If you go to a concert with young children expecting them to be bored and preparing them by giving them doughnuts, and expecting them to sit in the lobby watching a movie while you listen to the second half, are you preparing them (and yourself) for disaster? I wonder. Of course adding Franck to the mix … not exactly my fave of composers, I’ll confess … is probably not a great thing. RTWT
How would you recommend dealing with young children at concerts? Or would you?
Best line in the article: “God be praised, the English horn!”
What I’m wondering is the logic behind “sugaring” the kids up before the show. Why would he do that?? I heart Franck, though he may be a bit heavy for kids. If they’d never been to a concert before, maybe a children’s concert would have been a better starting point. Kids that have been to many concerts by age 6 should be able to sit still though. My 4-year old niece is amazing, sitting through (and appreciating?) full concerts.
I’m wondering what to do with my 2-month old baby (not here yet!!) while I’m playing my first concert back in January. I’ll have my husband, his sister and her fiance at the concert. Maybe I’ll luck out and have a baby that will sleep through it at the back of the hall? Or should I just have one of them sit completely away from the concert, in the green room downstairs? They could take turns–1st half/2nd half…
Sorry I went off-topic there, my mind is clearly on the baby!!
I wondered about all that sugar too, Jill.
I went back to work far too early with our first (3 weeks old). But we had to have the income, and that’s life. (Sigh.) No way would he have slept through anything, and I couldn’t bring him along. I did a lot of pumping, let me tell you … and that kiddo got breast milk for 6 months even with me being gone an awful lot. (I was a basket case, though.)
Not one of my children could have been at rehearsals and concerts; they weren’t the happiest of infants! So we had to hire sitters constantly. (Dan was stage manager, so he couldn’t take care of a baby while working.)
But your little guy might be a breeze. Who knows?!
For me, having an infant at work would have been too much of a distracting anyway. When I go to work I drop the “mom hat” as much as possible. (When Dan was stage manager I would also drop the “wife hat” when we were there … he was the stage manager, not my husband.)
It’s all a balancing act, that’s for sure!