i have a 10 year old dd that does not sit in a seat belt well. a couple of years ago I broke down and bought a portable dvd player we usually drive only a couple of hours so if you put a dvd in the player it takes about a movie to get where we are going. I can put her in the backseat and pop a movie in and away we go. when she gets bored with that. I always have a box for the car. The box has colors and markers and paper. She loves to draw. It stays in the car we never take it out. All the things in the box are new. "new" from the store so we do no have those things in the house. Its always fun things in the car.
No DVD player here but my kids have always been really good travelers. Andrew now has an ipod so that is absolutely wonderful, but he doesn't use it all the time. We use the time to talk, play games ( I have a little book of games for the car that I keep in the glove box), I read books outloud, sometimes we listen books on tape. When Andrew is listening to his ipod, Austin will sometimes read, or draw. He use to take along cars and a big cutting board to play on. When they were really little, I would take a cookie sheet and magnets and magnetic letters for them to play with.
On really long drives, like to vacation, I use to pack surprise brown bags. I would hand one out every 100 miles on the way there and pack some for the way home. This is when my boys were preschool-early elementary age. My boys LOVED these. Every other one would be a food type care package-juice boxes, etc plus trail mix, granola bars, candy, cookies, crackers, etc. The next ones would be a non-food bag: I would put in little trinkets and toys to keep them occupied. The very best thing I ever got was slinkies. These kept them entertained for hours. I tied the brown bags up with bows, labelled them for the mile marker, and it was a great adventure for them to get their care packages and found out what was in them.
i have a 10 year old dd that does not sit in a seat belt well.
a couple of years ago I broke down and bought a portable dvd player
we usually drive only a couple of hours so if you put a dvd in the player
it takes about a movie to get where we are going. I can put her in the backseat and pop a movie in and away we go. when she gets bored with that. I always have a box for the car. The box has colors and markers and paper. She loves to draw. It stays in the car we never take it out. All the things in the box are new. "new" from the store so we do no have those things in the house. Its always fun things in the car.
Good luck.
When the kids were little (before portable dvd players) we had little bingo cards with pictures of stuff they can cross off as they see them.
Linda
mom to
Alex (16), Rachel (14), Matthew (12)
No DVD player here but my kids have always been really good travelers. Andrew now has an ipod so that is absolutely wonderful, but he doesn't use it all the time. We use the time to talk, play games ( I have a little book of games for the car that I keep in the glove box), I read books outloud, sometimes we listen books on tape. When Andrew is listening to his ipod, Austin will sometimes read, or draw. He use to take along cars and a big cutting board to play on. When they were really little, I would take a cookie sheet and magnets and magnetic letters for them to play with.
On really long drives, like to vacation, I use to pack surprise brown bags. I would hand one out every 100 miles on the way there and pack some for the way home. This is when my boys were preschool-early elementary age. My boys LOVED these. Every other one would be a food type care package-juice boxes, etc plus trail mix, granola bars, candy, cookies, crackers, etc. The next ones would be a non-food bag: I would put in little trinkets and toys to keep them occupied. The very best thing I ever got was slinkies. These kept them entertained for hours. I tied the brown bags up with bows, labelled them for the mile marker, and it was a great adventure for them to get their care packages and found out what was in them.