The Urban Parent’s Guide to Raising Little Superstars

Whether your kid has a flair for the dramatic, an artistic streak, a need to rock the house or the uncanny ability to literally climb the walls, encourage their talents and put that energy to good use. Here’s how.

Raising a Little Rock Star
Let them rock the house… someone else’s house

Shred it Like Slash
When we were kids, the only options for learning a musical instrument were boring after-school lessons in the auditorium (I still shudder at the memory of dragging a sax that weighed as much as I did back and forth on the bus) or learning the basics from a dusty old lady on an even dustier piano. Imagine what stars we all could have been if School of Rock had been around back then. The super-awesome music school offers rock and roll-oriented lessons in vocals, guitar, drums, bass and piano/keyboard, and instead of recitals, they host full-on concerts, like the recent Prince vs. Michael Jackson show at Fête. 

Girls Rule, Boys Drool
We all remember saying this as kids (or saying this yesterday to other adults… whatever, don’t judge). But getting the message across to little ladies that they’re smart, creative and can do anything they put their minds to is easier said than done. That’s where Girls Rock RI comes in. Their mission is to empower girls through music and positive messaging. Their Girls Rock Camp is a week in the summer for girls age 11-16 that not only is an intensive week of music lessons culminating in a showcase performance, but also offers workshops on important topics like Image & Identity, Performance Anxiety & Body Confidence, Songwriting and The History of Ladies Who Rock. Throughout the year, they offer a Girls Get Loud after school program on the West Side, and weekly music lessons.

This is Bach, and It Rocks
Anyone who’s seen a performance by the Rhode Island Philharmonic knows that there are many different ways to rock out – and many different centuries of music to rock out to. The RI Philharmonic Music School is a place where classically-minded kids go in, and little virtuosos come out. They offer private lessons in virtually any instrument starting at age six and Suzuki-method training at age four, but their classes, like Soundplay: Exploring Your Child’s Musical World, are for newborns and toddlers, too. 

Twist and Shout
Sure, your kids love lullabies, but if you have to squeak out one more tone-deaf rendition of “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star,” you’re going to lose it. Leave the early musical education to Rock a Baby, which teaches kids the basics of sound: with puppets named Melody, Rhythm and Harmony, no less. Each week, Rock a Baby’s class explores a new musical theme with toddlers and pre-schoolers, through dance and live and recorded music. Sessions happen throughout MA and RI – locally, at the Jewish Community Center on the East Side. The curriculum was designed by Marc Trachtenberg, an NYU-taught music educator, and gives little ones the fundamentals in hand and body movement, rhythm and improvisation with kid-friendly instruments. 

Sing Their Hearts Out
There’s singing into a hairbrush, and then there are Lady Gaga-level living room performances, complete with costume changes. If your kid is more Beyonce than Tom Brady, let them sing their hearts out at the Rhode Island Children’s Chorus. The audition-only singing group welcomes kids ages 7-17, and performs choral music all over the state. In May, they’re performing Carmina Burana with the Providence Singers and the RI Philharmonic Orchestra - like, that kind of serious musical chops. There are six different choirs that practice in different areas of RI: the Training Chorus, Lyric Chorus and Principal Chorus all meet in East Providence.

Raising a Little Genius
Because the next Einstein obviously lives in Providence

Girl (Tech) Power
Traditional gender roles are evolving – lady doctors! stay at home dads! – but not as quickly in certain segments of the work force, like the technology sector. Girls Who Code encourages girls to get involved in computer sciences, which are development industries that have huge job potential for future generations. The Lincoln School has one for its students, but the Girls Who Code Club that recently started up at Rochambeau Library is open to the public. Every Thursday evening, the club meets to teach girls about artificial intelligence, cryptography, graphics, mobile development and and coding skills. Your kid will be learning how to make important social technologies… but you’ll probably be at home “liking” photos of food.

Make Science Fun
Not since Mr. Wizard has learning about science been this fun. The Young Scientists Club, based in Jamestown, makes mail-order learning kits about different scientific topics. There’s a Young Scientists Series for ages 5-12, a Magic School Bus series, a Clifford the Big Red Dog series, an adventure series and a nature series. With lessons ranging from “Volcanoes” to “Magic Science,” there’s definitely something to spark any kid’s interest. Remember, kids love getting stuff in the mail – you’ll love that they’re getting stuff in the mail that makes learning fun.

