Traveling With Young Children
Something that makes life a little easier when I'm flying with my child is to dress him in bright colored clothes while we're traveling. I would never lose sight of him, but dressing him this way helps me to spot him immediately. I always think ahead about what he will be wearing on the day we travel.

Ever since my son was very small, we've taken a lot of big trips together. Recently, we began going through a transition where my son traveled without his stroller.

The treasure bag is something that parents can put together for their children, particularly for a long car or plane trip. Contrary to popular belief, electronic games are not the only thing you can do with your children on long trips.

This summer my son and I took a big trip to the east coast and then to Italy to visit family and friends and I knew we would be having "once in a lifetime adventures" so I started keeping a journal with him. I would write down what he told me and sometimes I would hand it over to him and he would start drawing pictures.

It's taken me a while to find the things that work out when traveling alone with a young child. This past winter at Christmas we took a trip to New York that was noticeably easier and better than our previous trips had been and I think that was because of two things. (1) He was older, but (2) we had a lot of experience traveling, we had made some mistakes, and we'd had some systems in place.

Whenever we run errands or go on a family trip, I like to be prepared for whatever may come up as far as my children's needs. Since I have six children, in order to be better prepared I decided to put together a "goodie bag" to keep in the car or in the stroller at all times.

When my children were 10 and 7 years old, we used to travel a lot. My husband came up with a wonderful idea to cut down on the kids' whininess.
Usually where we would stop to camp or stay in a hotel there would be game rooms. The kids were always begging us for money to play the games so my husband decided to take a roll of quarters and gave each child a roll.

We used to commute about 1.5 hours each way to and from work and with 3 small kids in the car that became really draining for everyone. I invented the "Parents Aid Kit" which is a first aid kit for parents.

We take a lot of long car trips to visit relatives in other states, so years ago when my son was just an infant I started using books on tapes. We have found that they help him with school. They have introduced him to classic books and I think they have made him a better student in school because he has developed skills of listening and auditory memory.