Making Life Easier On Board

Practicalities Getting There Car Making Life Easier On Board 

Practicalities

• Given the frequency of squabbles about who sits where it might be worth asking children in advance to devise what they consider a fair system of sharing out the more prized places.



• Make sure that the seating enables children to see out of the window. It will be deathly boring for them if they can't and even more squabbles are likely.



• Try to keep an optimum selection of items to hand but not so many that the children's space is restricted (for which reason pack as much as possible in the boot).



• It is probably wise to keep food and drink out of reach in order to avoid spills.



• Take beakers and cyclists' style water bottles to drink out of with minimum spills. Water is particularly important if you will be using air conditioning which dehydrates.



• It can be helpful to run an in-car rubbish bag so that empty packets and cartons don't turn into a sea under which more useful items like toys and books disappear.



• There is a mass of in-car products for families including a car litter container, back pockets organiser, and a car toy box which clips to centre seat belts on the back seat. Also useful may be a gadget to warm a bottle and car sun blinds [Suppliers]. Consider also anti-nausea bands [Health - Other Possible Problems]. Parents travelling alone might like to invest in an extra large rear view mirror to check out what is going on. [Suppliers]



• Before you set out make sure <>nothing will need rearranging en route - the radio is tuned, tapes and CDs to hand, etc.

Entertainment

• Take suitable entertainment like games and tapes (see Wanted on Voyage). A range of styles can be useful for changing the mood - to cheer, or to soothe if everyone is getting over-excited, plus songs everyone can sing along to.



• Consider also simple ideas like pasting up a picture for a baby in a rear-facing seat to look at rather than the car seat itself.



• It can be helpful with young children to attach favourite toys with a ribbon so if dropped they can be retrieved rather than creating prolonged wails of complaint so that you have to pull over. Keeping the ribbon short will make retrieval easier and avoid the possibility of strangulation.



• For older children try to allocate each child one toy or game to play with alone.



• Older children can be distracted by navigation tasks - if you feel they are up to it or the situation will be retrievable if they do make a mistake. (It's all useful material for geography studies - see Getting More Out of It. Some families formalise this by carrying a navigator's hat. However, this may not suit if motion sickness is a problem, as in this case reading is not recommended.