While you send us your questions about travel by car with children and babies, we are going to address one of those issues that are often overlooked when we make long trips with our children. We talk about the responsibilities that each one has inside the car, because on that matter they will depend to a large extent so much that our trip by car is as pleasant as possible until in the future our children are able to address their own journeys aboard a private vehicle without major problems.
Y that is achieved by sharing responsibilities. From a certain age, from 4 or 5 years old, a child already understands that in a car there are certain rules to comply, for our safety and for pure coexistence, so if we anticipate that we will travel by car during a few hours, it's a matter of involve the child of that information and hold him accountable to a certain extent that everything flows along the right path, that a hard day awaits us and we all have to reach over to reach a good port. Who wants something, it costs something.
Anticipating with us
It is positive for a trip in the company of children that they are with us from the moment of planning the trip, listening to what we plan to do and collaborating with your opinions, I'm sure you will have them.
Obviously, our trip planning is, that, ours. But nothing prevents our son from being there to give his point of view and, above all, to be aware of what it costs to plan a trip. It is not a matter of getting dizzy with hotel deals, of course, but you should know that when we plan a trip we are anticipating what will happen, we are looking for places to stop to rest, to go to the sink, to buy water.
It is essential that our child understands that, for example, toilets do not grow on trees and that no matter how much he is thirsty, water will have to be purchased at an establishment. In this way, if during the trip you give us for asking impossible We can try to reason with him about where we will stop with the car and why. Yes, I said "try", it is already known that one of the virtues of the good planner is to know how to improvise when plan A fails.
Security is everyone's business
Certainly, there are children who do not carry very well that of traveling tied with a seat belt, but it is also true that this is a problem that must be addressed from the first movement that the child does when he is still a baby, and it is also true that it must be approached very firmly. The child has to use his child seat, without palliatives, for your own safety and that of the people around you.
If we are clear, he will be clear. If we carry it in the chair but with the belt without buckling or in a short displacement we carry it without a seat "because we go here next", in addition to the risk we are assuming then we can not ask you to stay still and tied for a long travel.
Instead, a child who has been educated In the need to use child restraint systems, he will react naturally when he gets in the car and when he is old enough to do it himself, he will put on his belt and even help his brother do it. I don't make it up: that's what happens in my car. My daughter buckles her sister's child seat belt and then climbs into her elevator and buckles the adult belt before we leave home. She has acquired that responsibility and if something fails in that sequence it is she who warns, although logically I always supervise that everything is in order before leaving ... but she does not know that.
On the trip, very calm
If we as drivers have to know to be in our place, resting whenever necessary and especially every 200 kilometers or every two hours of travel, our children have to know that the driver should never be distracted. It is not a matter of responding to your complaints with an angry "do not disturb", that all you will do is make the child feel misunderstood and will do anything to get our attention. With a simple "don't distract me, I'm driving" a child can perfectly understand what we are saying.
Of course, something else will be for children to listen to all this, and for that it is usually recommended an adult travel with them in the back seat, although that will also depend on how the adult is. Now that we are in confessions, I know of one who prefers to travel with the mother-in-law to the side and that it is his wife who travels back with the girls, because two creatures can be overcome, but three together are too much for the patience of any driver , that a car is not an amusement park and both children and adults have to understand it.
On how to distract children in the car and how to avoid some trances such as dizziness we will talk in future editions of this Special about traveling by car with children that we are carrying out in Babies and more. For now, we know that it is not so complicated if from a very young age they understand that in a car there is a driver who needs to be attentive to the road, and in addition this baggage can serve them in the future for your own safety as drivers. What more could you want?
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At the Opel Meriva Baby and More Club, we propose a space to share ideas, experiences and promotions related to the car as a vehicle for the family. Stay tuned to this section and you will have access to all the information you need about children and babies as a decisive factor when buying a car. A page that aims to provide valuable content for all parents who are in the complicated situation of choosing a car. Good car to travel comfortable and safe with the little ones.
