activity tables that are staffed by our trained arts staff. And they include sensory play, which is anything that they can handle, like whether it's playdough, or beans, or salt, or whatever it happens to be that gives them that information that they get from their hands. And then we also have a table that has a changing variety of activities, whether it's dropping colored paint on a coffee filter to see the color spread and change into different colors, just the experience of from a scientific point of view how that capillary action works in plants and other materials. You know, I mean, this is really, on many levels. It's it's science, it's art, it's so many things all combined into one. And we can talk to the parents about what that is. So when a parent, for example, they are playing in our water play area, which has some rivers and boats and ponds of water. And some parents say, Oh, this would be so much easier if the water was always free flowing. And I say, How can I explain to them that their children are in the process of learning that water always flows downhill? No better way for them to get that than if they have to scoop up that water from the bottom of our water river ramp all the way to the top and drop it in again, do they ever get tired of that they do not. And those are all really important skills in early childhood. So we have really tried to incorporate the parents in that building of curiosity, creativity and learning. I think that we're succeeding in lots of ways because we have parents tell us that their kids did XY and Z after they left the museum. Like we have a rocket ship and mission control area. They wanted to come home and build their own mission control out of cardboard boxes, or they wanted to paint a big mural on their bedroom wall, just like the art studio. They're getting inspired by the experiences and kind of transferring it to their lives at home and in other places. And we really hope that these experiences will carry them through their their formal education when they get to school.

Nicholas Hill  9:24  
When we talk about your mission, raising creative, curious and confident children, I'd love to just hear about how you see the different play and activities that you provide, supporting those three areas for a child.

Gina Moreland  9:41  
Yes, the three C's. Well creativity obviously is allowing children to make create make use your creativity from their own brains, you know, make things or or create artwork that is authentic to themselves. It's it's focused on not so much on the past. adduction like a lot of school age art is really focused on a craft or a thing that will produce, it'll look like this, or it'll go on the refrigerator and look like that. Or, you know, teachers often default to this kind of thing. That's not really art. Art is really self generated. So our art studio is, embraces that in a big weigh in some of our other programs as well. Curiosity, obviously, is the foundation of all scientific endeavor. And children are hard wired with their five senses to be natural scientists, and our museum we see them doing, you know, listening for things, touching things. Some of the little kids put things in their mouths, no, but it's, they're using, they're using all their senses to learn about the world. And from my mind, the more we can do as parents and teachers to, to activate curiosity, have to say things like, that's a good question, let's find out, or to point out things that you see in nature, or how something works, explaining things like Wow, can opener, how does that work? Well look at this little wheel here, and, and how it goes, how it punctures the top of the can and then it goes, you know, there's there's those ways of taking a moment to tell your kids about the world inspires their curiosity, and it shows you're paying attention. The confidence one really bears a little explanation, because a lot of people say, yeah, I get the curiosity and I get the creativity. But why is confidence in your mission. And for me, it's the whole ball of wax. Because for any of us, if we have confidence in ourselves, we can do anything, we can learn anything, we believe in ourselves. And that's really an important part of being a full person. So there's a couple of examples that I can imagine the museum when I when I think about this, we have a large, wall based climbing structure, we call it the ant wall. And there's little tunnels where you can go in and you can crawl up through various layer levels at this kind of animal shaped thing, there's little hatches where parents can see their kids the whole way up to the top, and those hatches pop off. If the kid gets stuck, which happens, you know, a couple of times a week, they kind of get past their comfort zone, can't quite figure out how to get back down. It's totally safe. No one gets hurt in there, but, but they can get past their comfort zone. And they'll both take them out and put them on the ground and their parent is there. And almost invariably, I see those little kids wanting to go right back into the wall in that moment. And occasionally we see parents No, no, no, you can't do that you're too small, you don't know how to do that you're not big enough or whatever, for in my way of thinking, that's the time you should say, see if you can try it again. Give it another shot, you know, you learned something going up that last time is there a different way you could go to get up and get back down, you're you're actually facilitating the child, of course, in a safe setting like this one, to push their limits, and get past the thing that was scary, or they weren't able to do because that's how we learn. And once you do that, in life, and you know, as adults, we do that all the time, we have more confidence to do it the next time, we start to learn what we're all about what we're capable of where our edges and where we have to learn more stuff. And that process is what builds confidence. And like I said, if kids have confidence, they can they can really pretty much do anything. There's a really interesting study that I took a lot of heart from because it sort of confirms what I think, where they took groups of children that gave them a test that got increasingly difficult, you know, different stages, for one of the groups that kids were praised, oh, you're terrific, kind of you're so smart. You're really great for the other kids, the group they the the not the communication to those children was more around. I love how hard you try. I love that you go back and try again. I love how you figure that out, you know, those kinds of statements that aren't that are more specific, right? And when the kids got to the very hardest test, the kids that have been praised about how great and smart they weren't, they gave up. They didn't feel like they could do that work. Whereas the kids who'd been encouraged that they made a lot of effort. They tried hard. Those kids said, yeah, it was really hard. I couldn't do it. But I'm gonna go back and try it again. I'll try it next time, or whatever. They just had this kind of inner, didn't feel bad about themselves that they weren't passing that last test. They kind of had the sense of who they were that they knew how to try hard. They knew how to figure things out, and they'd probably go back and do it again in that way. And for me, that's what we're trying to replicate in the Museum of giving kids a chance to over and over test their abilities. Try and do things again, whether it's a maker activity, or whether it's climbing this wall, or whether it's learning how to get their boat to float down the river. They're there testing things out and trying over and over again to get it the way they want it to be. And that confidence that they carry that into school and through their life, they'll be very successful people.

