Keeping Your Children Occupied While Traveling

Extended car trips can aggravate both children and their parents. Cries of "are we there yet?" draw ire and bring on pounding headaches. Even shorter trips can bore many children leading to troublesome behavior and general annoyance issues. When driving, your attention should be on the road, not on your misbehaving children.

When traveling with children, it is essential to keep them occupied. If children are kept busy, they will not realize how much time has passed. Nevertheless, how do you keep them busy?

If you have the money, a portable DVD player costs between $100 and $200. You can purchase adaptors that allow you to plug the DVD player into your car's cigarette lighter. Alternately, you can run the portable DVD player off batteries. With a portable DVD player, your children can watch a DVD while you are on the road. This keeps them occupied for a couple hours and allows you to concentrate on driving.

Another option is a Game Boy Advance or Game Boy Micro. These handheld game systems are under $100 and games costs under $40 usually. You can pick up used games at many retailers for under $10. The graphics on the Game Boy systems are exceptional. The games are available for many age groups and contain common cartoon characters or characters specifically designed for the Game Boy system. While this is a bit of an investment, the handheld gaming systems will provide children with fun activities that last hours.

Not every one can afford a portable DVD player or game system, however. If this is the case, finding alternate activities does not have to be a problem.

Magic Pen activity books are worth the price. Usually priced at $3 to $4, the books come with a magic ink pen that reveal a picture, word, or phrase. These books usually contain activities like Tic-Tac-Toe, Hangman, Baseball, Bowling, Football, Bingo, Battleship, and other fun games or puzzles. These puzzle books can entertain children for hours. Additionally, there is no danger of getting ink over the car's upholstery because the pens' ink is clear.

Family games can keep children occupied for a while. Games like "I Spy," "Street Sign Bingo," or "License Plate Game" provide family entertainment and require little more than a pencil and paper. "I Spy with My Little Eye" is played by having one person choose an item that everyone can see. The color of that item is then announced and the other players need to guess until they discover the item. "Street Sign Bingo" is a game in which players are given a card with common street signs. When players see the corresponding street sign, they mark it on their card. The first person to get a bingo is the winner. "License Plate Game" involves a map of the United States. Every time you see a license plate from a different state, you mark it on the map. The goal is to check off as many states as possible.

While traveling with children can see rather daunting, it doesn't have to be an annoyance. Make the most of your travel time by providing your child/children with fun activities that reduce the stress on mom and dad.