6 tips when traveling with your child on holiday
The school holiday are here and you have travel plans with your child; you can’t help but feel nervous about the trip – how is your child going to react in a new environment? What if they don’t enjoy themselves? What if your child just can’t adapt to spontaneous activities?
Don’t worry, here are 6 tips that we believe are useful in prepping your child for a fun break!
Prepare
It’s important to set expectations about the holidays, upcoming changes and events as it prepares your child to have an idea of what they can expect. This eliminates the element of surprise that comes with going on a trip which reduces the chances of them resisting change.
Involve and brief family members on how to anticipate challenging situations and changes. Make visual schedules, calendars and reminders. If relatives are visiting, prepare photos of them and start introducing them to your child. Take out previous photos from previous trips to remind them how similar the next trip is going to be.
Practice
To further prepare them, role-play scenarios with your child. Here are some situations that you could practice:
Having a large family dinner
Wearing new clothes
Making your hair
Giving and accepting the gifts
Waiting for your turn
Saying please and thank you to the relatives
Involve
Involve your child in planning and preparing activities whenever possible so that they are kept in the loop and understand the situation better. Always explain what you are doing and why. Here are some activities that you can involve your child in:
Shopping
Setting up decorations
Baking or preparing food
Before the flight
Mark the flight date on your child’s calendar so they are able to see and anticipate changes. Before getting up on the flight, prepare your child’s favourite snacks and toys. To further prepare them, tell them a social story or watch a cartoon or video about travelling. You should also go to the airport earlier to explore with your child and get familiarized with the environment.
During the flight
Notify the attendants that your child may have special needs and requirements. Here are other things you can do to make your child’s flight more pleasant:
Provide your child with a preferred edibles or preferred items to prevent ear-popping
Use earphones if necessary
Use a countdown timer or application to monitor the flight time
Provide your child with their favorite toys, books, music and snacks
Expectations and reinforce
You may already be praciticing setting expectations and reinforcing postive behaviors in your daily lives. Even when you go on a holiday, always continue to set reasonable and realistic targets. Consider using visual reminders or verbal prompts. Reinforce each occurance when your child is positive, brave, tolerant or happy and remember to always be specific in your praises or instructions.