Road Trip Tips
Worth Your Time!
Resource Recommendations to Help You Parent and Mentor Most Effectively
This Week's Recommendation:
An Email I Received Today
Hi everyone! I'm at Boys Camp at Camp Iroquoina in Pennsylvania for two weeks. When I checked my email during a break today (Wednesday), I saw an email from Better Screen Time that I thought was timely and worth sharing as many families will take vacations in the coming weeks. It speaks for itself, so all I'm doing this week is sharing the email and the resource. :) Have a great holiday weekend!
Here's the email...
Are Screens the Secret to Keeping the Minivan Quiet?
Keeping kids happy and busy on road trips is no joke. After years (and who knows how many miles!) of turning around to pass out snacks and play peek-a-boo, this mama was tired.
About the time portable screens came onto the scene, we had four children. I just knew our two archaic smartphones (with some fun games, no internet) would be the secret to keeping the minivan quiet.
I devised a well-organized system for rotating the two devices and planned for road-trip nirvana. (Quiet kids = happy mom, right?)
Several hours into the road trip, I could see I'd made a mistake. There was begging, whining, and by the end of the day the kids were more restless and irritable than usual.
Not only that, but there had been less of all of the good things. Less laughter, less connecting, and less conversation about what we were seeing along the way.
It was like the screens had just sucked the magic out of our time together.
Have you been there?
After that trip I vowed I would never dish out devices on a road trip ever again. We were going to make road trips a time to connect and have a PARTY—and return back to our old ways.
My rule for screen use on long family road trips?
Screens should primarily be used to gather the family. Such as:
an occasional movie kids can all watch together
music playlists
audiobooks
If you have any road trips planned this summer, we've got you covered with two pages of screen-free road trip tips for the entire family—from toddlers to teens!
I’m determined to keep family road trip traditions alive—despite living in a digital world.
Because after all, easy isn’t always best.
Happy 4th to those of you in the U.S., and to everyone—happy travels this summer!
- Andrea & Tyler
Check Out the Tips and Ideas Here