Make travelling with children enjoyable

You're planning a long trip and the children will be going. Maybe it's a visit to your sister or a summer vacation. You know you will have a good time when you get there but the car ride, well that's a different story. You've done it before and the memories... Well let's just say you survived.

Now here comes another round and there is no reason to believe it will be much better. They will get bored and try a bunch of childish tricks to pass the hours. You will get irritated and no one is happy. That pretty well sums it up doesn't it?

Let's recall:

22 of "how much farther is it?"

18 of "he hit me again."

9 of "I'm hungry"

13 of "there's nothing to do"

The kids need something to occupy them for a long time. Maybe we could find a way to entertain them. If it weren't for the many bumps in the road books might work. Another idea is to try a portable television but the reception won't be too good in some places. Their favorite songs would work for just a few minutes. They are too short to last the whole trip.

Try this technique to pass those hours. Do you have a portable mp3 player, an iPod or something like it? If not you probably have a cd player you can use in the car. I got my SansDisk mp3 player for around 80 dollars in Decemeber of 2006. A popular on-line store was advertising a player at just under ten dollars. Once you have obtained your player just remember to put in the car when you leave but do a couple of very important things first.

1. Get on the web and go to a store selling downloadable audiobooks.

2. Select some good titles and load them to your computer.

3. Plug the mp3 player into the computer.

4. Use your favorite music player to sync the audiobooks to the player.

I know that no child will listen to a ten hour audiobook without breaks. That's about how much time a full novel would take. Just get what benefit you can from it. There are some shorter options. Many children's books are not nearly this long and some are dramatized for additional interest. Take that hour or two of quiet time and enjoy it.

I can picture something like this happening. You finally get to the end of the trip but the kids aren't quite done with the story. To your amazement you hear an unusual request. "I need you to go around the block a few times so I can hear the end." What you do next is up to you. Keep on going or just wait for the ride back home.

Having arrived at your final destination, you can get out of the car totally sane and with a positive attitude too.

Now not everyone will find that this works for them. Go ahead and try it anyway. Who knows how much fun it could be for all. Try a shorter work like "Treasure Island". It's fully dramatized and should hold their attention for quite a while.

Article Source: http://www.articles.ask-me-about.com

This article is written by Daniel Brown, the father of two active boys. He also runs a downloadable audiobook store where you can find some excellent audiobooks. ~ai601
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