By Guest Blogger Adam F.
8 Ways to Keep the Kids Busy on a Long Car Ride
Mom… Dad… Are we there yet?
That’s the question every parent who steps into a vehicles with a young child should be prepared to hear ad nauseam. But with a little preparation ahead, you should be able to keep your kids occupied, and happy and of course, quiet in the back seat of your car.
How to Keep the Kids Busy?
1. Bring Reading Materials
Wherever you go, you should always pack a good number of reading materials for you and your children. Magazines, picture books and comics are all great options, but you should also consider hitting up sites like Audible and downloading a couple of audio books for your kids.
2. Prepare a Kid-Friendly Playlist
You could always bring a music player loaded with a playlist filled with your children’s favorite music. However, if you want to have a wide variety of songs in your car, it would be smarter to load up a few, customized playlists on your Spotify account (or any other service you might be using).
3. Pack a Kit
Letting your kids play and build different things with toys like LEGO is always an awesome, fun way to keep them busy, no matter where you are. While this may sound like a challenge during a long road trip, you could easily create a portable LEGO kit by putting all of the bricks in a small lunch box, for example.
4. Scavenger Hunt Sheets
Some items you’re bound to see on any road in America, Europe or Asia, so it would be a good idea to print out some scavenger hunt sheets filled with some of those items. This will create a great game for the whole family, and if you have a young child, still unable to read, make sure to print out sheets with pictures.
5. Play Car Games
In addition to scavenger hunts, the license plate game and the ever-classic I Spy, our could always play the simple, but fun ABC game, where you search for different items outside of the car in alphabetical order. This will engage every single member of your family, and help you pass the time.
6. Family Friendly Movies
If you have TV screens in your car, be sure to bring a few family-friendly movies or some educational show along for the ride. Of course, if you don’t have any screens in your vehicle, you can always use a laptop, tablet or simply your phone. But if you plan on streaming their movies, make sure that you’re using a secure Express VPN to protect your private data, before you connect to a public network.
7. Give Your Kid an Old Camera
Even though you might not be aware of it, but there are still disposable cameras out there. And while your kids are still learning how to handle a smartphone (and take pictures naturally), you should give them a disposable cam they can share. And once they start snapping photos, they’ll surely have fan throughout the trip.
8. Buy Enough Snack and Drinks
If you’ve gone through all the above activities, your only option is to take out a few snacks and make sure that everyone has something to munch on. If you’re planning on bringing some cool items, such as sodas and ice cream, you should bring a portable cooler, filled with ice.
Ensuring Your Security
But this isn’t all about your patience and sanity, as a matter of fact, the more you’re distracted, the more unsafe you are. Because if you spend a lot of time solving fights and getting into shouting matches with your children, you’ll eventually stop paying attention to the road.
Recent studies have shown that a huge number of car accidents are associated with distracted parents. As Car Junky reports, around 25% of car crashes happen when a distracted parent is dealing with his kids in the back seat. So in order to make sure that this doesn’t ever happen to you, you have to ensure that your kids are completely satisfied throughout the trip.
Tia, and TipsfromTia.com is trying to keep you looking good and
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Adam, a reasonably successful web development has been publishing articles onwefollowtech.com for the last couple of years. When he is not hard at work you can find him on the basketball court or at the nearest Chinese restaurant, eating his favorite Chow Mein and reading fortune cookies.