Sooner or later, the family will decide its time for a lengthy car trip; far from the suburbs and onto the open road. Sitting still in the car for hours isn’t an easy thing for anyone – especially children. With a little planning, both stress and risk can be minimized for everyone involved. Frequent stops, adequate entertainment and nutritious snacks are just a few strategies which can help to make long distant car travel an enjoyable experience for everyone.
Plan your road trip with your child’s sleeping and eating schedule in mind. Many parents choose to leave in the evening to allow children sleep while they drive. Obviously, sensible driving practices needs to be observed with a change of driver every two hours to avoid driver fatigue. Ask yourself what food and drink items your children would normally consume in the hours you will be travelling and pack these in easily accessible areas. A mixture of sweets and treats and nutritious snacks is best to pack. Rice cakes, sultanas, oranges, apples and carrot sticks travel well.
Invest in an car refrigerator which plugs into the cigarette lighter. They can be purchased inexpensively from a camping store and makes long distant travel a much more comfortable experience. Apart from keeping food fresh and cool, children’s food can be stored at safe temperatures and be easily accessible along the way. Obviously the more features and controls you want on the item, the more expensive it will be. There are a wide range of sizes of these products, from those which would hold six cans of softdrink, to much more substantial ones which would hold the normal contents of a household fridge.
Portable and in car DVD players might be the key to a parents sanity on a long trip. For the sake of peace and quiet, go against your normal parenting and allow the children to watch nonstop films while the miles whizz underneath them. In car DVD players with two screens can be purchased on ebay or at electrical stores for under $150. More serious travelers might like to consider DVD players which are permanently mounted on the car ceiling and boast a wireless earphone system.
Pack a bag of surprises for your children to open as you set off. There are lots of inexpensive travel-sized toys such Etch-a-Sketch or magnetic board type games. Don’t forget the old standbys such as crayons, colored pencils, a roll of Scotch tape, stickers, safety scissors, notebooks, coloring books, rubber stamps with ink pads, and finger puppets all packaged in easily accessible zipper bags or pencil cases.
Some other tips to consider are
- Tie toys to your child’s car seat so they don’t fall to the floor.
- Ensure every child has a small bottle (with a sipper lid) of water at hand.
- Keep the car clean by taking along a trash bag to collect the remains of snack time and baby wipes to clean up minor spills.
- Bring along safe toys and try to avoid toys that are sharp, heavy, have multiple pieces or that break easily.
- For older children, take an extra map and a colored pencil and let the kids mark your progress so they don’t ask about it every few minutes.
- Plan frequent stops where there are parks and grassed areas. Not only is this vital to beat driver fatigue, but everyone needs to stretch their legs and run off the sugar high energy they accumulate being stuck in a car. However, don’t over stay a break – up to ten mins is enough every two hours. More than this and children will be restless and difficult to settle back into the driving routine.
- Bring your children’s favorite songs on CD or have special IPods or portable CD players especially for trips.
When all else fails, you may like to play some car games.
Collated below are the most popular and suitable for children toddler aged to around 10. Where a wide range of ages are in the car, you will need to be flexible with rules and expectations.
Dog Catcher
One player counts all of the dogs on the left side of the road and the other counts the dogs on the right. If you spot a cat, you score a ten. If you spot a graveyard (or a dead animal) on your opponent’s side, they lose all of their points.
Special Vehicles
Have children look for yellow moving vans, horse trailers, cement mixers, and so on. Keep score over a specific time period ( up to 10 mins at a time)
License Plates
Jot down the different state or coloured license plates and the motto beneath the numbers. See who has the most after a time limit.
I’m Taking on the Trip … game
Start this game out by saying, “I’m going on a trip and I’m bringing…” . The first player should name an item that starts with the letter “A”. After “A” , the next player will say the same thing but with the letter “B”, and so on.
Alphabet Game
Starting with “A”, look for something that begins with “A”. Keep going through the alphabet until you reach the letter “Z”. This can be either a verbal or a written game.
Eye Spy shape, color or size
This is a good game for toddlers and preschoolers
Reading Game
This passes the time VERY quickly in the car for the reader and for the family members who are listening. Great opportunity to read those Harry Potter Books or similar as a family as well as a chance to talk abut the messages within the book, characters and themes.
Apart from planning frequent stops at grassed areas and parks, ensuring that you bring a variety of entertainment for your children and nutritious snacks, the time you spend chatting, uninterrupted with your children will often be the most precious ‘together’ time a family has in this busy world. As much as you love the suburbs, there is a wide world out there to discover and oftenthe best way is by vehicle. Long distant travel need not be a painful experience when sharing the drive with kids, instead, it can be a family enriching time and space for all.
Annie describes herself as a Thaumaturg (what mother isn’t?) Three days ago she drove 1200k with her four and six year old – taking nealry 16 and a half hours to do it – with not a whinge or whine the whole way. She is just about to embark on a four day trek with six children and 2000 km and expects the same awesomeness from them Catch her growing amount of websites and blogs.
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Annie
Annie draws on her years as a teacher, a busy mother of two and time in the corporate field to bring life experience to her eclectic style of writing. She has written speculative science fiction, feminist literature, romance, adventure and magazine articles exploring themes in mothering, feminism, spirituality and sharing her journey as a woman. Currently involved with a number of collaborative writing projects in both fiction and non fiction AS WELL as conducting workshops with community and speaking at key events, Annie somehow finds time to care for her family and occasionally sleep .
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