Nicholas Hill  15:11  
I know that your museum has actually gone through a little bit of a transformation, because you had, I believe, kind of a permanent location. And then when the pandemic hit, you had to pivot and you had to react and make sure that that you made changes so that kids could still enjoy the activities. Can you tell us a little bit about that transformation and what Habitot had to do to continue supporting the children that you work with?

Gina Moreland  15:41  
Yes, I'm sure everyone would agree that the pandemic has had dramatic impacts on everyone. But I will say that I think museums and children's museums in particular, have been really impacted. Mainly, it's because we were indoor spaces. And a lot of us were fairly small with a lot of intimate experiences with children who are not vaccinated, who put their hands on everything and get close to each other. And that's part of the way they learn. So at least where we are in California, the governor shut down museums back in March of 2020. And we were officially required to close for 18 months. In our case, where our space was very small, we typically had been there for about 22 years, it was the best we could do with kind of a lower level. space, we didn't have outdoor space, we didn't have windows, we had about 60,000 visitors a year. But often people would say we wish you had a bigger space, we wish you were above ground, we wish you had outdoor environment. So the board and I had been thinking for many years to try to relocate Habitot. And when the pandemic hit, and the the endpoint of the closure was unknown, and looking like very far off, I think the board made the prudent decision to close that space and look for a larger space. And so in my role as director, I was coming up with a strategy for serving our audience of children, who by the way, have had a big impact from the pandemic, because they were isolated in their homes, they weren't, they weren't permitted much social interaction or play, a lot of their schools were closed, they were doing all this crazy, remote kind of things, which is not age appropriate for early childhood at all. So these kids really lost a lot. And we really, and we really wanted to make Habitot available to them in a new way, which became our Mobile Museum. And we have always served a regional audience. But a Mobile Museum has given us the opportunity to go far and wide to places that we might not serve as well with families that might not have always made a path to the museum. So we really love how much diversity we're being able to reach out to with this program. And we've done about 18 events so far. And they are full day events, we get three 400 500 People at each event. And it's really hitting the mark for families. So we are seeing oh my gosh, this last event, I'll just I have to tell you the story. Because one of our goals, of course, has been to make sure that kids are coming back from the pandemic, they're getting these important social interactions with each other. They're playing outdoors, the whole bit is kind of what we're doing. And as the event was wrapping up, this one little kid was running out of it saying I made a friend, I made a friend. And we all were like so happy to hear that because that's just what we hope to hear that the made it possible for for kids to feel like kids again.

