[00:00:00] Leah Clionsky: Welcome to the Educated Parent Podcast. I am your host, Dr. Leah Clionsky, and this is one of our chats and we're going to talk about how we are gonna survive traveling with our kids for the holidays. Yes, it is a tricky one, but don't worry, I have some strategies and some tips that are gonna help you out.

[00:00:25] Leah Clionsky: So are you gonna travel with your kids over the holidays? You know, I am for Thanksgiving, luckily, and not in an airplane. We have a four hour car ride instead, which actually is a little bit less stressful, but I've traveled with my four and 6-year-old many, many times now, and I feel like I've had it down to an art.

[00:00:48] Leah Clionsky: A little bit a science plus art combined, and you may have some strategies that work a little bit differently. It depends a lot on your kids, but I wanna make sure that we talk about some things that might make the travel a little bit easier for you. Especially because right now our airports are an even bigger disaster than they ever have been.

[00:01:10] Leah Clionsky: And the day before Thanksgiving is the busiest travel day of the entire year. So we wanna set our kids up for success when we're traveling with them. Travel is hard on everybody. Travel is hard on all of us because it requires a lot of preparation and then we are out of our element, right?

[00:01:36] Leah Clionsky: When you are on an airplane or in the middle of a road trip, you don't have all the normal stuff you typically have, right? You don't have the favorite toy, you don't have the favorite snack. If you didn't bring it with you, you're just not able to pivot the way you could if you were in your own home.

[00:01:59] Leah Clionsky: And also, we don't control things like we don't control if the flight is delayed. We don't control. If traffic is bad, we don't control any of those things. So there's also that element of just lack of control for everyone involved. And honestly, that makes us more stressed out. As parents, I like to be able to control how things are going, and if I can't and I see my kids getting worked up, that can be a little bit tough.

[00:02:27] Leah Clionsky: So there are many, many things we cannot control. But what we can control is how we prepare for the trip and the things that we do in advance that will pay off when we're actually traveling. So my first strategy, I'm just gonna jump into strategies early today. My first strategy is to make sure that you have a variety of non-screen based activities prepped for your kids.

[00:02:57] Leah Clionsky: Based on their own interests. So for my son who just turned four, what this means is that he needs a bunch of little tiny figurines that he can play with. He loves Lion King. He loves Lion Guard. As long as he has the right little lions and tigers and animals all set out. He can play with those for quite a long time.

[00:03:23] Leah Clionsky: So I often will fill a, a bag up with his favorites of those and pack it in my own carry-on so that I know that is readily available to him when he gets bored. Um, other activities that he likes are water. And that's easy for a little kid to do. It's not like precision coloring. So I'll make sure I have one of those packed.

[00:03:45] Leah Clionsky: My daughter loves crafts and activities like that, so, and she loves to sketch, so I always make sure I have a variety of markers for her. We always have paper. Um, I try to get some interesting things that she can color as well. Like on a recent flight when it was just her and I. We spent an hour of the flight coloring Halloween stickers, and then she took the colored Halloween stickers and put them into a different notebook that she had, but any sort of like a craft activity that's gonna keep her really focused.

[00:04:19] Leah Clionsky: I know people are really loving those mini magnet tiles. I haven't gotten any of those yet, but those could be a really great activity. But you want a variety of screen free activities. To entertain your child, and let me tell you why. And this is, I'm gonna jump almost to the third point now, but here it is.

[00:04:39] Leah Clionsky: You don't wanna start off offering a screen to your kid because the screen is the most exciting thing you can offer them. So if you start off early with this screen and then eventually they get bored of the screen time or they, it starts making them weird. You know how like you can kind of get weird if you've been on a screen for too long?

[00:05:02] Leah Clionsky: There's no option after that, you can move up, you can move from non-screen activities to screen activities, but it's really hard to move from screen activities to non-screen activities for kids. So I suggest you have a bunch of a non-screen activities prepared. The other thing that, my second tip is that before your kids have to be constrained.

