Taking the Travel Challenge

By: Comedienne, Kate Davis

Traveling with kids can be a challenge; just the thought of it exhausts me. Finding ways to make the trip fun for all and relaxing for mom and dad can feel like flying by the seat of your pants.

My husband and I decided to go to North Carolina with the kids to visit relatives. Flying was not in the budget so we decided to make a road trip of it. We loaded up the car at around 10pm thinking that they would sleep for most of the night, wake up in the morning, we would stop for breakfast and a few hours later we would be there. Sounded perfect until the first of, “I have to go to the bathroom” over and over again. I was ready to put them all in diapers for the night but my twelve year old didn’t seem keen. 

We’re lucky nowadays with Nintendo DS and PSP - when I was a kid my parents would have to entertain us with singsongs, “One hundred bottles of Beer on the Wall” or we would have to entertain ourselves by looking out the window - I know shocking, really.

My mom lives in Vancouver so I try to fly out every summer. My kids are great on planes. Even when they were young, I would bring the usual things like colouring books, favorite toys and sleeping pills - (just kidding).

We would play very long games of “I Spy” but the most important thing I would do is “relax” and let them be themselves. I never worried about them being to loud, I remember one point were my son decided to say hello to everyone on the plane as he walked to the bathroom, people were genuinely happy to say hello back. So what if your baby is crying on the plane? That’s life and the adults around you are just going to have to deal with it, but if you tense up worried about offending them then your baby will pick up on that and cry even harder.

The more tense we get as parents the more our kids are going to pick up on that and react, so relax.

Kate Davis is a clever and candid comedienne and mother of three. From that she has developed her popular workshops “Parenting With Humour” where she helps moms to find funny alternatives in communicating with their kids. Find out more at www.funnymommy.