Nicholas Hill  18:43  
That's wonderful. And it sounds like a tricky situation for everybody. It sounds like especially for museums and children's museums. And one thing that you and I have talked about before Gina is the importance in these activities of context. And you've talked to me about how a lot of children's activities will have the play component, but it won't have the context behind that the context behind why something works the way it does or why or how a child can kind of put that together in their head. Can you tell me or maybe give me an example of an activity or something that you do that helps children to kind of learn that context while playing?

Gina Moreland  19:30  
Yes, absolutely. I'm glad you pointed that out. Because one of the things that bothers me a lot when I go to a museum and they have these kind of isolated elements that don't have any connection to anything else they might like have one of those Van de Graaff generators, you know, it's fun for kids, you know, they can go over and play with that, but it doesn't fit into anything. And as you said the youngest kids are learning about the world. They go with their parents to the grocery store in the post office and and they do the things that aren't you know, they're tagging along with their parents. And they're learning in that process. And what really is meaningful for young children is to be able to embody that experience. So, you know, we do have a grocery store exhibit, and it's a wonderful kind of space in which kids are shopping for fruits and vegetables, and they're filling shopping carts, and they're checking out with a cash register. And they're providing money, and they're exchanging money. In fact, we've seen older children teach younger children how to make change, right? I think that that is far and away more more accomplices more than a teacher would accomplish, and trying to help kids understand how to make change, you know, so what, what we're trying to do is create these contexts where kids are seeing like the hole. And, and what we see about that is that they are very, they use those contexts, not only to get the kind of the Gestalt, if I can use that word of the whole. And then there's role playing, and there's vocabulary, and there's activities that are all part of that. But what we signed, also see as a really fascinating thing, that kids will use loose parts, in ways that meet the needs of what's going on in their head, or what their problem solving. And my favorite example is, we have a rocket ship exhibit, it's got a mission control a rocket ship that kids can go in, and we've had little kids, leave the rocket ship, go to our little grocery store, fill up a basket of fruits and vegetables and carry it back to the rocket ship. The parents are often saying, Oh, no, no, no, that those things belong over there, right. And we try to explain to them, your kid is brilliant, your kid just figured out, they're going to the moon, and they're going to need some food on their trip. And they've gone to the grocery store to shop for the food that they need. And they've brought it back to the rocket ship. And so we find oranges and bananas, and all kinds of stuff stuffed into these little, little spaces in the rocket ship. It's really very cute. And I just loved the fact that not only are we seeing kids brains working kind of non verbally, they didn't say I'm going shopping to get food, but you see their behavior and you know, the wheels are turning in their head. And then moreover, we can show the parents to look for that we can show the parents that their kid is really quite brilliant, and figuring out a lot of stuff. And we just want them to just marvel at that and just be amazed at what their kids are able to think through at two or three or four years old.

Nicholas Hill  22:26  
Something else that you've talked to me a little bit about is the inclusivity of the museum. And that's something that really struck me days that the museum had, that we're focused specifically on children with special needs. Can you tell us a little bit about that, and why days like that are so effective?

