How to make a trip with kids easier?

Guest post by Mariola Olkowicz of Drawingly Me.

Trips with children require a lot of preparation and efficient logistics. Whether it’s a weekend trip out of town or a two-week vacation, a good plan is the foundation. You need to choose a destination, pack your luggage, and plan your route and on-site attractions so that everyone is satisfied. With the right attitude, preparations will go more smoothly and the trip will pass in a pleasant atmosphere.

From this post you will learn how to make it easier to organize and cooperate with your children so that joint trips are enjoyable for everyone.

Table of contents

Making plans with children

Every trip requires good planning, and I highly encourage you to do it together with your children. This is not, of course, about letting your kids decide where you will go and what you will visit. Planning with young children involves discussing what will happen during the trip. You can do this verbally, and even more effective will be the creation of drawing plans, so that toddlers will not only hear, but also see what awaits them. For example, mark the playground, pool, cinema or meal times on them. Such plans are already working well for children from about. 2 years old and it is worthwhile to perform them still at home before leaving, at ease.

Planning provides an opportunity for both adults and children to voice their needs and negotiate them. Just making plans to go out with your kids encourages them to cooperate. By knowing exactly what you will be doing, they will become calmer and more willing to get involved in everything. And I think it’s much more fun to spend the vacations with cooperating children ;)

Quick planning on the fly

While I really like drawing plans, I also recommend quick one-time planning that doesn’t need to be written down. It is worth using this method to create a schedule for the day when you intend to do several things. For example – you want to go to the beach tomorrow and visit some tourist attraction, so you will spend most of the day outside the hotel. So you plan how to optimally organize the trip: what time to leave and return, where to go first, where to have lunch and what to take with you. I encourage such a discussion to be held in the presence of children. This way they will know exactly the plan for the day, what we will do, in what order and why, so nothing will surprise them and they will cooperate better with us.

Quick planning can also be used in a specific situation, such as while at the playground or pool. When the child is having a great time and we want to go back, instead of immediately ordering the child to leave, it is a good idea to give the child advance notice of when it will happen. The limited choice method from Positive Discipline works very well in such a situation. For example, you can say, “Son, we’ll be back in a few minutes, do you want to go down the slide three or four more times?”. By telling your child ahead of time when you’re ending the game, you’ll reduce the risk of his dissatisfaction and rebellion. And with the added option of choice, he will feel important that he can make the decision himself. Respectful communication will work out well for each party.

Use the calendars

Another way to help plan and work with children is to use calendars. You can successfully do them already with toddlers around. 4 years old who already know numbers, if only up to 10. You can mark on them the dates of departure and return from the trip or the attractions that await you. This will make the child more independent, as he will glance at the calendar to see what will be happening that day or count how many days are left until an event.

With toddlers who can’t read yet, I recommend doing it in pictorial form, putting a symbol of a movie theater or birthday cake next to a specific date, for example. You can draw pictures by hand or use ready-made icons, for example, from my database of drawings for parents “Drawing world of the child, or visual aids to support the development and independence of children.”

With plans and calendars, your children will gain peace of mind and a sense of security on the trip. Not only will they know what to expect, but they will also SEE it. This is especially important with younger children, as it helps them understand and remember everything better.

Checklists will help you pack your bags

Properly preparing luggage for a trip can be a challenge. Make organization easier by creating a checklist of things we need to bring with us. It’s a good idea to do this as early as a few days before your trip, so that you have time to think about what you’ll need, wash your clothes or buy the necessary items. This will help us avoid stress just before the trip, pack our suitcases more efficiently and not forget anything.

When you travel frequently, it’s a good idea to have a one-size-fits-all checklist and only adapt it to your specific trip. This can be done either on paper or by using mobile apps for your phone like. Asana or Trello. The second option is quite a convenience, because we will always have it at hand and quickly modify it if necessary. We can also create other checklists, such as things to take for a walk with a baby or a shopping list.

Pack your boxes

I’ve been a big fan of boxes for several years now, and they make my family’s life easier on a daily basis. They are very useful for organizing clothes in the closet. The clothes of all members of my family (2 adults + 3 children) are arranged vertically in boxes. After using this method at home for a while, I noticed that it works all the more well on trips. Packing in boxes saves a lot of time when unpacking, once you reach your destination. Once you are in your hotel room, simply remove the boxes of clothes from your luggage and put them in the closet. That’s all :)

I recommend that each member of the family have separate boxes, so it’s easier to see where whose clothes are. Also during the tour, it is easy to find the needed item without paging through the entire contents of the luggage. To pack clothes in boxes for a trip, it is best to have a large travel bag or suitcase. If you’d like to watch how I packed my things, returning from Florida, feel free to follow me on InstaStories on my profile @rysunkowomi. The relationship is written as “packing clothes” (with a suitcase icon).

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The boxes are perfect not only for clothing, but also for smaller items such as phone chargers, headphones or medicines. In my travel bag I put them packed in bags to take up less space, but immediately upon arrival I put them into small boxes. This makes it easier for me to find the things I need during a trip and reduces clutter.

Positive attitude

To make trips with children joyful, it is worthwhile to ensure a good atmosphere. Children are excellent observers and react to what they see. This applies to both our actions and emotions. If the child sees that the parent is upset or in a bad mood, this mood will be given to the child. Therefore, it is very important to have the right attitude both in talking to your kids, their behavior and the whole situation. When we show positive emotions, act and speak with calmness, children will feel the same way. In such an atmosphere, communication is pleasant and cooperation is much easier.

However, it is known that everyone can sometimes run out of patience. When there is irritation during a conversation with a child, he immediately senses it and changes his behavior. In my case, it works well at such a time to replace the parents. For example, when I’m talking to my sons and my husband notices that I’m already starting to get nervous, he takes over the reins. We follow the analogy when he is the one who loses patience.

The same is true of the approach to children’s behavior. Sometimes it may seem like they are whining or fussing to make us angry. In fact, they have sincere intentions, and their actions may be because they are tired, hungry or bored, for example.

Act on what you say

As I mentioned earlier, children watch us closely and what we do is more important to them than our words. Take, for example, the situation of going out for a walk. You tell the children: “we’re already putting on our shoes,” while you yourself at this time look for the keys or go to the bathroom. Will your kids do what you asked them to do? Probably not, because they will feel confused. They received the message that we all put on our shoes, meanwhile, parents do something completely different. To make it easier to work with children, you need to be consistent between words and action. When we say “put on our shoes” – let’s do it, and toddlers will imitate us.

Don’t have too high expectations

Above all, traveling with children is a great opportunity to spend more time with each other in a relaxed atmosphere. Therefore, it is better not to overload the plan with a large number of attractions or places to visit. Excessive expectations and a busy schedule will cause unnecessary stress instead of relaxation and fun. Anything can happen during a trip together, so it’s a good idea to be more flexible and let the time pass at a slower pace.

If you want to more efficiently prepare a plan or calendar with your children before the trip, I encourage you to use the ready-made icons for parents, which you can find in my database “Drawing world of the child, or visual aids to support the development and independence of children.” In this set, I have prepared drawings from 10. Categories: Plans, Calendars, Health, Activities, Clothes, Toys, Transportation, People, School supplies, Household chores.

To get started, you can download 20 icons from this database for free → https://www.mariolaolkowicz.pl/baza-ikonki/

Which ways have you used so far, and which are new to you?

About the author:
Mariola Olkowicz facilitates collaboration with children aged 2-8 by drawing visual aids. She also inspires other moms to find time for themselves, to relax, for their passions or to work from home/blog. Privately, she is a mother of three boys aged 7 years, 4 years, and 10 months.