Meltdown Proofing
Happy Monday Ragamuffins.
I’m in the car for a week long drive across the country with the wife and 3 kids.
From Los Angeles to Atlanta, GA
Hopefully we won’t have another moment like this.
Speaking of meltdowns…
You guys are creative geniuses. We survived without DVD players as kids. What sorts of things did you do as a kid to keep entertained or what sorts of things do you do to keep your kids entertained while on long drives?
Los
RAIN IT DOWN
We stop at a lot of the interesting view points and keep our bathing suits handy to jump for quick dips into swimming holes we find along the way. Have a great trip!
HA! We moved cross country THREE TIMES (FL to MT, KS to WA, WA to FL)and the only thing I remember is “You have to hold it! We’re not stopping!” So, based on this, you’re already leaps and bounds ahead of the game! :0)
We’d always try to find a car from every state. Every year, that one never got old for me–trying to find the illusive Alaska or Hawaii!
We did a 2 month long cross country trip from NY with 5 kids, two parents and a pop-up camper Brady Bunch style when I was about 12. We’d sing or play games in the back until abject boredom set in and we started hitting each other and fighting. At that point my parents would reach back and try to smack us. We’d jump down into the floorboards (no seatbelts) or crawl into the wayback of the station wagon to get beyond their reach trying to get quiet but giggling because pissing them off was more fun than it should have been. Guess that’s not quite the kind of advice you’re looking for, but the memory made me laugh out loud…
Amen…
last year i drove with my kids (3 and 5 at the time) from mn to fl, ga and sc, i bought portable dvd players for the car and had them take turns picking movies to watch.
as a kid my parents drove us from san clemente, ca to beaufort, sc. there were four of us kids and a dog in the van and we played the alphabet game. basically looking for words that begin with whatever letter you are on, starting with “a” and working to “z” skipping “q” and “x.”
My big brothers took turns tormenting me on long trips and my dad passed the time by yelling from the front seat. We bought a DVD player for our kids… Yeah, we’re wimps…feel free to judge. Safe travels.
When we first had kids, we were certain that we would never take a DVD on a long trip. We would entertain ourselves and enjoy the family together time. We didn’t need any stinkin’, mass-media pacifier.
Then of course, we actually took a long trip … hello Radio Shack.
We discovered that sometimes, there is nothing quite like a pacifier when you’ve worn out your other options and still have hours to go before you sleep.
Seriously, we do enjoy the family time and play all the games we know of and sing songs and talk, etc., but you get to the point in every road trip where all you want is out of the car. A little escapism comes in handy and lets you remember the good times rather than the screaming horror of the last couple hours on the road.
My dad used to tell us that the first person to find a blue cow would win a prize.
We used a deck of cards. Shuffle well. Deal 5 to each player. Now, look around outside the car: billboards, interstate signs, exit signs, etc. to find the numbers and/or letters your hand holds.
We would always know when someone got the queen, hard to find those Qs on the road! Even with two ADD boys we could play this for long periods of time!
For my first seven years of life, my family packed up the van or camper and traveled across the US for the entire summer. The license plate game is classic, of course, and still works for my kids today. We also made (and make) frequent swim stops…mainly because it wears kids out and makes them sleep.
Also, MAD libs (now available online), stuff like “I packed my suitcase and in it I put….”, “I spy” or twenty questions is great. My parents did not find it necessary to entertain us children all the time. We were expected to amuse ourselves to some degree. And QUIETLY.
Really, the main difference between my childhood trips and my kids is individual mp3 players. We still have family sing alongs (waaaay different music tho) but everyone having their own player allows a certain level of privacy and individualism that my childhood did not possess.
we would play “eye spy”…and my step dad would play classical music that put me right to sleep!!
carlos! There is an option on this page to “unlike” you! Isn’t that mean? don’t worry, i won’t click it.
Have fun on your trip! How could i miss you at church last night????!!!!!! (i guess because i went in the morning).
You could also just watch for BIGFOOT in the background. You never know when that might show up…
Thats funny when I read earlier I said hope there is no more single ladies devastation this time!!
Have a safe trip
Cant wait for Catalyst East!! Woot
We’ve been able to entertain the kids by playing a game we call categoties…we take turns naming a catergory for which their are at least 10 possible answers and the other have to name them within a minute or two depending on the age. For example, we would give my 4 year old a catergory like “10 kids in your class at school.” or to my seven year old “10 women in the Bible.” My wife and I give each other harder ones like “Title of 10 Carlos whittaker songs” or “10 1980′s Michael W. smith songs”
we also play a version of “Cash Cab” with general knowledge questions….only once have we pulled over and threatened to kick the kids out with a third strike for misbehavior! – they seem to be on their best behavior when we play this game…(and no, we would not actually kick them out, but they don’t necessarily know that…)
The alphabet game…taking turns finding things that start with each letter of the alphabet, working your way from A-Z.
That’s a straight up old school road trip game!
Holla!
