Notes

How to Avoid the Top 10 Road Trip Stresses While Traveling With Kids
Growing up in a family group of 5 kids, it seemed that my poor Dad yelled at us a lot while we were on long road trips. I could blame most of it on my older brother who seemed to enjoy instigating in the car (yeah Johnny, What i'm saying is you!). The fact of the matter was, our long road trips were often uncomfortable, boring, and stressful for both parents and children. Over time, I've analyzed the events again and again to try and figure out what my parents could have done to help make the drive easier on everyone. I came up with the top 10 major stresses of traveling with young kids, and through research, practice and application discovered some simple fixes to overcome them.

Top 10 major stresses and solutions to over coming them are:

1. Beating the boredom - My parents rarely allowed us kids to create anything that would break up the monotony of an extended road trip - therefore leaving us 5 kids to fend for ourselves in the back seat. We resorted to teasing, poking, making faces, and disrupting the entire harmony of the automobile for miles and miles. If we had a number of the nifty travel toys, and games available on today to beat the boredom on our long road trips from State to State, perhaps we would have already been more entertained, and less bored out of our minds that leads to mischief, ultimately causing Dad to yell.

2. Car entertainment - In order to fail completely and also have a riot break out in your backseat, then never bring any toys, coloring books, games, finger puppets, or even string to play with on your long drive. It'll keep the kids miserable, and the car spotless. Wow, that's a recipe for disaster. Allowing your kids to create along simple self contained coloring kits, or hand held games, as well as some finger puppets can make such a massive difference in their dispositions when you travel. As a last resort, we always bring a DVD player with a few new movies the kids haven't seen for that last 4 hour stretch on a 10 or 12 hour drive. I works like magic.

3. Car clutter anxiety - You might have an organized car containing plenty of activities, games, toys books and snacks for the kids, while still maintaining car cleanliness provided that everything has it's place. My parents had 5 kids which made it a real challenge to help keep things clean at our house, therefore the car was off limits when it came to bringing anything that might cause clutter. Unfortunately, this technique ended up causing some unhappy memories. There are plenty of wonderful car organizers on the market today that hold a myriad of entertainment items, travel games, toys and snacks so that the kids can actually enjoy the journey while still keeping the car clean.

4. Family interaction - I'm not talking about hearing Dad yell, but providing nice family interaction by playing interacting games. If the games are about asking questions and learning about each family member, or even more along the lines of Dictionary questions, an extended road trip is one particular ideal moments to take advantage of with social interaction games. Provide your kids with some simple rules or directions as to how to play the game and what types of questions to ask, you will have at least one hour of positive interaction time, rather than the other alternative.

5. Taking breaks - MY FATHER was quite good at this and we could actually stop pretty often to stretch our legs, have a snack and run around. Car rest stop breaks ought to be mandatory and scheduled in to the drive time. My family tries to pull over every 2 hours and have a break for about 15 minutes.

6. I have to go to the bathroom - This is going to be considered a problem for a few years while traveling with children. Pulling away from the others stop without sign of another rest stop for at least 2 hours then suddenly one of the kids realizes she or he must go potty. It could literally drive a parent insane unless that parent is armed and ready with a travel potty. T here are several nifty travel potties in the marketplace that are compact, and may be used privately of the road for those "I have to go now" moments. There is also a urinal with a lady adapter that even airplane pilots use since when you must go, you need to go. I carry both travel potty and travel urinal in our car constantly.

7. check here - That is just one of those ideas that make traveling miserable, whether your the sick one, or the parent needing to clean it up. If you happen to have a motion sick little traveler like I do, there are some motion sickness acupressure wrist bands available to buy, also it never hurts to possess a motion sickness tidy up kit with some nice air freshener spray up to speed. The good thing is, most kids grow using this phase.

8. Discomfort - back ache, buttock ache - Any parent or child will become cranky when she or he starts to ache. Traveling by car all night and hours is simply going to do this to a persons back, neck, and rear end. This is why those mandatory rest stop breaks are so important. But if you really want to be prepared, invest in some car seat massage pads, some travel pillows, plus some nice spa like products from aroma therapy to lotions to permit each family member a little moment of soothing. It'll increase miles of smiles to your drive!

9. Eating proper - It's no fun to travel with a tummy ache from all of the bad snacks consumed through the entire drive. We have come up with a car menu that's equivalent to eating at a health food restaurant and includes healthy snacks like celery with peanut butter, nuts (unless you have a peanut allergy of course), fruits, vegetables, in addition to breakfast, lunch and dinner entree's. Since my family lives with severe food allergies, we've made a science out of traveling and cooking on the road (but that's another article).

10. Car school - education - Now that you have all your tools in place for a long road trip, you can customize your drive to educate your kids. Think of it, 10 hours on the highway and little Sally is learning to speak Latin, or little Johnny is studying G.A. Henty stories (narrated on Audiobooks for kids). If audio books had been available when I was a kid, the backseat fighting problem would have been solved immediately once we all listened and learned while traveling down the road. You can even bring school supplies, and a concise lap desk for when your car school is in session.

Traveling with young children on long road trips can be a stressful, miserable experience if you are not prepared. On the other hand, it is also a fun, entertaining, and educational experience that leaves lasting happy memories. You have options concerning how you want it to turn out by taking the time to prepare for your trip. You'll be able to have a clean car, and still entertain the kids. I've done it successfully and so can you.

Happy Travels!

Linda Walsh is really a mother of 3 young children - one with special needs and a forth child on the way. She is also a family group travel expert who has developed a distinctive system for traveling with babies and small children, budgeting money, cooking from scratch on the highway, managing life with special needs, and living an organized lifestyle to achieve the most miles out of raising her family. If you want to find more ways to simplify and organize your travels through life with your children, visit her website at
Read More: https://urlscan.io/result/81668c15-5906-482a-b476-b6e1dca9da6b/