Speaking of taking your children or grandchildren on the road, here are some ideas for making the trip enjoyable for everyone.

·       Make sure you are well-stocked with healthy snacks.  Sugary ones just make them more hyper and less able to enjoy the trip.  Things like grapes, carrots, raisins, trail mix, nuts, bananas, and celery with peanut butter and all reasonably non-messy, healthy and enjoyed by most kids.  Get the kids to read the labels and compute the calories, or fat content, etc.  Discuss the health implications of various choices.

·       Have a cooler full of bottled water.  Again, juices and soda pop aren’t as good a choice, and, if it gets spilled, water is a “no harm, no foul” item!  Do a little science experiment.  Why does the water get warm?  How fast?  What affects that?  Where does it get warmer faster in the car?  Your questions can have them thinking and busy for hours!

·       Keep a good supply of wipes and waterless hand cleaner.  Both of these items have multiple uses and can save a lot of mess and aggravation along the way.

·       Zip-loc bags are a must.  Those of you who have read the book, or who followed us along on our trip, know that I’m the “Queen of Zip-loc”.  I don’t know of another item that has as many uses and keeps things tidy and contained as those bags!  Write the kids names on the bags of their treats to avoid disagreements about “who ate my stuff?” and to allow each child to feel like they have control over when and how much they eat.  This is another chance to talk about nutrition.

·       Ban electronics from the vehicle.  The kids are along to interact with you – leave the Game Boys home!  They need a break from that constant barrage anyway and you can teach them some social skills and fun games along the way.  The license plate game and the ABC game both teach geography and place names.  The “and then” add-on story game helps with creativity, thinking on their feet, listening skills and memory.

·       Have them prepare for your destination.  Assign each child a question to research prior to leaving on the trip.  With small children, have them draw a picture about where you are going and describe what they visualize in their picture.  With older children they could do an oral report in front of the others about their question.  Vary the difficulty of the research project depending upon age.  This gets them interested and vested in the trip.  Yes, they’ll squawk at first, but they do all get into it when the time comes.  We usually do the project reports over pizza or something one night.

·       Have a contest.  This year another couple and Phil and I are taking 11 of our combined grandchildren (ages 5 to 15) on a guided whitewater rafting trip.  We are having a “River Rat Hat” contest for the person with the best river hat.  Should be fun! The crazier the idea the better they’ll like it.  Even give them a budget, so they have to work the numbers in addition to the creativity in designing their hats.

·       Assign each of them a day to plan.  From about age 8 and up, kids are pretty much able to plan out a day’s adventures.  What time will be leave?  What will we have for breakfast/lunch/dinner?  Do we need groceries for that?  How much will that cost?  Do we need to get gas?  Have them compute the cost.  Math, organizational skills, reasoning, and planning skills are all involved.  You may have to prod their thinking at first, but pretty soon, they’ll get better at it, and isn’t the whole idea?

Most of all have a great time with them – they all grow too fast.