Family Motoring: Back Seat Bickering
Taking children on lengthy car trips
can often be a recipe for arguments and tantrums. Squeezing different
personalities into a small space where there is no room to separate them
can lead to nightmarish scenarios.
If you know your children are prone to bickering,
try following these tips when in the car with them.
Distraction tactics
If you know your children are likely
to argue, try putting Mum or Dad next to one of them, or in between, to
act as a buffer zone. Swap the seating plan around every so often so each
child gets a chance to look out of the window - particularly important
if you have more children than window seats!
Planning distraction activities is a good preventative
mechanism. Involve the children in plotting your route and ask them to
point out various landmarks along the way. Give each child their own disposable
camera so that they can record the journey.
In the bag
Pack an activity bag for each child,
filled with crayons, paper, snacks, drinks, puzzle books, stickers and
playing cards. Make sure there are things that they share but also include
some of their own toys, games etc. which are separate from their siblings.
Bring games along, their favourite story
tapes, radio headsets or even a DVD player.
If you can afford it, try buying small 'prizes'
be given out at various intervals as a reward for good behaviour.
Create'car rules'
Children like structure and will try
to live up to expectations. If you spell out acceptable standards of behavour
to a child in advance, it will be very clear what is expected of them.
Make sure they appreciate the importance of safety rules, such as not
distracting the driver.
Also explain penalties before you set off - for
instance, asking children who are very badly behaved during the trip to
clean the car may be a way of avoiding future arguments on trips. Plus,
parents end up with a clean car...
Take a breather
Frequent stops on the road - approximately
every couple of hours - may stop any budding arguments, will help to distract
children from bickering with one another and will also encourage them
to expend pent-up energy, making them calmer for the road ahead.
When Car Wars loom...
If children start bickering, try to distract
their attention by asking them thought-provoking questions, talking to
them about subjects that you know they are interested in, or playing guessing
games with them such as 'I Spy' or 'Twenty Questions'.
If you are finding it hard to stop the arguing,
take a deep breath,
calmly pull to the side of the road and get out. Pull out a map or your
directions list and pretend to read it. It is quite likely that within
a
minute or two your children will be asking what you are doing, and then
you can calmly announce that you cannot continue driving with all the
fighting going on.
Extreme measures
Some parents have sworn that taking a
video camera and filming
children bickering and having tantrums is a good deterrent. Another solution
is to make it clear that bad behaviour means the loss of an enjoyable
day out!
If your children's behaviour is uncontrollable,
wait for another argument to break out. As soon as it does, announce that
you cannot continue with all the fighting going on, turn around and go
home. Doing this will spoil the trip and may seem like an extreme measure
but it will make them think twice if you announce on a future trip 'if
you carry on we're turning the car round and going home'. They will understand
that you mean what you say.
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