Young Persons Mentor/Uplifting Parenting –

 Travel with Children

When I travel, I notice the many families who are traveling with their children.

It is hard for all of us, to be on the move over long periods of time.

One of the ways to make it easier for children is to bring practical activities to fulfill their needs.

I love the idea of activity packs.

When we used to drive for several hours with our children, I used to pack self-contained renewable activities.

I would take the opportunity to invest in some new toys and wrap them as presents.

I gave them something new each hour over a four-hour trip.

One was an Etch-a-Sketch game.

Another was Mad Libs.

They also enjoyed Word Search books.

They always had a notebook to write in.

I helped one child write a story of our trip.

One time I packed a bag of activities for a family who would be travelling overseas.

I packed a kaleidoscope, a sketchpad and different drawing materials.

Even though there are electronics for movies, it is good to have some hands-on activities to engage the children differently along their trip.

There are so many word-games and card games to play.

In my childhood we used to play “Twenty-Questions” to try to figure out the object the other person had in mind.

We also played “Hang-man”, filling in the seven spaces to guess the word before we finished  drawing the gallows, the rope and the man.

A fun book of poetry is good to read and to teach the children by having them repeat each line back to you.

Later, they can read it to themselves through memory as a quiet, self-contained activity.

It is good to have a small stuffed animal for dramatic play, telling it stories.

It is valuable to practice these games and activities before traveling so they are familiar.

© 2023 Kathryn Hardage

http://www.shareinspirationandpeace.com