Thursday, 19 November 2009
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"Are We There Yet?"-How to Survive Holiday Travel
Will you be traveling a long distance with children this Thanksgiving or perhaps another holiday coming up? Traveling with children can be, well, interesting to say the least! Surviving the drive to your holiday destination does not have to be a nightmare, so don’t worry; just have a game plan in place to help reduce your holiday stress! At least there are portable DVD players these days; they didn’t have those around when I was a kid!
One super-mom I know shared one of her travel secrets with me recently, her advice, drive at night. I think that this is such a great idea. Your children can be safely strapped in the back seat sleeping while you make the long trek to wherever it is you are going. The silence will allow for you to better pay attention to where you are going and what is happening on the road. Also, you will feel more relaxed not having a screaming kid(s) in the back or being repeatedly bombarded with that all time favorite question, “Are we there yet?” Another bonus to traveling at night, the roads should have less traffic on them since most people will be traveling during the day! So if you can make the trip at night I say, go for it!
If you can not travel at night or your kids are not sleeping even if you do, make sure you have lots of entertainment for them! Portable DVD players are great to take on a road trip if you can afford to purchase one. Your kid(s) will be distracted by whatever you throw up on the screen which will keep them happy and hopefully quiet. If you have headphones for the little ones to use that is even better, no distraction for you whatsoever!
There are also so many travel games out there to keep your children occupied during a long drive! There are even games you can play that don’t require you to purchase a thing! Play the license plate game. When I was a kid my sister and I would play the license plate game for hours! I think there are many versions of this game in existence but here is how we did it…Look out the window and look for license plates from different states; whoever spots the most license plates from the most states is the winner! Nice and simple, isn’t it? This game can also be played by replacing the state the car is from with what color the car is. Use your imagination to come up with more game ideas like this for hours of entertainment!
There are also a million different board games with travel editions on the market these days. You can get everything from travel Apples to Apples to travel Scrabble. So no matter what age(s) your kid(s) are you will be able to find something fun for them to play while you travel!
How have you survived a long car trip with the kids?
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About the Author
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- From: michcoy@xanga
- Name: Michelle
- About Me: I am a full-time nanny who loves to write whenever I can. I also love being outdoors whenever possible. Camping, hiking and kayaking are a few of my favorite activities.
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Comments (4)
we travel from Hawaii to Florida at least once a year. I pack a whole backpack full of new thingsfor them to do. You don't' have to spend a lot, you can even print a ton of free activities off the net! Things like bendaroos and paperoos are mess free and keep the kids entertained for a long long time.. Hands on activities especially work really well! We bring chapter books because they are small and the kids love listening to chapter after chapter!
I was immediately distracted by the picture. That boy should be in a booster seat!
We do a lot of travel with our kids. DVD players are great, but I feel like I'm cheating when I use them. When we were kids we had no such things and we did just fine on long road trips. Granted, my brother and I about killed each other in the back seat, but now I look back on those memories and remember them fondly.
When kids ask me "are we there yet?" I always reply: "yes." Then they look at me incredulously (as we're still clearly driving down the highway) and protest: "No we're not!" I then say, "why did you ask me that question if you already knew the answer to it?" Shuts 'em right up. Lol. Alternatively, instead of yes I'll ask, "what do you think?" It's no fun answering their own stupid questions haha. So they'll say "no...." and I'll say "there ya go." It seems particularly effective with cheeky pre-teens who sometimes like to make a game out of being annoying. It's like they think: car ride gets boring, let's play "bother the driver." We'll ask a bunch of annoying questions for attention and see how long we can keep the "stupid" adult going; that'll pass the time! So as the "stupid" adult, rather than being played, I will state the obvious with a bit of sarcasm, state the opposite of the truth just to get them to point out the obvious and answer their own questions (and thus point out the obvious non-necessity of asking such questions), or simply turn the question around on them until it's not fun to ask stupid questions anymore.
Ugh, I remember one 12 year old boy I was chaperoning on a trip would NOT shut up the entire ride. Not talking about anything of substance, just talking for the sake of talking, resorting to sound effects when he couldn't think of any words to throw out there. Even his peers were getting annoyed, but a few kept laughing at his stupid non-sensical jokes which kept him going. I don't doubt he was always indulged by his parents to the point where they never said "enough is enough" when listening to his chatter. I felt bad for him because he's forever going to have the reputation as that "annoying kid" because he hasn't yet learned that people have limits concerning how much stupidity they can take coming out of another person's mouth before they don't want to be around that person much anymore.
we've gont thru 2 dvd plyers. we LOVE them and use them like a addiction for our trips.