BootsnAll Travel Community

hey folks. lots of threads bitchin' on here about kids yellin' on planes. i guess i am looking for tips to learn how to curtail that. picture this: 6 year old who has never flown before will be flying to the west coast. how in the heck does the adult keep the kid entertained?


zop

A window seat, some coloring books, a portable DVD player, some small toys and lots of snacks seem to do the trick for us!

Although, even that stuff doesn't get used much - the excitement of flying seems to be entertainment all on its own...

I guess to bring along a companion about his age or slightly older and sit them together. They will occupy themselves with their games etc.
We used to do that when my three sons were very young 8, 6 and 4. Initially, they fought a little and made noises but awhile later, they were friends again. On one occasion, they were permitted to visit the cockpit during the flight ( not sure this is still allowed ). That visit kept them seated and behaved throughout the whole journey. They might have thought they were in "Star War"!
Happy journey!

I worried about my 5 year old on our flight from SF to Europe, as she is extremely active and it was her first flight. It was MUCH easier than expected.

We bought a portable dvd player that comes in handy, but we actually use it less than I thought. If the child is reading well, that really helps. The tips from DanC are great and I list what worked for us.

Think of things the child likes and something new for the flight. Cutting up paper dolls of a kid also taking a trip around the world was an extremely big hit for us as well as a stick on world map toy.

Get them their own rolling travel bag...my daughter loved that and has been quite a trooper where ever we go with it, rolling behind her ( on ferries,planes,trains ...you name it). We loved the one from llBean and it still looks new after constant use for 15 months.

Some people wrap the toys up and bring out a new one, if the kid starts to get bored. Great idea, but I was too busy with other things to do it. You can even buy a little backpack of toys online for travel, but it is cheaper to make your own and can be individualized for the specific child.

Six is a good age for travel and we have done extremely long days of travel ( like looooong day into Africa by bus, taxi, boat, taxi , 6h train etc) and gotten up in the middle of the night for it sometimes and my child has always loved the adventure of it. I bet it will be easier than you are imagining now!!

Great recommendations already...
Just wanted to share some of my tricks or things I think would work.

Three months ago we flew over the Atlantic with our five children, only four not being babies.

I find it amazing how little ones can keep so occupied with the simplest of "gifts", "suprises", something new.

KLM handed out little drawsting bags of plastic with something to color and minimal crayons...WOW have the kids held on tight to those special bags.

I would maybe make a bag similiar.
Here is a wonderful site to pick out some special coloring pages that your children might like. I know as adults we might poo poo the idea of printing out three special prints when we have tons of coloring books with a hundred pages each in them...but I have found if I roll up a special coloring page with a special tie on it the children will love it, we sometimes incorporate a Hogwarts theme to our schooling and sometimes we have a special coloring page delivered by the owl So much of it at this age (6 is a wonderful age) is how we market it.

Coloring page site
This one I use a lot!!!!
http://www.hugolescargot.com/coloriage.htm

Someone recommended this one though I don't remember how good it is
http://www.goddessmoon.org/coloring/more_coloring_books.htm


Not certain at what time you are flying...but I also made a fort for the kiddos to sleep in, using blankets over the seats and that was a HUGE hit!!!!

Special little somethings trickling out for the trip is what I think you should do. Also I was very suprised to see the technology of movies now on flights. The kids had a huge selection on our way back (non sleeping during the day) and each got to watch what they wanted to watch...and even though they didn't sleep I made them "the fort".

Hope that helps,

my kids don't get much viewing at home, so when they board the plane it's like, yes, yes, children, who would like to dope up with the portable dvd??? they'll watch that sucker til the batteries poop out. just be sure junior knows the batteries will poop out after awhile, and that he'll have to obey instructions from the cockpit w/ regard to portable electronic devices and such. (My younger child is always indignant that he can't have his tray table down during take off).

The Sky Mall catalogues have always been a great hit w/ my daughter. We go page by page and pretend we must select one thing from every page. So funny when we get to a less than inspiring page and she's like, "Well, I guess I'll take the thing that the garden hose winds up around..."

