Tips for peaceful long car drive with kids in the backseat

[Anonymous]

Mine are similar ages and pack their own activity bags with snacks, books, stuffed animals, drawing/coloring supplies, word search/ game books, depending on their interests, but I'm betting a huge part of why it goes fine is we've done it many, many, many times. I can't imagine stopping 3 times in a 3-hour trip. Were you stopping due to fighting or bathroom breaks?

You can count cows, print out a car bingo game, look for license plates, look for convertibles or cars of a certain color, look for all the letters of the alphabet outside the car, do math word problems, but don't force it. One of mine likes to do these and one doesn't.

I usually listen to my music but on some trips let them choose some but never something I hate.

[Anonymous]

As others said, download movies, audio books, etc before hand. Audio books connected to the car system that we all listened to really worked well.

Use your phone’s hotspot to give them internet access if they want play games online.

Snacks. I pack their usual snacks just more of them, and get a few different ones so that they can snack. It sometimes really helps with the bickering when they’re busy eating.

Travel more often. Your kids are not used to it, if they’ve only been in a car ride longer than 1.5 hours once in 3 years, of course it’s new to them and boring. So travel more often, they’ll get their groove.

Ignore the bickering. Learn to shut it out unless they start physically fighting, the bickering gives them something to do.

They’ll grow out of it. So don’t let the bickering stop you from going places.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As others said, download movies, audio books, etc before hand. Audio books connected to the car system that we all listened to really worked well.

Use your phone’s hotspot to give them internet access if they want play games online.

Snacks. I pack their usual snacks just more of them, and get a few different ones so that they can snack. It sometimes really helps with the bickering when they’re busy eating.

Travel more often. Your kids are not used to it, if they’ve only been in a car ride longer than 1.5 hours once in 3 years, of course it’s new to them and boring. So travel more often, they’ll get their groove.

Ignore the bickering. Learn to shut it out unless they start physically fighting, the bickering gives them something to do.

They’ll grow out of it. So don’t let the bickering stop you from going places.

Agree with you mostly. But honestly, if the kids don’t travel and can’t find anything to observe out the car window over the course of a relatively short drive, OP has bigger issues. We are talking about elementary school aged kids, not toddlers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As others said, download movies, audio books, etc before hand. Audio books connected to the car system that we all listened to really worked well.

Use your phone’s hotspot to give them internet access if they want play games online.

Snacks. I pack their usual snacks just more of them, and get a few different ones so that they can snack. It sometimes really helps with the bickering when they’re busy eating.

Travel more often. Your kids are not used to it, if they’ve only been in a car ride longer than 1.5 hours once in 3 years, of course it’s new to them and boring. So travel more often, they’ll get their groove.

Ignore the bickering. Learn to shut it out unless they start physically fighting, the bickering gives them something to do.

They’ll grow out of it. So don’t let the bickering stop you from going places.

Agree with you mostly. But honestly, if the kids don’t travel and can’t find anything to observe out the car window over the course of a relatively short drive, OP has bigger issues. We are talking about elementary school aged kids, not toddlers.

But what is there to “observe” on most highway rides? Some routes are scenic, but most highways, you don’t see much observing from a window. It’s usually other cars, billboards, forest / greenery, or barrier walls. It’s once you get to more rural roads that can observe, but otherwise, most highways do not have such a varied an interesting scenery to observe.

[Anonymous]

We do audio books (we have listened to Harry Potter and Percy Jackson). We also find a lot of podcasts (my kids love Science Solved it). They also like to draw and we provide lots of snacks. Also they usually nap.

We don't do reading or devices because of car sickness and also because I think they need to learn to figure things out and be bored.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. This is our 2nd road trip ever with kids. All of our relatives & grandparents live local, within 30 min. drive. Their schools are a few minutes away drive from home, and all of camps/classes are within 5 min to max 1 hr drive. I think the biggest 2 problems is DH listening to his favorite metal music while driving & the 6 year old talking nonstop/bothering 9 year old. I can't complain much because he is the driver, and he says that he wants to enjoy his drive listening to his music. No one loves that heavy metal music in the car, except him.

We are flying to CA from DC in August, and I have to make sure that they both have window seats to look at clouds.

OMG. Just tell your DH too bad and put on an audio book. Sheesh.

[Anonymous]

We do annual road trips of 9 hours each summer (we do it in one day). My kids are now 10 and 7 and are great in the car. Here’s what works for us:

-iPads. Download movies (you can do this from streaming services or consider buying a movie or 2 you know they’ll like). We also download audiobooks and playlists for each of them. Each kid has their own iPad for the trip. No bickering about what to watch or listen to.

-headphones for each kid to connect to their iPad via Bluetooth.

-books. My oldest has a kindle and we bring 3-4 books for my 7yo.

-a small sketchbook + a handful of colored pencils. They can draw, play tic tack toe, hangman etc.

-sticker books, word search and crossword books. My 7 yo still likes the Highlights books (hidden stickers, brain puzzles).

If you buy something new for the trip like books or whatever, do not give it to them until you are in the car.

Lastly, snacks. We put a bag of snacks between them in the backseat so they can pick what they like. That way I’m not constantly turning around to manage things.

[Anonymous]

Op here. We don't travel much, and covid stopped us doing anything for a few years. We do one travel by flight once a year, so far we have gone to boston, toronto & south carolina. We will fly to CA this summer, and we plan to go to Asia/Europe one day once they can put up with longer flights. This is our 2nd road trip. Kids have many commitment likes games/practices/rectials, and we parents have to work. We plan to travel more

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op here. We don't travel much, and covid stopped us doing anything for a few years. We do one travel by flight once a year, so far we have gone to boston, toronto & south carolina. We will fly to CA this summer, and we plan to go to Asia/Europe one day once they can put up with longer flights. This is our 2nd road trip. Kids have many commitment likes games/practices/rectials, and we parents have to work. We plan to travel more

OP frankly stop calling this a "road trip." It's a car ride to your vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My dad used to have a no whining sign for the car (I think it was a postcard) that he would put up.

Oh okay, just put up a sign. It's as easy as that! As if a child is going to stop whining because dad posted a sign.

As for the metal music and people calling OP a troll, this happens a lot (driver picks the music). I once tagged along on a road trip with BIL driving and he played either thrasher metal or 70s rock most of the way. It was miserable (at least, the thrasher metal was). This stuff happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Valium

A little extreme.
We use Dimetapp

[Anonymous]

I think DH is as much of a problem as the kids. When you’re traveling with young kids, everyone makes compromises. Insisting on only listening to his style of music is immature.

I also think if you should take some more driving trips to get your kids used to travel. If your kids are having a difficult time with a simple 3 hour drive, that doesn’t bode well for longer trips or even long flights.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dad used to have a no whining sign for the car (I think it was a postcard) that he would put up.

Oh okay, just put up a sign. It's as easy as that! As if a child is going to stop whining because dad posted a sign.

As for the metal music and people calling OP a troll, this happens a lot (driver picks the music). I once tagged along on a road trip with BIL driving and he played either thrasher metal or 70s rock most of the way. It was miserable (at least, the thrasher metal was). This stuff happens.

Well that BIL is a jerk but you're a fellow adult.

Making some minor modifications to keep kids happier / occupied is what all the PPs are talking about.