There are a lot of things that can distract you while you’re behind the wheel, like your phone, navigation system, the radio, other vehicles, and things on the side of the road. However, few things can be as distracting as a young child. We realize you don’t ever want to neglect your child, but you need to be focusing your attention on the road in order to keep them safe, along with yourself and the other drivers on the road. To prevent them from becoming a distraction, you can give them something to do that keeps them occupied and calm. Thankfully, there are a variety of different car activities for kids that can hold their attention.
Take a look at these car activities for kids to see which one might be the best for your child.
Travel Entertainment Bag/Binder
If you want to get creative, make an activity bag or binder that your child can take with them on car rides that will keep them entertained. You can add their favorite toys and books to the bag and print out fun activity sheets and coloring pages to put in the binder.
Play an Audio Book
You can easily download some of your kids’ favorite stories onto your phone, plug it into your car, and play the story for them while you’re driving.
Tell Them to Look for Certain Landmarks or License Plates
As long as your little one knows not to yell out what they’ve spotted, you can have them play a type of scavenger hunt game where they look for certain landmarks, cars, stores, and other things. If they’re old enough to recognize license plates, tell them to look for different ones and mark down the ones they’ve seen so they can total them up. Counting games can also entertain children when looking for landmarks, signs, schools, churches and other locations they can see and acknowledge during the course of the drive to keep them independently busy while you are operating the vehicle.
Movies, Music, and Other Entertainment
We’ll admit this is one of the more basic car activities for kids, but that doesn’t mean it’s not effective. As long as you’re ok with the screen time, hand them a tablet or your phone with their favorite videos or songs queued up. You’ll have to monitor the volume, but their favorite media can keep your child entertained for hours.
