being cooped up in the backseat of the family car on long journeys

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a modern phenomenon? or do any grandparents remember having to endure this? i know that we did, and even though our parents recall us fighting in the back, i dont have any bad memories of long car journeys. but then, we werent strapped in, within an inch of our lives in car seats. i'm just wondering about the long term harm i may have done my children by keeping them strapped in over our recent long jourenys.

get them a portable car DVD player for future journeys. I got my son one of these and he sits in the back happily watching a film or something

There's no fun in long journey's anymore - no laying on the parcel shelf waving to lorry drivers, no laying on the back seat in a sleeping bag while Dad drives, no Burl Ives on the 8-track. Ah, those were the days!

Thank the lord for portable DVD players - distracts them from being strapped in!

i did buy the portable dvd player, but they would either fight too much about which dvd to buy, or turn it off after a while because theyc ouldnt hear it. apparently i was driving too fast.
they also had two nintendo ds's, and a psp, which was never removed from its bag for some reason. in the end i decided the problem was they had too much choice, and made them listen to my cd of choice, and handed them the map. tbh, they seemed happier then.
i too remember being stretched out in the bag seat with my sisters, we were also three, and we would be on top of each other. my poor kids were strapped in, whilst the eldest was squished in the middle of two massive car seats.

have you tried a truck? place many mattresses or cushions around or better still completely pad it out like the padded cell the kids often drive us to, and they can run around as much as they like . my sister with her 5 kids all under 10 is thinking of that . she has one of those big people carriers as all kids have car seats, booster seats of full restraining gear (when needed for the middle kid)so it does get a bit fractious in there sometimes, especially when my 6' 8'' BIL gets in too.
personally I didn't have this problem. my dad wasn't able to drive a car, and my mum didn't learn till I was 12 so it was buses or coaches for us, got plenty sick on long journeys on those though (that is supposed to be green with sick rather than angry!!) and a long journey to me on a bus was anything over 5 miles!!

thats an excellent idea. especially as the driver of the truck is completely separate from the inmates of the back! they can kill each other, and i would be blissfully unaware.
'mummy is driving at high speeds, we wil have an accident! ' was like a broken record player in our car....
i'm hoping ds2 will be tall enough to be out of his car seat by next year.

We used to squash 2 families of four in to an estate car with all the kids in the boot. Thank goodness for the safety of car seats nowadays. Because the children are used to being strapped in from babies they don't know anything else.

I hate the back seats. Really uncomfortable and more likely to get car sick. Yuck.

We actually bought a people carrier and the squabbling on long journeys was one of our many reasons for doing so. Have actually had one dc in each row before now so we could have a bit of peace and lessen the risk of an accident while trying to stop them fighting.
Dh sat right at the back with the portable dvd player!