Tip—Plan for boredom, hunger, potty stops and possible carsickness—a little preparation goes a long way.

It’s summertime and many of us are loading up the car with kids, dogs, and luggage and heading off to vacation places. A long car trip with young children is not something to undertake lightly. With adequate planning, however, it can go off surprisingly well. I have experience with both horrendous car trips and pretty pleasant ones. When my own children were small, we would travel via truck and camper, once a month from southern California, where we lived at the time, to central Arizona. It was seven hours, each way. Some trips went better than others. I thought I’d share a few things that helped.

Tools—

• Punctuate the trip with stops the kids can look forward to or anticipate. For example, about halfway to our destination, we stopped for gas at a place that sold ice cream—it was marked by a large red heart on its sign. My kids would eagerly look for “the heart store.” Later in the trip, they looked for a small convenience store (marked by a dancing burro on its sign) where we’d buy a cool drink.

  My friend, who travels to another state a couple times a year to visit her parents, tells how her boys (ages 5, 3, and 1) look forward to a particular McDonalds for a lunch stop and a romp in the playspace. The next thing they look forward to is stopping for the night at a motel with a pool. The next day the big lure is Grandma’s house. She says the boys cope so much better when they have these fun stops to anticipate and sort of mark the time by.

• Boredom with young children. Although it pains me to admit it, (being an anti-TV person) that the hands-down, best thing that ever worked to keep young children entertained in the car is a small TV/VCR/DVD unit. Here are some other boredom busters we found useful in the car:

  • Books on tape/cd. If your child is prone to carsickness, reading a book is a risky idea. Try a book on tape instead. The little tape players and earphones are very inexpensive.

  • Play Dough or Silly Putty (depends on how worried you are about your car’s upholstery, but something to play with in your hands is quite diverting to many young children—and it can be very useful for the child who gets carsick and can’t look at books or draw)

  • Small toys like animal figures, superheros, little dolls.

  • A Magna-Doodle toy (you can get them small) where the child can draw and erase and never lose the attached pen. Again, use drawing activities only if motion sickness isn’t a problem.

  

• Safety. If you have a child who strenuously objects to being in a carseat, I sympathize. You may decide not to go anywhere at all and I wouldn’t blame you. This is a stage many toddlers go through and it usually lasts a couple months. If you must go, then anytime you buckle in the child, you can expect a struggle. Elizabeth Crary, author of 365 Wacky, Wonderful Ways to Get Your Children to Do What You Want, recommends a special car toy that the child really wants and can only have once he/she is buckled in and not fussing. Offering his favorite kid tunes on the radio may also work.

• Discipline. If you are adequately prepared for a car trip, this will lessen the discipline problems you experience. Bored, crabby children will fight with each other to pass the time. One consequence I recommend in my book Go to Your Room! is to require the misbehaving child to sit in the car (1 minute for every year of age) after you get to your next stop (rest area, gas station, motel, Grandma’s house, whatever). Stay right there beside the car so you’re sure she’s safe. It’s a great deterrent for the next time she’s bored and tempted to pick on her sibling. Another consequence is loss of a window seat. (Use these consequences only with children ages three and older.)

Bon Voyage!

You’ll find more practical tips you can use right now in 365 Wacky, Wonderful Ways to Get Your Children to Do What You Want by Elizabeth Crary, M.S.

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