Long Roads and Short Tempers

Most people in the United States of America have gone on a vacation.  Even the less blessed among us tend to find a way to make a fun trip every few years.  That list of less blessed grows when children are thrown into the mix.  Not to say that children are a bad thing, but they certainly add a whole new level of obstacles (or even an entire obstacle course!), especially on trips exceeding an hour.  Heck, sometimes it only takes thirty minutes for something “interesting” to happen.  And on road trips, one of the most common forms of family vacation, there are plenty of hours and half-hours.

The first that we’re most often concerned about is entertaining the little ones.  They tend to have a very short attention span in the context that they get bored easily doing the same thing over and over again.  Sure, you could play 2, 3, 4 DVDs, but by then you’ve only killed about half of the trip.  After a couple movies, they tend to get bored just like the rest of us.  The only difference is that young children often become loud, obnoxious, and very creative when they get bored.  So, what are you to do?

Well, this may sound like old advice, but bring snacks along.  Lots of them.  You don’t have to feed each child an entire box of cheese-its every hour, but it gives the child something to concentrate on during the in-between moments.  When a child is actually willing to eat, you wouldn’t believe how much they’ll concentrate on that single task.  Well, you probably will, since you’ve probably observed it every now and then.  It doesn’t have to be anything exceptional.  A little kool-aid pouch and a handful of snack crackers or a small package of gummy fruits can keep a young one entertained anywhere from ten to thirty minutes in my experience.  

For those who are still in the two to five range, or even sometimes up to eight, coloring books are a great way to kill loads of time.  This is a method that some parents seem to forget these days.  It only costs about five bucks to get a few good sized coloring books and a pack of crayons.  Or, if you don’t like some of the potential mess, and trust your children enough, get a pack of colored pencils or markers.  I found around six and seven that I liked to be a little more detailed in my art, so I quickly grew to prefer pencils.