Gina Moreland  22:46  
Absolutely. And I and I want to underscore that one of my personal goals for Habitot when I founded it was to make sure that it didn't just serve educated families who could afford to pay admission to take their kids to places were more inclined to do that. I really wanted the idea of our museum to really feel like a community center that everyone felt welcome. And you need to be really intentional about that kind of thing. Because there's a lot of if a family had doesn't have a family history of going to museums, it can feel really intimidating, like if it's not really a place for them. And we've had to work very hard to build relationships with the community to build relationships with agencies that might work with kids with any kind of challenges, and to make them feel welcome. And we have also incorporated what we call a mellow hour. So if there are families whose children have a need for a little bit less stimulation, or a little bit more commendation for their abilities, we have those kinds of times set aside as well. But there are little things that you can do. For example, if you want to make sure that LGBTQ families feel welcome. You don't ask them to fill out their membership card with Mother Father, do you know what I mean? It's just a little thing. But it's an important thing, right? In terms of really looking at the most under resourced families, and maybe the ones that face the most challenges. We've worked with all manner of agencies that serve children with special needs, whether it's Down Syndrome collect connection, or children who've been burned, or children who have learning disabilities, deafness, or hearing impairment or blindness or visual impairment. It's interesting about kids on the spectrum, and I'm speaking of the autism spectrum. Many parents and many groups want to give these children an experience of being in a sort of typical setting with lots of other kinds of kids, and to build those skills about how to interact, what's age, what's appropriate, what's not appropriate. I remember we were working with one group years ago that was bringing about six children in who were all on the spectrum. And one of them in particular was was quite intrusive on other children's art. And there was this boundary that was kept getting breached. And the kids next to him didn't understand, of course, and they felt like why is this child messing with my art? What was really great about that is that there wasn't a lot of intentional intervention. But I think the experience of being in that art studio with all the kids doing the same thing, and being patient and being accepting, over about six weeks, that child became very comfortable in the setting, and very appropriate with how he maintained his boundaries with other children. And it wasn't anything that had to be really sad, it was the setting that was conducive to how to say this scarcity and deprivation is a big motivator for how a lot of us behave, unfortunately. And usually, it's kind of a negative behavior that people have. And when children haven't had much in their lives, whether it's, you know, material, material things or attention from a parent, they often act out in a needy kind of way. And when you provide all that attention, and you will provide all those opportunities, the behavior diminishes, it's a very relaxed kind of environment, the only times we really hear children crying, or when they have to leave. But the space itself is not a tense space. It's it's a space that allows kids a lot of freedom to choose, and a lot of help around them to manage those experiences, that it's subtle intervention, it's not really teaching at all we aren't, we aren't really teachers, we think of ourselves more as facilitators. In terms of the other inclusivity, question you asked, we have also created a series of open houses in the museum. So we would be able to target. For example, formerly incarcerated dads who are reconnecting with their children, they've not seen them for a couple of years or longer, they don't know their child, their child doesn't know them, you know, what works for them is a play based experience, where they're doing something together, it's all set up, they don't have to invent it, the kid is going to naturally have a good time, the dad can join in, and it's just really great to see. So we've worked with that group, we've worked with teen parents, who were still learning how to be a grown up, because they're very young. And in a place where there's families from all walks of life, it's a great learning laboratory, where they can kind of look around and see what other parents are doing and what they're saying, and how they're interacting with their child. And it kind of makes it a non stigmatized way of building your skill set as a parent. And that's the kind of knowledge that we don't as a society, seem to support parents very much with,

Nicholas Hill  27:54  
Do you find that the parents ever talk to one another or network at all?

Gina Moreland  27:58  
Oh, my gosh, all the time. It's a I think the parents make friends at the museum too. I mean, we're, we're, we're in a university town. So there's actually a lot of international parents that come to the museum, some of them don't even speak English. And they know no one, right. And they've come with their child, because they heard it was fun for their child. And the next thing they know, they're, they're meeting other people that speak that language, or they're meeting a staff person who speaks that language, and they can relax, and they can have a good time. And they have made friends. And some of the sort of targeted groups that I've mentioned that we work with, for example, the special needs population, there's so many things that those parents are desperate to learn, you know, who's a good clinician for this? And what kind of doctor do you use? And is that hospital good for this? And, you know, what equipment did you buy? And where did you get it, those kinds of things come up a lot for families that have a child with a disability. And we've actually seen them, you know, exchanging notes with each other, for emails and ideas that they've gotten from other parents, you know, kind of assess them, and you can ask them questions, and it's very personal. And I think people have a lot of confidence in the information that they get from someone who clearly has a child just like theirs, you know, that's facing some of the same challenges.

