Dreading this holiday

[CheekyCherryColaCandy]

On the motorway heading off for a weeks holiday.

Kids are 6 and 4. They've done nothing but bicker and argue. DS 6 who has ASD has cried about eight times so far.

So far we've had to stop eye spy and top trumps because they've just ended in arguments and tears. We are an hour into a five hour journey.

It's like wading through fucking treacle.

Just turn the radio up. Do they have some toys to play with?

Sympathies, OP

When I was a kid we used to have a repertoire of 'car songs' to sing, and which we would also sing on coach trips with school. It's the joining in that's the fun part - nobody needs to be any good at it.

You are my sunshine, my only sunshine 🎶

She'll be coming round the mountain when she comes (the pink pyjamas and white horses one!)

In the quartermaster stores (where everybody gets a verse made up about them)

Now I appreciate that I am as old as Methuselah but there may be some modern equivalents that you can have a crack at or adapt. Or play some long songs where you can all join in the chorus (e.g. American Pie, the original), or teach them Bohemian Rhapsody. My adult kids still have a soft spot for Heart's Alone ...

One idea is to get the kids to find different types of cars, colours and if they see a lorry to list the things that would be in the lorry. Well it fills in a bit of time.

Turn the radio up and ignore them until they fall asleep through sheer boredom.

Perfect time to play yellow car. (Although you never really stop playing once you e started!)

Do you have someone else driving or are you doing that too? It sounds bloody shit! Don’t suppose they’d play a game of ‘Who can stay the quietest for longest’ with a reward at the end?! 🤣

Thanks for the sympathy! We've stopped for lunch and that's helped, we are listening to an audio book (though ofo course DD wants a different one...). DH is driving.

Very true. I’m still playing it at 44 😂

One year DH drove and I took DC on the train with a rucksack full of drinks, snacks, lunch, books and games.
We had a shorter drive the following year or we would have done it again.