Spotlight Features
10 Tips for Traveling with Kids
Published
2 years agoon
The best things in the world—traveling and your kids. While these might be two of your favorite things, mixing them can seem like a daunting challenge.
Luckily, it doesn’t have to be. Traveling with kids can be a great experience for everyone if you plan it right. Here’s how!
1. Bring comfort items
Traveling to a new place is a fun experience, but it can be overwhelming at times for your little ones. Bringing a comfort item, like a favorite blanket or stuffed animal, can help ease their anxiety about being in a new place.
2. Plan your travel time strategically
Kids can’t help it—they’re a bundle of energy! Being cooped up in a car or on a plane in the middle of the day can make them antsy or fidgety, especially if they’re used to being active. Planning your travel time at night or when they’re usually napping can make life easier for everyone.
3. Let your kids help with the luggage
If your kids are old enough, let them help out with carrying smaller bags or suitcases. Not only does this make your life easier, but it also makes them feel more involved in the traveling process. Not to mention, it keeps them preoccupied!
4. Keep them occupied
Kids need to stay busy or engaged. Bringing along books or a tablet for them to play games on can help keep them busy during slower portions of the trip, like travel time.
5. Always bring a spare outfit
No matter the age or how well-behaved your kids are, accidents happen. Bringing along a spare outfit can save you a trip back to the hotel.
6. Bring basic medicines
There’s nothing worse than traveling with a sick child. Be prepared to bring along basic medicines for upset stomachs or headaches to make them feel better as quickly as possible.
7. Take advantage of child discounts
Children can be expensive so take advantage of child discounts! A lot of times, restaurants or parks will offer discounts for children, saving you some money.
8. Plan for extra time
It’s a fact of life that everything takes longer with children. Whether it’s a layover or travel time to a park, planning extra time to get things done will make everyone’s lives less stressful.
9. Bring snacks and drinks
A hungry child is a cranky child. Bringing along their favorite snacks and drinks will keep them content and even ease travel anxiety.
10. Roll with the punches
No matter how well you plan a trip, chances are that something will go wrong. Whether it’s your child losing their phone or getting lost in Paris with a crying baby, the best thing you can do is roll with the punches and make the best of it.
Hey all! Big thanks to Katy Blevins for handing over the reins to me at the end of 2017 to fulfill my new years resolution to write...often! Based in Miami, you can find me blogging about family life as a mother of two young kids. But i'll also continue the Chaos and Kiddos theme of business, fashion, parenting, product reviews, and...well, I could go on and on.
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New Baby On The Way? Save Money on the Essentials
Published
10 months agoon
June 14, 2021By
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Spotlight Features
Keeping the Family Strong Through A Divorce
Published
1 year agoon
October 20, 2020The statistics are stacked against marriages as the data shows that more than forty percent of marriages end up in divorce or separation. While that is a tragic data point, we must remember that life goes on.
This is even more true for the children that are a crucial part of the family and the eventual proceedings. The point of this simple guide is to look at how to stay positive and strong through a divorce and separation and how to make sure that the family can stay strong throughout the process.
It is undoubtedly a monumental feat, but it is quite possible and very necessary as it can help to maintain peace, prosperity, and general stability over the long-term. Let’s find out more about staying healthy, positive, and keeping it together for the long haul to ensure happiness and strength for everyone involved.
Staying Positive Amid a Divorce
The first point is that you must maintain a sense of peace and calm within yourself during these stressful and usually hectic divorce and separation times. Ideally, this event is not something you have had to deal with several times in your life, and it is a singular event.
But even then, if it is a singular event, it will be all the more impactful as you do not have much experience.
It is easier to stay strong throughout a divorce or separation, but it is much more difficult to do so due to the intricacies involved in the entire process. Remember that you are conducting the divorce proceedings for a number of reasons. The main reason is usually that neither people are happy with the partnership and choose to go in a different direction.
In that event, it is necessary to ensure that you dig deep down and comprehend that it is for the best overall. It may be hard to do so at first, but it is necessary. You must accept that it happened, and only then can you move forward into the future.
It is a normal aspect of the process for you to require some time to cope and come to terms with this significant change. But remember that you must stay vital for yourself and your children.
It is not only about you and your future but your children’s as well.
The Peace of the Children
It is easy to think about yourself during a divorce and forget about the collateral damage involved in the process. By collateral damage, I mean your kids.
Your children may spend countless hours screaming and misbehaving due to the issues that this brings in their lives. It is not just your life that is going through a sense of disruption but theirs as well.
Remember to have meetings with your children and to help them cope with the process. It is easy to lash out and be hard on your precious children for no reason, fight that urge, be a better parent.
Find peace by spending more time with your children for the sake of spending time with them. You want to make sure that you are healing the hurt feelings early on so that your family stays strong even with the adjustment.
The Strength of the Family
A strong, bonded, and hopeful family unit is still possible even during and after a separation. The process is not easy and will take work but will be quite worth it in the end.
Ensure that everyone in the process feels as if there is an anchor and that everything is not being ripped away from them. Show how life will be after the event and how it is possible to navigate through the turbulent period without too much angst.
Remember that there is a life after the event and think about the long-term during and after the process.
Spotlight Features
How to Organize Hand-Me-Down Clothes – Guest Blogger: Brittany Bullen
Published
2 years agoon
April 22, 2020By
Katy Blevins
Brittany lives with her husband and three sons in Utah. She is a playwright, composer, actress, singer, thrift shop lover, Mormon and aspiring vegan. She is the founder of the International Bloggers Association, is a member of the Dramatists Guild, the Association for Contextual Behavioral Science and the Cognitive Behavioral Society (’cause why not). Brittany has a B.A. in English-Writing from Denison University and has an imaginary Ph.d. in Googling stuff she wants to know. You can keep up with her at BrittanyBullen.com.