Traveling With Children: Some Tips From Chris Freville on Traveling With the Elementary School Set

Chris Freville is a married father of four and his family loves to vacation, both to neighboring metropolitan areas and to more exotic locales. Traveling with four children can be a challenging task, but over the years, Chris Freville and his wife, Teresa, have developed some tricks to make traveling with elementary schoolers less stressful.

ª  Dress you children in shoes and jackets that they can take on and off on their own if you are traveling through an airport, suggests Chris Freville. This makes getting through security just a little bit easier and allows parents to keep an eye on their children and juggle bags without having to stop and help them with these tasks.

ª  Bring plenty of coloring and puzzle books to entertain children during flights. Chris Freville suggests packing the crayons in a small tupperware or other container that will keep them from falling on the ground and getting lost.

ª  Especially if your child is traveling by a new form of transportation for the first time, make sure to bring motion sickness medication. Just because you child doesn’t get carsick when driving, doesn’t mean that they will be fine on an airplane or train. Hopefully you won’t need it, says Chris Freville, but they are a good safety net to have.

ª  Make sure you pack any security objects in your carry-on, rather than in your suitcase. Your child might become anxious during the course of the flight and it is useful to have these soothing objects on hand. Chris Freville has made this mistake before.

ª  If you have a portable DVD player or iPad, consider bringing it with you, especially for longer flights. Make sure you have headphones and a splitting device so that more than one child can listen to the movie at a time. Having a DVD player with you can be helpful for winding children down in the evenings during your trip, as well, notes Chris Freville.