Traveling With Your Child’s Craptastic Behavior

So … I am doing something different obviously.  Since I’m not going to lie… my children are not perfect angels.  When visiting places, as we are walking around, I always see these “well behaved children” and I am thinking “I wish my kids would behave!” My kids are good for the most part just some things just spark it and I know these other children are eventually going to have their craptastic moments. And when they do, you you are probably going to stand there staring at them and wondering to yourself “why didn’t I just come alone?”.  I seriously ask this to myself every time we travel.  All three of my little angels all take turns with their craptastic attitudes.

Our last trip, to London, our 9 year old was mad at my husband and I since we made sandwiches instead of eating at the McDonald’s nearby. It didn’t make it any better when he tripped going into the underground and losing one of his pairs of shoes AND his binoculars between the platform and the train. Heck I was paranoid I would drop something too. Poor guy. Craptastic attitude and having hobble around London to apartment with one shoe on. Good thing that there’s plenty of public transport.

Recently, while getting out of the car for the St. Wendel Christmas market in Germany, my 5 year old  was not very happy camper about us not allowing him to have his kindle while walking around.  We only allow our children to have their electronics while (1) at home, (2) in the car or (3) at a restaurant WAITING on our food.  So of course he made his craptastic mood be heard, but once we finally made it into the Christmas market and he saw everything he simmered down.

My best advice is to make sure you have items from home to help them during the downtime i.e. electronics, books & toys. We usually bring our laptop so we can connect to the WiFi and watch movies on Amazon Prime. We buy a ton of movies online for them mainly.

Advice while you’re out and about? Try talking to them and reasoning. “We don’t want to eat out every meal honey.  How about we go to the park and then get a souvenir?” Bribing maybe? Yes.  Of course if their craptastic behavior continued we would probably just head back to our apartment and regroup (its close of course). Sometimes even the older kids need a nap… even mom’s and dads. Travel can be draining and their meltdowns are even more draining.

Plus we did a TON of things that the kids really enjoyed in London and well everywhere we go.  Ice skating, the beach/swimming, mirror mazes (they LOVE), Euro stores, Ferris wheels, parks, aquariums… anything.  All of our trips are geared around the kids.

So remember that you are not the only whose child has meltdowns on vacations. And if they don’t I need your secret!! 😀

Thanks for reading and sharing is caring!