Feel Like a Kid Again
The Providence Children’s Museum is a fun place to foster a new love of science, as long as you call it something other than “science.” Their new exhibit, Water Ways, is a water play environment that allows kids to send items into vortexes, transform water into mist, sculpt ice and form fountains. Underland is an imaginative exhibit of critters and their underground passageways. In nicer weather, the Children’s Garden allows kids to have lunch outdoors and learn about native plant species. And the Iway exhibit allows future city planners to imagine a new highway plan for Providence - ostensibly in the hopes that, unlike what’s happening with the Planning Commission, someone will actually figure it out.

Examine Little Brains
Kids’ brains are little wonders. Why exactly do they learn what they learn when they learn it? And how does your toddler know more about using an iPad than you do? Kid Think at Providence College is a long-term study in the inner workings of children’s brains. What they do is work with local families, bringing them in for sessions during which researchers play pretend games and read stories with kids. It all sounds very scientific (read: too smart for most of us) but kids find it really fun, and parents can feel like they’re adding to the future understanding of children… because, hey, someone should. 

Make the Museum Come to You
Don’t travel to Boston to visit a science museum – make the museum come to you. The Rhode Island Museum of Science and Art is a traveling museum that pops up all over the state, taking their mobile exhibits from schools to big public events like WaterFire. RIMOSA’s installations offer “open ended” experiences that encourage kids to think creatively about science, art and the world around them – like the Zoetrope where they can make moving pictures, or the Rainbow Drums where they can make sweet music from different sized tubes. 

Raising Little Renaissance People
Because future liberal arts majors are raised, not born

Teach Them to Appreciate the Finer Things
Fine art appreciation is a learned skill, and one you don’t necessarily associate with early education. The RISD Museum makes it easy to start your kids on the path to cultural enlightenment early, with their family programming. The museum offers a Young Explorer’s Guide to engage kids with art, and tips for parents on how to talk to little ones about learning to express their artistic opinions. Tours for Tots are interactive themed tours for families with kids age three and up, including story time and gallery activities. Art enrichment classes like See and Sketch and Open Studio are offered for slightly older kids.

The Littlest Literary Salon
Members of the Providence Athenaeum, the city’s most historic library, already know what a treasure trove is inside. The literary history is in the air: literally, there are statues of famous writers looking down from the second floor balcony. The Sayles Gorham Children’s Library inside the Athenaeum is the perfect place for little minds to get lost in the magic of books. Events include regular story hours, Nature Days with the Zoo, where Roger Williams critters take over the library, and Family Movie Nights. The multitasking Ms. Z’s Story and Craft Hour, on Wednesdays after school, gets all of the creativity flowing at once.

Get Sew Into It
So maybe you’re not a Martha Stewart-level goddess of the home. That’s ok, even Martha Herself has a team helping her be the paragon of domestic perfection that she is. If your little ones want to learn to sew but you’re out of your depth, leave it to the crafty ladies at Kreatelier, the Hope Street textile gift shop and interior design firm. Line and Pernilla offer Sewing Workshops on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. Simply choose your project, from simple one-hour stuffed animals to two-hour weekend tote bags, schedule a time and voila. Little domestic gods and goddesses in the making.  

Help Them Find their Inner Picasso...
...But maybe without that moody “blue period.” Tucked away on a side street in Mount Hope is a colorful center for creativity: the East Side Art Center. An educational resource that promises “studio – not academic – learning,” the Center works in semesters and offers visual art instruction for adults and kids. The spring semester starts this month, and offers kids’ instruction in age groups ranging from 5-6 years old for the kidstART introduction to Drawing and Painting for Kids age 11-15. 

Get Dramatic
Think of it this way: if you encourage them to get it all out at the Artists’ Exchange, they might be too tired to throw tantrumy meltdowns over literally nothing at home. The Cranston haven for once and future artists brings together art, music and theatre. Current class offerings include Upcycled Art for Kids, Fantasy Art, Little Picasso’s Reading and Art, Stop Motion Animation and Music Together. The attached Cafe 82 cafe, where you can sit with a coffee and enjoy a blissful hour of you-time during their lessons, is just a bonus.

