A Road Trip Survival Kit

I thought I’d blog about road tripping and attempt to give advice, not that anyone in their right mind is going anywhere this summer with the price of gas hitting an all time outer-space high, yet in the spirit of summer, I decided to impart wisdom for anyone with any aged children who have the courage to strap them into a vehicle for hours and hours and hours. One of my friends whose child-rearing advice has kept me on the straight and narrow, asked ME what I thought about road trips to add to her own kit of survival techniques. So, here it is: advice from 2 moms who’ve survived road trips with children in the back seat of the car and have lived to write about it.

Mom One Wrote: Just like at home, we have a car routine.

There are.......
* music times
* quiet times (for I-pods and DS)
* talking times
* singing times which always turn into joke telling time
* snack times
* story times (always always always have books on cd to listen to! - library has a great selection) Most recent treasure: The BFG by Roald Dahl

When the kids were littler, we would say something like, "Okay, after the next stop we'll be having an hour of quiet time." Or, if the kids were asking for music we'd reply with, "Talking time will be over in 20 minutes and then we'll turn on something for us all to listen to." It is helpful for each child to have a watch.

Before hand, I had the kid's make their own "car boxes"... a shoebox, decorated at will and stuffed with all the little things they like to play with. Often I would throw in little surprises like a new pen, small notebook, candy that takes a long time to eat, stickers, even chenille stems or paper clips keep the oldest kids busy. Also - if it doesn't fit in the box, it doesn't join us (except pillows and blankies)

Another "ahead of time" thing is to make maps (off of google).... I simply print them out and put them in the report folders so the kids can following along as we get to certain cities, etc. It helps them get a sense of how far we have come and where we're going. You can do a lot with this, naming hotels, making a travel journal, etc, but I never got that fancy.

At each stop (bathroom breaks, gassing up, arrival), we always do a "garbage check"... this seems to keep the car clean of coloring pages, juice bags and gum wrappers. Everyone is supposed to grab as much garbage as they can carry.

One punitive form of control we use is the "sit on the hands" time out. If they are touching each other or otherwise causing mischief, they have to sit on their hands.


Mom Two Wrote: Stuff we figured out the hard way, that saved our sanity on road trips:

Problem: Kids fighting over who gets to choose the bed at the hotel or push the button on the elevator or choose the fast food place for lunch or which side of the car to sit on, etc.
Solution: For families with two kids, one is assigned even days and the other odd days. Throughout the trip, whenever a conflict arises, ask whose day it is.*

Problem: Bickering in the car or otherwise getting on each others' nerves
Solution: Before leaving, discuss the rules (below) that apply to car trips. Explain that these are needed because when we have no choice but to be strapped into the car with each other, we need extra boundaries to protect personal space and peace of mind.

Problem: It takes time to get used to the new rules; everybody is going to accidentally break them some time.
Solution: Start the trip by giving each child a roll of coins (obviously, this isn't for very young children who might choke on them). Whenever they break a rule, they have to give one coin to a parent.** However much money they have left upon arrival at your destination, they get to spend.***
-------------------
*We assigned the younger child the odd days, because every once in a while, there are two days in a row (May 31st followed by June 1, etc.) and that sort of makes up for the fact that the older child got to choose first for several years, up until the younger one got old enough to speak up for himself!

**Forfeited coins can be earned back by asking, 'What can I do to help?' whenever the family is loading or unloading the car each night/morning at the hotel, or by getting 'caught' following the rules further down the road.

***Ideas for variations include a roll of fifty pennies, reused each day, can be redeemed with the parent for silver change to buy one snack from the vending machine that night (quick payoff for younger or more impatient kids). A roll of nickels, dimes, or quarters, based on your budget and the length of your trip, can be souvenir money used at a specified destination. (The older the child, the longer you can delay the gratification.)
-------------------
----------------------------------------------
For anyone who thinks all this mumbo-jumbo is a bunch-a-hooey ought to read my friend Jill’s Blog on the topic. Let’s just say, she is otherwise the ideal mother, however in her Road Trip Survival Kit there is a lot of sugar involved! Sanity can come at any price and she is not beyond bribery to get from point A to point B. Honestly, are any of us?