[00:05:29] Leah Clionsky: Let them run around as much as you can. So if you're at the airport and there is a place like a corner of the airport that is not full of people, that is a great opportunity to get your kids to run around. And you can have them do it in a way that's more controlled. Like you can play game where you have them pretend to be frogs, so they're using more core movements.

[00:05:53] Leah Clionsky: You could have a game. Where you play, Simon says with them, but you want to try to get them to move around while they still can because it's gonna regulate them once they get into the plane or into the car. Um, some airports have those really cool like kid play zones. If those exist, I always go to those first.

[00:06:14] Leah Clionsky: So I'm wanting as much physical activity as I can. Before we move into the non-screen activities, before we eventually move into the screen activities, I just find that my children, and most kids I know behave a lot better if they have that opportunity. One year, um, we were flying with my son who was like 18 months old, so he had all the motor movement, but absolutely no ability to follow directions.

[00:06:39] Leah Clionsky: That's a fun combination, and we literally would just run through the airport with him next to us. Like I would just run and be like, come on Alex, come on Alex. And he would just run along beside me and I was just trying to help him get as much movement as possible. So when we got on the plane, he was more likely to sit still having gotten hell of his sensory and motor needs met.

[00:07:04] Leah Clionsky: Okay, so pack the activity that doesn't involve screens. Number one, to look for opportunities for your kids to move around, physically, encourage them to get that physical activity need met, and you know, and there are lots of places to do it. So if you make it a priority and you give them some constraints about how to do it, it can be a really positive thing.

[00:07:31] Leah Clionsky: The third part is don't allow screens until you really have to. So my rule on an airplane is that we don't take out the screens. Until there is that part where they tell you can take out your laptop computers. Right. I am delaying it for as long as I can get away with. Um, sometimes I'll try to go over that if possible.

[00:07:54] Leah Clionsky: Again, because once the screens are offered, then it's really hard to move back into like, let's read a Dr. Seuss book. The hard part there is that I don't think it's fair for us as the adults. To go on a screen before we allow our children to, it just sends this really weird mixed message, and then we're not involved with them.

[00:08:16] Leah Clionsky: So I'm not gonna pull out my own iPad or screen activity. I'm not gonna start watching Netflix myself until I'm allowing my kids to watch their own tablets. So until that time. I might read a book or I might play with them, or maybe I, I'm trying to decide if it's cheating to listen to music with one AirPod in.

[00:08:38] Leah Clionsky: I have mixed feelings if the screen is invisible, but like, I'm trying to do something where I'm not looking at a screen. And then when I say to them, okay, you know, you can watch Bluey now, like, we've been playing for a good two hours, then, um, then I'll put on my own screen at that point. So obviously you have to make this work for you, your child and your family, but so far this combination has let me get through many, many trips with my kids and I plan on doing the same thing on our four hour drive.

[00:09:13] Leah Clionsky: So we're gonna get a lot of movement before we get in the car. I'm gonna bring those non-screen activities, probably, um, maybe even we'll listen to like a book, like an audio book while we're driving non-screen. And maybe after the first rest stop or after we have lunch or however, however we divide up the trip, that's when LLL screens is on that second part, and I'm curious if it will work for you as well.

[00:09:40] Leah Clionsky: Um, but that's my travel hack. Those are my strategies for traveling with young kids. Of course, I'm interested in your feedback, how you feel about doing something like this. Um, what you find works for you and doesn't work for you. I think it just being really understanding of the fact that this is hard on everybody and that it's especially hard on our kids, and the more regulated we can be, the better that can really make the travel situation even better.

[00:10:10] Leah Clionsky: All right. I'm so glad you're here. I'm so glad you're listening to Educated Parent. I hope you have a relaxing travel time with no delays, with absolutely no problems, and you get to your destination safely, and I will talk to you next Tuesday.