ALT-2 Tips for Thanksgiving Travel with Kids
Thanksgiving is one of the busiest travel times of the year, and it’s no wonder as so many families fly, or more often drive, to share their Thanksgiving feast with extended family and friends. It’s an American tradition, one as rich as the meal itself. Traveling can be an anxious or irritating experience though, especially when doing so with your kids. This is why it’s good to give some thought as to how you might make the traveling part of your Thanksgiving holiday as pleasant as possible. Below are some tips that might help.
The first thing is the try to look at how the experience may look from the perspective of your child or children. Try to remember they may or may not even want to be going wherever you are going and that doing so might be a very difficult time for them; or in other words, it’s not just about you and dragging your kids to wherever you decide for Thanksgiving. This is not to say you should let them decide what to do or where to go, but more that you might consider their feelings a little more when asking them to sit quietly in a car for many hours at a time when there is nothing in it for them. Thus, you might want to do things to help them do what you want, rather than try to force them to conform to your ideals. This applies to how things go as you’re all tooling down the road as well. If a child is bored, you need to remember it’s not his or her fault, and thus you might want to cut them a little slack.
Another obvious thing you should probably do is make sure the kids have something to occupy their minds if the drive is to be a long one. There are all kinds of driving games for kids, both the physical kind and the electronic kind. Also, if you supply them with anything that makes noise, you should definitely make sure that it comes with headphones or ear buds.
Also, because stopping for potty breaks so often leads to contention when traveling, it’s quite often a good idea to plot out planned stopping points; both for going potty and for moving around a little bit. It should go without saying that you should try to limit the amount of beverages consumed, otherwise you’ll need to make more stops than is necessary.
And finally, always try to keep in mind that the point of traveling with your family for Thanksgiving is to be with them as well as with those you are traveling to see, otherwise, you’d just get a sitter and leave your kids behind.
