Planning great family vacations with toddlers can be stressful. Let’s face it, toddlers aren’t always the best road trip companions. We’ve been planning our upcoming family vacation, and it got me thinking… traveling with children is hard. 4-hour road trips often turn into 5 or 6 hours, routines are interrupted, and everyone gets tired and overstimulated – we may all very easily lose our minds. 🤪
In this blog post, we will talk about simple strategies you can use to ensure your toddler (and you) have a safe and happy road trip!
Talk About Your Road Trip
Going on vacation means a change in routine, which can be tough. Talk about the trip and find ways to include your little one in the planning process. This will help prepare your child for the upcoming change. Search your destination website, show them a map of where you’re going, and talk about activities you plan to do and things you want to see along the way.
Road Trip Activities
Keeping toddlers entertained in the car can be is tricky. While road trip games like I Spy or Scavenger Hunt are great ways to practice communication skills and expose them to language concepts, they don’t always keep a child’s attention. Because of this, it’s essential to include some of your child’s favorite games and toys from home. Additionally, include a backup activity, something you know they’ll attend to for an extended amount of time, even if it’s a little screen time!
Check your Expectations
No expectations are reasonable expectations when it comes to family vacations and road trips. If you can tell yourself that things will get chaotic before you leave the house- you’re already ahead of the game. Road trips and vacations get all of us off our routines. This may lead to frustration and exhaustion. Basically, by telling yourself that the kids will probably whine and want out of the car… you’ll be ready when it happens. (see: backup activities)
You’ve Got This!
Finally, and most importantly, HAVE FUN! Family vacations and summer road trips are supposed to be fun. They’re not supposed to be fun the whole time (because of reality). However, you should experience more fun times than anger and frustration. If you are more stressed than happy, reevaluate the situation. Do we need a nap? Is someone hungry? Do they want to do something else? Am I expecting too much?
When you can find the root of the problem, you can create a solution!
Check out these road trip activities for preschoolers, including a social story designed to help children understand and prepare for the change in routine and encourage their involvement from packing to reaching the destination. Also, this resource covers everything from what vacation means to how to prepare for a car ride, plane ride, or even a cruise ship. You’ll also see road trip games printables such as Alphabet Search, Road Trip Bingo, Color Search, and Road Trip Scavenger Hunt Coloring Page.
Social stories are commonly found and used in special education classrooms and with toddlers with disabilities. But the truth is, social stories should be used in every early childhood setting because they help everyone! Social stories help toddlers understand social skills, provide conflict resolutions for a variety of situations, demonstrate new skills, and explain new experiences! Research shows that reading social stories to those experiencing difficulties in certain situations is, in fact, beneficial because they are designed to explain things in an easy-to-understand way.
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