Okay look, I don’t even have an iPad, so my three-year-old definitely isn’t getting one.  However, I understand her plight when it comes to long car trips. Looking out the window might “build character” as I keep insisting, but sometimes you want something better to do.  Once you’ve listened to the Moana soundtrack (solid!) twice all the way through and you’re ready to turn it off because “mama has a headache” (interpret the quotation marks however you wish here!) here are some tried-and-true road trip activities I’ve found to be successful as we gear up for (HALLELU) summertime travel.  Yes it’s only March and yes, I’m desperate enough to be dreaming of road trips already.

1. Magnadoodles.
2. Finger puppets.
3. Magnetic storybooks.
4. I Spy Books
5. —

Okay look.

Here’s the real deal.

I think there’s this hierarchy of parenting that it’s easy to get pulled into.  It’s easy to think if we just avoid the screen time, if we just do all-wooden toys, if we just do 100% print books instead of eBooks that somehow our kids will turn out okay, and will maybe have some special brand of moxie or whimsy or homespun wisdom that we ourselves possessed.  That doing All The Right Things Just So will guarantee that our kids do better.

And that’s understandable.  We want what’s best for our kids.  Who wouldn’t?

But when you can’t manage to do the “best” or when you can’t bear one more minute of whining, when you can’t fish around for a lost magnet from the Magnadoodle in the car again after it just got dropped two minutes prior…  

Remember this:

The kids will turn into the kids they eventually become not because, I believe, of small parenting decisions we make along the way,  but the much bigger picture about what our family is like.

Is there love?

Is there support?

Is there wisdom?

Is there encouragement?

What about consequences, and gentle redirection, and listening ears, and hugs, and kisses, and rules and sometimes a special breaking of the rules for breakfast for dinner or sugary cereal or whatever rule that you deem is okay for breaking every so often?

These aren’t hard and fast rules, and that’s what I’m getting at mostly.

Use the iPad.  Don’t use the iPad.  Maybe your use has nothing to do with your views on screen time, maybe it’s just about the price of the device, all that stuff. Whatever your reason though, just remember: the person your child grows up to be will not, I firmly believe, be reliant on whether they did or did not have an iPad.  Or TV time on school nights. Or that silly toy you KNOW is garbage, but they want to spend their allowance on so badly just the same.

It’s you.  Your family.  The love you share.

(Even on road trips where you want to scream, I swear.)