The Hidden Power of Shared Experiences in School-Age Library Programs

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In early childhood library programming, we expect adults and children to participate together. Caregivers sing during storytime, bounce babies on their knees, help toddlers with activities, and sit beside preschoolers as they explore. Shared participation is built into the experience.

But something often changes when children reach school age. Programs increasingly become for the child. Adults become the people who drive children to the library, wait nearby, watch from the sidelines, or use the time to check their phones. As children become more independent, we naturally begin to give them more space.

And that independence matters. But I’ve started to wonder: What if school-age children don’t have to age out of shared experiences with the adults in their lives?

In several of the school-age programs I’ve facilitated, I’ve noticed parents, grandparents, and other caregivers doing more than simply accompanying children. They participate alongside them, not because they are required to, but because the experience seems to invite them in.

In Let’s Create, an open-ended process art program, I’ve watched adults sit down and create alongside children. Grandparents make art with their grandchildren. Parents explore the same materials their children are using. The adult isn’t necessarily there to help the child produce a better final product. Each person can make their own choices and follow their own ideas while still sharing the experience.

I’ve seen something similar during STEAM Fridays, a drop-in program where school-age children explore hands-on science, technology, engineering, art, and math activities at stations throughout the program room or at Bookmobile stops. Depending on the theme, families might experiment with balloon rockets, build and test paper helicopters, explore ocean science, or try other activities together. I’ve watched adults become curious about the activities, too. They stop to experiment alongside their children, talk through what they’re observing, and try to figure out how something works together. The activities may be designed with children in mind, but the curiosity they spark isn’t limited by age.

During a drop-in history escape room, I noticed parents becoming completely absorbed in solving the puzzles. In the program, adults were studying clues and pointing toward different parts of the puzzles alongside their children. In those moments, there isn’t necessarily one person teaching and another learning. They are trying to figure something out together.

Tech Take-Apart seems to draw adults in particularly strongly. Give families old electronics and tools and invite them to discover what’s inside, and suddenly everyone is curious. Parents and children lean over the same device, examine the components they uncover, and share the process of figuring out how something was put together.

Cardboard Construction has been slightly different. Adults participate, but I’ve also noticed them stepping back. When children begin building independently, caregivers often seem comfortable giving them room to test their own abilities and let their curiosity and creativity run free.

That stepping back is important, too. Co-generational participation doesn’t have to mean an adult is constantly helping, instructing, or directing a child. Sometimes participating alongside a child means making something together. Sometimes it means solving a puzzle together. And sometimes it means recognizing that a child is deeply engaged and giving them the space to see what they can do on their own.

Perhaps the goal isn’t maximum caregiver participation. Perhaps it’s creating programs flexible enough to allow adults and children to find their own way of participating together.

School-age children are developing independence, but independence and shared experiences are not opposites. A child and a grandparent can sit beside each other making completely different pieces of art. A parent and child can puzzle over the same escape room clue. A family can take apart an old keyboard together. And an adult can stand back while a child turns a pile of cardboard into something entirely their own.

These moments also allow adults and children to see one another differently. A child might see that an adult doesn’t immediately know how to solve a puzzle. An adult might notice how a child approaches a problem, persists when something doesn’t work, or comes up with an idea they never would have considered. They are sharing an experience without necessarily occupying the traditional roles of adult as teacher and child as learner.

This makes me wonder whether we sometimes underestimate the potential for co-generational participation in school-age library programming.

We already know how valuable shared experiences can be in early childhood programming. Perhaps we can continue making room for those experiences as children grow, not by requiring adults to participate, and not by suggesting that every caregiver needs to be actively involved at every moment, but simply by continuing to extend the invitation.

Open-ended programs may be particularly well suited to this. When there isn’t one right answer or one expected outcome, adults don’t need to know more than children do. Everyone can enter the experience from a different place. They can make, experiment, investigate, build, and wonder together.

The invitation can remain low pressure: Join in if you’d like. Watch if you’d rather. Step forward when your child wants to work together. Step back when they’re ready to try something independently.

This approach, inviting participation without expecting it, can become part of how we think about designing programs for school-age children. Perhaps the question isn’t simply whether caregivers are involved. Maybe we can ask a different question:

Are we still creating opportunities for children and the adults in their lives to experience something together?

Because growing independence doesn’t have to mean growing apart. And school-age children may not need to age out of the joy of discovering, creating, and wondering alongside the people who care about them.

(Featured photo at top of page courtesy of Katie Hom)

Today’s guest blogger is Renee Kitson a Youth Services Librarian at the Mountain View Public Library in California. She loves creating hands-on programs that spark curiosity and encourage families to learn together. She enjoys sharing ideas that help make libraries welcoming, engaging places for children and their caregivers.

Please note that as a guest post, the views expressed here do not represent the official position of ALA or ALSC.

If you are interested in submitting a guest post, please read and fill out our Guest Blogging Interest Form. We would love to hear from you!

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