Jo's Tips on Traveling with Kids
This was a very popular article on epinions written many years ago but still relevant.
We started traveling with our children when they were 3, 5 and 8. These were some of the tricks I had up my sleeve.
1. They will certainly fill a backpack with their favorite toys, games, books, etc. I bought "surprises." They would consist of inexpensive items like play dough; silly putty; new coloring books or connect-the-dot type books; and a couple of the small travel games - travel checkers, travel trivia depending on the children’s ages. In the new world, you would have to adjust to the days of paper and pencils!
2. I would get rolls of nickels, dimes or quarters. The price increased as they got older. I don't believe in punishing bad behavior (unless it is harmful to someone else, property or the child himself); I believe in ignoring it and rewarding behavior that is appropriate. Based on that philosophy, the children would get, let's say a nickel when they were young, for each hour their behavior was appropriate. This money could be used to buy souvenirs, candy or whatever they wanted at our destination. This, of course, would be adjusted depending on, as I said, the ages of the children, the length of the drive, and the behavior in general. A two-year old without siblings will be happy with a play penny!
3. A wonderful game they loved to play is "find the letter." Obviously your child has to be able to read, but you can help. You start with A and they have to find something in a road sign, license plate, anywhere visible from the car that starts with A, then B and so forth. I don't suggest prizes for a game like this. It should be fun in my opinion; not stressful or overly competitive.
4. As soon as my kids were old enough, they had what at the time were called a walkman. Many of you have never heard the word! I know there is controversy over how many two-year olds have iPads, but some digital equipment is worth the money. One app I just found is "Smart Toddler Series - WORLD FLAGS provides you or your kids with flashcards of proportionally scaled flags and pronouciation from all over the world. It has 3 built-in languages - English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese."
5. We had a couple of instances of car sickness so you want to make sure (Even if your children aren't prone to it, something could cause it.) you have a container and clean up items. Always have clean clothes available so you don't have to go hunting through everything. Children are usually upset after they have been sick, so you want to try to make it easy for them to recover.
6. If there is an issue with who sits where then they take turns. That isn't negotiable. We were lucky that we had a mini-van with a larger back seat and a smaller middle one. The larger one was always for the girls and the middle one for the boy. Everyone was happy with that situation. If you do need to rotate, make sure that is worked out ahead of time and everyone understands the rules. You don't want to be fighting about whose turn it is every hour!
7. Even if it takes 4 extra hours, stop as often as you need to. If it means every rest area, then so be it. It would be wonderful if we could regulate people's bladders to be on the same clock but we can't. We can try, but it doesn't always work. So stop when they need to stop; and even if they don't, it's a great excuse to let them run off some energy, have a picnic and just regroup.
8. When we traveled (Too bad this didn't carry over to "real life".) we went around the table at dinner wherever we were and said something nice about each other. Believe me that could be a challenge, but even the most stubborn and challenging of the three always came up with something.
Happy Trails!
© Jo Levy
We started traveling with our children when they were 3, 5 and 8. These were some of the tricks I had up my sleeve.
1. They will certainly fill a backpack with their favorite toys, games, books, etc. I bought "surprises." They would consist of inexpensive items like play dough; silly putty; new coloring books or connect-the-dot type books; and a couple of the small travel games - travel checkers, travel trivia depending on the children’s ages. In the new world, you would have to adjust to the days of paper and pencils!
2. I would get rolls of nickels, dimes or quarters. The price increased as they got older. I don't believe in punishing bad behavior (unless it is harmful to someone else, property or the child himself); I believe in ignoring it and rewarding behavior that is appropriate. Based on that philosophy, the children would get, let's say a nickel when they were young, for each hour their behavior was appropriate. This money could be used to buy souvenirs, candy or whatever they wanted at our destination. This, of course, would be adjusted depending on, as I said, the ages of the children, the length of the drive, and the behavior in general. A two-year old without siblings will be happy with a play penny!
3. A wonderful game they loved to play is "find the letter." Obviously your child has to be able to read, but you can help. You start with A and they have to find something in a road sign, license plate, anywhere visible from the car that starts with A, then B and so forth. I don't suggest prizes for a game like this. It should be fun in my opinion; not stressful or overly competitive.
4. As soon as my kids were old enough, they had what at the time were called a walkman. Many of you have never heard the word! I know there is controversy over how many two-year olds have iPads, but some digital equipment is worth the money. One app I just found is "Smart Toddler Series - WORLD FLAGS provides you or your kids with flashcards of proportionally scaled flags and pronouciation from all over the world. It has 3 built-in languages - English, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese."
5. We had a couple of instances of car sickness so you want to make sure (Even if your children aren't prone to it, something could cause it.) you have a container and clean up items. Always have clean clothes available so you don't have to go hunting through everything. Children are usually upset after they have been sick, so you want to try to make it easy for them to recover.
6. If there is an issue with who sits where then they take turns. That isn't negotiable. We were lucky that we had a mini-van with a larger back seat and a smaller middle one. The larger one was always for the girls and the middle one for the boy. Everyone was happy with that situation. If you do need to rotate, make sure that is worked out ahead of time and everyone understands the rules. You don't want to be fighting about whose turn it is every hour!
7. Even if it takes 4 extra hours, stop as often as you need to. If it means every rest area, then so be it. It would be wonderful if we could regulate people's bladders to be on the same clock but we can't. We can try, but it doesn't always work. So stop when they need to stop; and even if they don't, it's a great excuse to let them run off some energy, have a picnic and just regroup.
8. When we traveled (Too bad this didn't carry over to "real life".) we went around the table at dinner wherever we were and said something nice about each other. Believe me that could be a challenge, but even the most stubborn and challenging of the three always came up with something.
Happy Trails!
© Jo Levy
Comments