Now that the summer months are here you may be thinking about taking a short break or holiday with the children. So here are some tips to bring some smilely faces during your well earned trip.
But it’s a Family Holiday! Surely it Can’t Be Stressful?
Sit down please! I wonder how many times you will hear yourself saying that this summer. One of the fundamental challenges of taking trips away is that it often involves children sitting down for long periods of time. As you probably well know, young children are just not designed in this way. Despite what your fellow onlooking travellers may think, this is not because children are unruly and disobedient. It’s hard for us adults to comprehend, but young children have a hunger to learn through play and often learn at their best when they are on the move. It’s also hard to understand that young children actually can concentrate for very long periods of time on the go.
So when travelling what can we do to make these long periods of time more enjoyable for everyone involved?
1. Encourage them to learn independent skills.
The first thing to do is get your child interested and involved in the whole build up to the holiday. Help them to learn about where they are going e.g. the things they will see, where the place sits on a map, how long in relation to a day it will take them to get there. You can get them involved in packing their own bags, thinking about what they need by talking about the things they use in their daily routine. Their routines are very important them, so they love to run through this. In fairness you will probably end up with lots of odd things packed in the bag, but I just love to see what they pack.
Re-packing their bags in secret is inevitable, but the fact that they been involved and have something of their own to carry usually is a good start for the trip as they are preoccupied with feeling important and on being able to do things for themselves and far less focussed on creating chaos.
2. Stimulating Concentration and Play
Children can concentrate for long periods if they are sufficiently engrossed in an activity that involves some degree of fiddling, but something that they have already partially mastered. If it’s a skill that they haven’t mastered they are more likely to get frustrated than sit and concentrate. On the other hand if they can do it too well, then they will easily lose interest.
The best type of activity is one that they can sit and be immersed in without too much need for your help. Of course it is good for you to sit and interact with them, but if they can do it for themselves already then you coming in to join in the play adds a new dimension and it keeps them occupied for even longer.
For example, Lily-Mai my daughter who is 2 years old took a soft dolly on holiday. She could squash into her dolly in her case. She sat for ages and fiddled with the clothes to undress her. She was also her companion baby on the plane as she put her to bed. She dressed herself in dolly’s hair band to look pretty. The fact that she could use her doll to stimulate different types of play helped her to stay entertained.
Alex is a bit older and played for long periods of time with an art bag. He enjoyed experimenting with it see all the different ways he could hold it. He rattled off picture after picture after picture and sat very content for a long time drawing pictures of the things he was going to see on holiday. Dad then drew pictures with him. Getting Lily-Mai as a 2 year old to draw would have worked for a short while, but because she hasn’t already semi-mastered the skill there would have been far more frustration than pleasure.
So, it’s easy to feel like children are in the way as you are packing but be sure to get them involved as children learn most from learning in real context and secondly look out for things that your children can already do, but add a little something new to bring a new slant to it.