Nicholas Hill  29:12  
I see a comparison between what you said about children learning from other children and how that how long that can go instead of just having a teacher teach them how to make change, and then comparing that to the parents learning from other parents and the parents meeting each other and, and learning skills that way. I love the comparison there. If I'm a parent, of a young child, child that's in their early development, what is something that that you would want those parents to know? Or maybe a misconception that people have about children in that age range? Is there anything that that you would want to tell them?

Gina Moreland  29:52  
Well I guess what I would like parents to do is trust their children. So what that means is that I think we're hardwired to do what we can do. And you just almost have to get out of the way a little bit. You know, I think when we put a few too many, like, expectations on kids, when they're not quite ready for it, if we don't let them blossom at their own rate, if we're not really attentive and seeing, you know, what would help them and what would support them, we kind of miss opportunities. But fundamentally, I think if parents could relax a little bit, and just trust that their child knows what they need in that moment, if they need to kind of keep putting pom poms on a piece of paper for an hour, then that's what they need, right? And it doesn't really matter what you think they ought to be doing. It's like go with it. It's kind of like, it's kind of like improv, if you've ever been to an improv, they have kind of a modus operandi, that's the tagline is yes. And so you can figure out a way to say yes to your child, and not as many knows, you will be, you will have a better life as a parent, I want to one of the people who first told me about that was, you know, their kid wanted to take the car to Disneyland, you know, 800 miles away, or whatever it was? And of course, you want to say absolutely not to that right. At their age, but you figure out how to say Yes, right? Yes, yes, you can do that. When you're 17. Right, you come up with a way of saying yes. And the more times you can do that, the more supported your kid is going to feel and the happier parent you're going to be, you know, you're trusting your kid. And you're providing those kinds of ways of encouraging without kind of putting the brakes on stuff.

Nicholas Hill  31:40  
Is there anything else that someone listening could do to support the museum or, you know, just support your cause?

Gina Moreland  31:48  
I guess I would say, share this video, where if you post this, I would love it, if they would say, Hey, I heard about this cool place in your neighborhood or in your area, I wish you would share this because, you know, the more people that know about us and more people that know we're trying to make this happen, it's no small thing to found anything. And I feel very fortunate in my life to have had this idea. And it opened, and I can't say I really knew what I was doing. And we had 30,000 people the first year and 40,000 the next year, and then it just kept growing, you know. And for me, it was also a learn by doing kind of thing about how to be a founder and then a director. And, and, and now I'm kind of doing it again, even though we have this huge legacy and experience. And, you know, we're all very well developed to take the next step. But it is going to be a steep learning curve to get into a larger space and to build out all the things I just described, on our website, if anyone's interested in which is www Habitot.org. There are some plans and some sketches of some of the spaces that we envision in the new museum. And we're looking for people to get involved both in terms of you know, helping make it happen, helping us find a space helping raise money. And we hope to get open in the next couple of years. And we need volunteers we need people with expertise that think they could contribute something to help. We have some committees that people could get in we of course had a board have a board of directors, fundraising. I know no one likes to talk about it. But these things don't happen without money. And, and we've been pretty successful in keeping Habitot going through the pandemic with a lot of very charitable donors and corporations and of course government support. But there's nothing like individuals who really can make things happen in terms of creating a museum. And and this is that moment, if people want to get involved in that we I'm very happy to hear from them.

Nicholas Hill  33:42  
Gina, thank you so much. I've learned so much from talking with you. And I really appreciate you volunteering your time to talk with us today and and really just everything that Habitot Children's Museum is doing to make an impact. I know that I'm going to continue to follow Habitot and just see the impact that your team continues to make. So thanks for joining us today.

Gina Moreland  34:04  
It was really a pleasure. Thank you so much Nick.

Nicholas Hill  34:20  
Today's show was directed and produced by me with music from Alex Grohl special thanks to our guests for their time and insight. If you like today's episode, please follow us wherever you listen to podcasts, and consider leaving a review, as it will help us to spread the word about the show. You can view more information about today's episode online at acts of impact.com Thank you for listening