Bribery Will Usually Do It

When on a trip (either a long vacation or a day trip) how do you occupy the travel time, or keep the kids occupied?

Traveling with kids is a whole different thing than traveling with just my husband. When my husband and I go somewhere we usually have an audiobook that we listen to. It keeps us from noticing how long we’ve been driving. It also keeps the driver alert. If anyone else is with us in the car we don’t do the book in order to be sociable and talk to our passengers. My husband and I are not great travelers. We’ve taken a few fantastic vacations in our life. We’ve even toured Europe. But all of that was when we were much younger than we are now. We’ve gotten to the point that we enjoy short day trips more.

Back when I was traveling with children we didn’t have movies to play in the car or video games to play on one’s device. So we provided them with a few favorite toys and books (They had no trouble reading in the car.) Our younger son always carried his best friend, a stuffed pink rabbit named Eddy. Eddy had a tendency to taunt our older son and create incidents in the back seat, but we couldn’t go anywhere without him.

I found that the best thing to do when the kids were along was to bribe them. Parents take note. There is no shame in bribery if it buys you a little peace and quiet. One favorite bribe was, “If you don’t fuss we’ll hunt a McDonald’s for lunch.” Or maybe this, “If you don’t fuss we’ll take you to Wal Mart and get you a toy.” Yes, I know that was bad parenting, but the kids turned out fine, and we didn’t lose our minds.

What about you? How do you handle the tedium of travel?