Plan that family car journey with some useful tips to make traveling with kids easier
hears some useful tips to make trips easier.
The holidays are fast approaching and many families will be planning a road trip around Christmas.
But while 81% of families look forward to heading off somewhere new, over one-third of Irish parents find family road trips stressful.
This is according to new research from automotive classified ad business Carzone, which found most common complaints from children include boredom (33%) and hunger (25%).
The most frequent comments parents hear on long car journeys are ‘I’m bored’, ‘I need the toilet’, ‘I feel sick’ or ‘I’m hungry’.
Family psychotherapist Anne McCormack says parents put so much thought into what they will do when they get to their destination that they often don’t plan the actual car journey.
“A big oversight is not pre-planning, not thinking ahead to those three or six hours in the car — about toilet breaks, what happens if children get hungry, what about entertainment.”
She recommends talking with children before the journey and covering as many bases as possible.
“For example, if the child’s to have access to technology, plan in advance for how long and for what stage of the journey they’ll have their device.
"If it’s going to be for an hour, perhaps for the first hour of the drive they could do something else, then have the device for half an hour, then a break before going back to it for the other half-hour.”
While McCormack doesn’t think it’s up to parents to always entertain or fill in the gaps for children, she does recommend explaining ahead that they might get bored at some stage of a long car journey.
“Ask what they could do in that event. Equip the child to resource themselves, to come up with their own ideas of what they can do if they become bored.”
Individual children cope differently with long car trips – one might be content to spend a long time looking out the window and daydreaming, while another might feel uncomfortable or sick in the car. It’s important to tune into each child’s needs and think about what works best for them.
Another issue to discuss beforehand is squabbling.
“So if it arises, you can remind them: ‘this is something we said might happen and we decided whatever the squabble is about, we’ll talk about it when we get out of the car, but for now you read your book’,” says McCormack, adding that for any parent – dealing with little travellers – staying calm’s important.
“The more parents stay calm delivering their message, the smoother things will go."
