When I was little I thought we took the 8 hour car trip several times a year in the mini-van to go to the cool Holiday Inn with the indoor playground & where we got to eat nachos. Not to see Grandma, not because of dad’s work trips, not for vacation or quality family time, for the nachos & indoor ball pit. So on these adventures, my mom had her hands full keeping me & my 4 brothers behaving & not breaking the air conditioning vents in the van. She came up with the idea of taking us to the dollar store, which was a magical place. We each got to pick several toys & books & these went in a shoe box. For every 1-2 hours that we behaved we got a prize. If we started acting up we were reminded of the prize box. Plus it was something new to keep us busy & stop asking “Are we there yet?” Looking back I guess we were greedy kids, but it got everybody out alive. The prize box was one of my favorite parts of the trips. I still miss those nachos though. Works for me!
4:19 am on September 20th, 2006
I posted a similar idea! Great minds think alike! We do hourly prize bags… only my children don’t know what’s in them until they get to open them. It does make the trip fun and stops the ‘Are we there yet?’ comments. I like the prize box idea too. We might have to implement it as a change of pace on our next trip!
5:16 am on September 20th, 2006
That is a great idea, we do something similar. We travel to Minnesota every summer (2 day trip) we buy new movie videos to hand out each day =)
9:04 am on September 20th, 2006
I love this idea and have to keep it in mind!
12:19 pm on September 20th, 2006
We are taking two kids on a six hour trip soon… thanks for the great idea!
8:05 am on September 21st, 2006
Very wise, very wise indeed! We travel quite a bit - this is a great idea.