ENGAGE YOUR TODDLER DURING THIS LONG WEEKEND TRIP

The July 4^th long weekend is here and I know that all my friends are busy packing bags and are  ready to hit the road….. Being a mother of  a 4 year old, I must say that every vacation is a welcome break from the mundane routine of everyday life but are you also one of those who dread the prospect of keeping  a super active toddler suitably happy and engaged during the journey? I have been thinking about this for a while and I wanted to share a couple of ideas that you can try on your trip this time….

One of the most important things and this I learnt from a dear friend who visited me this year was to start early morning on trips.  Believe me, either the child will sleep in the early part of the trip or during the day in the trip. Imagine a well slept child who is yearning to play and expend energy being tied up on his car seat…that surely is recipe for disaster JJ

 So friends start early and let your child sleep for some time during the trip....believe me you will not have to work very hard to put them to sleep, they will do so by themselves.

Road trips are excellent  opportunity for learning/teaching.  If your child is beginning to read, keep their books in the car. If they are beginning to write, keep pen and paper. If they are doing maths, you can make activity sheets for them to do. If you thought that your child would do these easily, let me assure you they won’t. How about using some negotiation skills here JJ...I usually tell Utkarsh that I will give him a video to watch or that he will get his car or anything new that you have for them in the car, once they are done with the activity.

We play a lot of verbal games during road trips, especially those which emphasize phonics and spellings. How about playing a guessing game  around animals? Let me give you an example. You can ask your child to guess an animal that begins with  “h”. If your child is just beginning with phonics, you can give them greater clues like the sounds that the animals make or how they look. These kind of activities help your child to not only master phonics but also encourage greater communication skills. You get to discuss more about each animal. These games can be suitably modified. I just randomly ask my son to guess a thing that begins with “b” which helps us to go from one place to another or a thing that begins with “h” which we wear during summers. Use your imagination. See what you want your child to learn and master. Modify these games accordingly.

 You will be surprised how much your child can learn during a trip. Do you have anything that you want your child to master in particular? Do you want them to learn the names of animal babies or do you want them to learn their number better? You have their undivided attention to yourself. Make the most of it!! With little bit of persuasion, you can ask them to learn all of these. We usually ask our son to say his numbers in the car during the trip or tell us names of animal babies and similar things.

I highly recommend making an audio CD of their favorite songs. I think children enjoy listening to music on trips just as we do.

Encourage your child to look out of the window and keep conversations going around what you see. There is so much of science, geography, arithmetic and vocabulary that can be learnt during all these trips. There are animals to be watched and counted, trucks to be pointed, colors to be learnt, scenery to be described,   and so on.

My son is beginning to show a great deal of interest in maps. How about finding maps during trips? Can you imagine their excitement when you hand them maps and just ask them to look in the map and tell you directions…. The caveat here, of course is :Just don’t take their navigation skills too seriously JJ

I have read at many places and experienced it too, that it is not a bad idea to buy your child some new  inexpensive toys during the trip.  I would emphasize on the "inexpensive" because you want to keep a couple of toys during the trip that you can hand out periodically.

I know that you moms would always do this but make sure that the child is comfortably seated and that they are not feeling too hot or too cold. They are usually happy and much easier to deal with when they are comfortable. Give snacks at regular intervals. Remember trips are not the best time to enforce healthy eating habits…This is break time for them too…so go ahead and indulge them.

Don’t feel guilty about Ipad and showing movies. It is unrealistic to think that our children will not ask for them and personally I don’t see any harm in doing so. The trick is to combine this with conversations, games and learning during the trip.

I hope you have a great trip and don't forget to share what you guys do during the road trips....