The in-flight magazine is also a source of fun when one is allowed to draw moustaches on all the pretty ladies.

my kids may be dorky to the max b/c they had a mania for felt boards at around seven years of age. my mother in law even found these little felt board books that were a good portable size, and offered different backdrops. We'd stuff those suckers full of the felt characters, shapes, etc that had come in other felt board packs and we were good to go. advantage: doesn't roll off the tray table. I believe the brand was Feltkids, but I see Amazon has all sorts of related products, including "LIndsay, the Felt felt Caucasian doll." Nice.


Make sure you take some grub with you too, in case the snack cart is a bit slow or stingy. But you knew that...

Have fun!

I'm with Mamoo on the goodie bags with novelties and bringing them out as the eyes start to glaze over. Something else related to that--can you fold something like origami, or do a string trick, or a cut paper trick or anything like that? If things get really dull, you could try that one. You didn't say if you have a boy or girl, but my girls loved to make their own paperdolls. Though at 6 I had to draw the doll, and then show them how to trace around her to make the outfits. A boy might like it too if you made it macho. They liked this much better than the commercial ones.

And when all else fails, keep it all in perspective - if your kid gets whiny, well, he's a kid, and that's what kids do. Whiny adults are super annoying as well. I can honestly say that, hands down, adults are generally far more irritating then kids. There's something about this society that is so unrealistic about how kids are and that they are, in fact, valuable members of our community, warts and all. It's like we want to keep them invisible.

Also, have you noticed now that you have kids, that the three year old throwing a temper tantrum in the restaurant has actually become relaxing? Like, oh look, other people's kids freak out too. And it isn't our kid this time. And nobody has perfect kids and no one is a perfect parent, and we're all trying to figure out how to deal with it. So really, your kid freaking on the plane really just makes every other parent feel a little bit better.

I agree with the goodie bags - a good goodie bag will keep a kid quiet for a good number of hours.

I've loaded by Ipod with music that the kids like and they can listen to it as a special treat on long journeys (two of them share the earphones). I've also found plasticine (a modelling material) really good. It sticks to stuff, but comes off smooth surfaces easily, so I let them stick it all over the back of the tray table, and they really like sticking it somewhere they wouldn't normally be allowed to. Someone recommend masking tape to me for the same reason - it peels off everything really easily but it's fun to be allowed free rein if you are six.

The first flight I ever took with my eldest was when she was about four months old. It was only a short flight, but she screamed through most of it and I was mortified. I tried everything to calm her, but she wasn't having any of it. At the end of the flight, I was trying to escape without making eye contact with any of the other passengers and a woman sitting in front turned around and told me not to worry about it saying "we've all been there". It made me feel much better! Don't stress about it, your child might actually enjoy the flight - it's pretty exciting going on a plane. My three year old is enchanted just by looking out of the window.

Wallop's post just reminded me that I've put a few children's audiobooks on my iPod, and they were a real hit for our daughter, who's six. She seems to like them even more than music.

Audible has a whole section devoted to them. Bill Harley's "The Town Around the Bend" was a big hit for her. And me, I must admit...

I'm a little late to this thread, but wanted to chime in on the topic of children's audio books because I just love them so much.

I echo the endorsement of Bill Harley. Our entire family LOVES his Battle of the Mad Scientists CD, and repetition is not a problem. This CD is fine for anyone over 5, but not all of his are, so be careful.

Also check out the many award-winning Hank the Cowdog audio books--they are perfect for 6-year-olds and laugh out loud funny. The author reads himself in this deadpan West Texas drawl that will have you wetting your pants. The stories are about a self-aggrandizing ranch dog who thinks of himself as "the head of ranch security."

Finally, get yourself a pair of ihearsafe headphones, which control the maximum volume for kids and protect hearing.

Have fun, flights are almost never as bad as you think they're going to be. Except when they are.

Travel Savvy Mom--Where to Stay When You Go
http://www.travelsavvymom.com

In addition to all these good tips:

I try to plan flights so that I can wear my kids out before we get on the plane. Then they simply sleep most of the way. This has worked well on trans-Atlantic and Europe-to-Asia; even on really looong London - Singapore - Sydney flights. A busy day in, say London Zoo - and they're asleep before take-off.