Stir Things Up
Face it, somebody in your house needs to learn how to cook a decent dinner – and if it isn’t you yet, it probably never will be. Let Petite Chef teach your kids the fundamentals of healthy cooking and eating, so that you’ll be able to survive if your pizza delivery guy up and quits. The Warwick kitchen also offers birthday parties and events surrounding holidays, like their Sweets for Your Sweeties class at Valentine’s Day. 

Raising a Little Athlete
Break them away from the video games and teach them to love being active

Empowerment Through Exercise
The discipline that it takes to participate in serious sports teaches a lot more to a kid than how to kick a ball. Girls on the Run, though, takes it one step further. (See what I did there?) The group, for girls in third through eighth grade, focuses on lessons about health, happiness, empowerment and self-awareness through running games and conversation-based lessons. Sessions last ten weeks, and there’s an all-ages Girls on the Run 5k/10k on May 31 in downtown Providence. 

Let Them Run Free
There are kids who are into sports, and then there are hardcore fitness fanatics who have dreams of being professional athletes. If your kids put your exercise regiment to shame, sign them up for Unleashed, an indoor obstacle fitness and training center in Warwick. Unleashed Kids lets them swing from ropes, hang from monkey bars, dodge tire obstacles and literally climb the walls. When they get home, they might even be too tired to force you outside to throw a ball around. 

Get Them Moving
Some kids don’t need to be convinced that physical fitness is fun. Some, well, need some encouragement. The YMCA offers tons of fun activities that are healthy, too – like Family Swim, dance classes for preschool through teen, karate and basketball leagues. The Join for Me: Healthy Weight for Kids and Teens helps teach them how to maintain a healthy lifestyle and make better choices about food and activity levels. 

Tee Them Off
Soccer, baseball, basketball, dance… it’s easy to find an outlet for the most kid-friendly athletics. Golf, though, is increasingly becoming less of an adults-only game. Button Hole Golf offers programs, clinics and classes for the littlest putters, starting at age five. They learn the history of the game, as well as skills, etiquette and how to shave three strokes off their game through sheer exaggeration.

Raising a Little Explorer
Have them take a closer look at the natural world around them

Explore the Cosmos
If you’ve never been to Providence’s Museum of Natural History and Planetarium in Roger Williams Park, your kid is not on the path to being the next Neil deGrasse Tyson. Change that with just one visit. The museum itself is a treasure trove of natural wonders and historic scientific artifacts. Current exhibits include Seismic Shifts: Earth Through Time and Secrets from the Vaults: Ancient Objects and Hidden Treasures. Planetarium shows happen every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm. 

Gaze at the Stars
If you weren’t at least a little fascinated with constellations when you were a kid, there’s probably something wrong with you. Teach your kids how to see the sky in a different way at Brown University’s Ladd Observatory. The East Side observatory has been used for research and observation by the school’s Physics department since 1891. Tuesday evenings from 8-10pm, it’s open to the public for observation. If your kids see aliens, though, Brown also has a psychology department.

Traverse the Tropics
Ok, fine. Some kids aren’t going to be super excited about visiting the Roger Williams Park Botanical Center. But little botanists in training will be fascinated by the hundreds of native and tropical plant species, many of which you can’t see anywhere else locally. The biggest botanical garden in New England also offers scavenger hunts for kids who might otherwise be bored enough to stick their fingers in the Venus Fly Trap.

Dive Right In
Save the Bay has been teaching kids and adults about the ecology and preservation of Narragansett Bay for 30 years. Connect your future Jacques Cousteau to local marine life through the offerings at their Save the Bay Center in Providence (there’s also an Exploration Center on First Beach in Newport). Seal Watch and Lighthouse tours leave from Providence, especially during April Vacation week, and the center has Bay Exploration summer camps.

A New Kind of Amusement Park
Your kids will never know the joy of Rocky Point as an amusement park… or the terror of riding those poorly maintained rides. (Seriously, if you didn’t get hurt on The Scrambler, you were doing it wrong.) But they can know the joy of the Rocky Point Open Area, which is part walking path and part nature preserve. Part of the park has been open for a couple of years, but the Rocky Point Foundation is predicting that the entire area will be open this fall, hopefully including ferry service to Colt State Park in Bristol.