FIVE Family Road Trip "Essentials"

Planning a road trip with the kids this summer?  Here are a few tips:

1. Plan activities that cover creativity, imagination, movement (singing), and brain activity (puzzles). 

Variety helps to keep things interesting and engaging.

2. Recruit help, have a spouse, friend, sister, mother come along with you to entertain the kids, help drive, or plan meals. 
Having help gives the driver a break of having to entertain while driving as well as allows for driving breaks.

3. Allow yourself extra hours for travel. 

When on a time crunch it just adds to the stress, so plan an additional day or hours to help.

4. Snacks- Having snack like peanut butter, carrots, rasins, trail mix, yogurt, deli meat, V8 and pleanty of water. 

Fastfood is inevitable on the road for atleast one meal of the day, so having healthier snacks will help your system balance.  Having your system off-balance will add to stress and discomfort.

5. Plan plenty of stops and do large motor activities for atleast 20 minutes during them. 

Especially with children, they need to move and being strapped into car seats for long lengths of time will add to discomfort and moods.  If you plan to let the kids watch DVD or TV in the car, large motor activities with fresh air will ensure the balance from non-movement.