This is classic. I did this as a kid 20 yrs ago, and look forward to doing it with my kids in a few years.
duct tape comes in blue and pink.
hahahahaha! We must have shared the same family trips as kids!
My mom was a creative genious for long road trips when my siblings and I were growing up. She would take one of my dad’s long-sleeved button down shirts and hide toys, candy, etc. in the pockets, sleeves and anywhere else she could find a nook. There was a suprise for each day we were in the car. Bubbles are always carried in the glove compartment just in case we were stuck in a traffic jam. Blowing them out the window seems to make other people’s days a bit brighter too. We also took Play Doh and made pictures on the van window with it.
my mom made me sleep on the floorboards and the back dash. you win.
My family took a two week camping trip when I was a child. My brothers and I were given journals to keep and in the evening or morning we would all have to share what we thought was interesting.
my sister and i had a suitcase in between us that had books and WALKMAN’s and my sweet cassette tapes. I had recordings of radio mix’s, pearl jam, stone temple pilots, dave matthews band… i could sit there all day and listen to that stuff. i mostly just brought the books to keep the folk’s happy.
best part of that was that you could only fast forward on those things… so if I wanted to hear the song again, I’d do the ol’ turn the tape over, FF, turn it back, PLAY. Legit.
You want a game that will last the whole trip? “I don’t spy”. Seriously.
I kept the family guessing all day on “H” before they gave up. The answer was “happiness”…
a bag of game and toys and my wife sitting in the back with our son. A loaded ipod for me. Be flexible on the travel days, don’t schedule the stops or even where you’ll stay the night. Keeping it loose on the long days makes it easier. We were able to do a 21 hour trip one way with that.
Sing. Play games. Make up stories.
I’m sure you all will be just fine.
We have started playing guess who/or what with the kids. They love it – basically one person comes up with someone or something and everyone keeps asking questions and guessing until we get it.
But we only really need that when they don’t have their iPods with movies loaded on them or the battery dies. That would be the easiest way for a nice peaceful trip
ah yes, here’s hope for a peaceful trip…but! without this meltdown, i never would have found you and your family. you guys are a blessing in my stress crazed days and i thank God for you and losiah’s single lady meltdown!!!
We always played the alphabet game, and car tag game. My husbands family would play “count the cows.” You count the cows on your side of the road, but if you pass a cemetary you lose all your cows.
We always did the alphabet sign game. Whoever made it through the alphabet by finding a word on a sign starting with the letter would win.
License plate game (obviously)… and we would count all the different types of animals we passed (which was mostly cows, horses and pigs) going through Wisconsin. We’d keep a running tally of who, between my sister and I, could find the most of a certain animal. There’s a lot of estimation in this game since we typically drive by too fast to actually count.
we did not have to wear seat belts, so my brother and i were in the floor board of my parents van playing with toys and coloring. That was golden age when laying in the back of that massive green Ford van playing with my HEMAN toys, and Star Wars figures. Man, I was six years old again!
WOW! That felt good!
Being the anti-social child that I was, I entertained myself by reading and coloring. My siblings played hours and hours of Uno and card games.
Amazingly, the question “are we there yet” was not allowed EVER on our road trips! So…to satisfy my “are we there yet” curiousity, I learned at a young age to read road maps and estimate arrival times based on the speed of the car and the distance on the map…lol…nerd on travel…
I think you just go old school.
Dramamine and Benadryl.
They’ll sleep through the entire mid-section of the country! : > )
my brother and I would torment my sister with the silent but violent fart game. Mom would flip over that one real fast. I spent quite a bit of time pretending to be a bobblehead dog in the back window..carseat what?? We stopped at stuckeys and got the secret ink books, magnet books, comics, mad..etc
One trip in particular, I remember not sharing my VERY large soda with my brother and sis, and my dad making me drink the ENTIRE thing..joke on him when we had to stop at every rest stop for the next 500 miles and my mom was pissed at him the next 350 miles of it! Fond memories all in all.
Adventures in Odyssey….available on ITunes. These are pretty much good for the whole family. sometimes a little corny but we all listened to them together. Even our 17 year old enjoys them. Also, recorded books are awesome. Makes the miles fly by.
My younger brother and I would moon the cars behind us until my mom figured out what we were doing and yelled at us.
When it rained, we’d stick our hands out the window to see who flinched first.
Of course we played the alphabet game, the license plate game, and when we were older, cards.
We played “punch buggy” or padiddle (sp?)…pretty much anything that gave us the excuse to hit each other.
We also sang along loudly to the great Christian music of that era: Petra, Whiteheart, MWS and, yes, even Carman.
Good memories!
I think my sister and I wore out our travel yahtzee!!!
We played the jingle/commercial game. Very simple rules, split the car into two teams. You take turns singing commercials or jingles. The goal is to not repeat any jingles and to be the last team standing to remember a song! Very entertaining, no matter what age the family is. We also did the alphabet I-Spy game, where you go round robin style around people the car looking for things outside or in the car that start with each letter of the alphabet. Good luck with the road trip!
This was one of the funniest things I have seen today! @loswhit thanks for making me laugh!