If you’re traveling with kids on a plane or in a car this summer, having a to-pack list and an organized, well-planned itinerary is not preparation enough. You need to bring a whole lot more than that because with kids, anything and everything can go wrong. Here are a few tricks that moms should have up their sleeves when going on a family vacation.
•Busy Bags
Veteran parents know to prepare a busy bag for the little ones. It’s a great distraction for those boring moments when you have to wait with someone with zero impulse control a.k.a your child like when with a doctor’s appointment or a booth in a restaurant. For airline or road travel, where your child is basically cooped up in cramped space for several hours, you’d need to up your game and beef up its contents, depending on the duration of the flight. What to include: stickers, lace-through shapes, finger puppets, flash cards, koosh balls, and paper dolls. You could also add a small kaleidoscope, silly putty, and a small light-up toy.
•Creative Games
Lucky are the kids whose parents know how to create a fun game in any situation. Of course, you could play traditional games such as I-spy, 20 Questions, and even the usual card games, but you could also invent a fun game with mechanics like calling out a silly word every time they see a building that they like or an animal they don’t know at the zoo they are visiting. Or how about banning a common word, like “I,” “you,” or “the” and then getting a fake mole (drawn with washable markers or eyeliner) on the face every time you say it? You could also dare each other to do silly things or to best each other at stuff such as stare-downs or whistling. The fun that you have is reward in itself, but having prizes ready will offer extra motivation for them to participate, especially your older kids.
•Stories
Don’t leave the house without writing down anecdotes, jokes, and riddles. It’ll come in handy when your kids are getting bored and are about to throw a fit. If you have time, prepare finger puppets and flannel-graph story board or ask them to add to the story with things that they see around them. Playacting will distract kids from long travel time.
•Fun Snacks
Rare is a mother’s purse that does not contain some sort of sustenance enough to tide little ones over until a main meal. Crackers, raisins, granola bars, and pretzels are always good to have, but they probably won’t impress your kids when they’re intent on having a meltdown. To make snacks more interesting, add a special element. Instead of the regular variety, bring animal-shaped crackers, alphabet-shaped pretzels, trail mix with marshmallows, and jellybeans.
•Drawing
You could bring paper and crayons but that could be messy. For road trips, stick to magic doodle slates. Drawing, in itself, is already engaging, but you could also use your drawing materials to play games such as Hangman or a makeshift Pictionary. You could even take a vow of silence for an hour and commit to just writing to each other when conversing. (Use that when you visit a museum!) On the road back home, appeal to your kids’ competitive spirit and hold a drawing contest on the place that you’ve just visited.
•Wish List
Have your kids create a wish list during the trip. This would keep them occupied while affording you the chance to find out what they’d like for their birthday or for Christmas. To avoid losing the wish lists, you could take a photo and email them to yourself, or better yet, post it on Instagram so their ninongs and ninangs would also see.
•Special Treat
Treat this as a drastic measure for rather desperate circumstances, such as when you’ve run out of activities for your kids or when nothing works to calm them down. Have on standby an edible treat, such as a lollipop or a candy bar if you only allow sweets on special occasions, or a special toy that they have been bugging you to buy. You could also let them do something that you don’t normally allow such as drawing on their arms and legs or putting makeup on you.
•Electronic Devices
If you’re not a fan of the idea, this could simply be your last resort. Smartphones, tablets, iPods… these have games, music, and videos that will keep your kids out of your hair and out of mischief while giving you that much-needed breather from active parenting.
•Books
Books can add weight to your luggage, so make sure that what you bring are the ones that your kids would read. Take them to the bookstore and let them choose. Younger kids would find lift-flap books, pop-up books, touch and feel books, or activity books more fun while older ones would enjoy the latest YA hit or some magazines. If they’re not much into books, you can entice them by buying a book whose story is set in your destination or a travel book with pictures of places included in your itinerary.
•New Skill
Before leaving, teach them something fun and fascinating. It could be a funny song, a magic trick, a silly language, or even a practical craft like origami. That way, when they become impatient at any time during the trip, you could remind them of it and ask them to practice.