Terri's Little Haven The very best of us make mistakes behind the wheel, and that’s when our concentration has slipped for just a split second. When we’ve got kids, there are numerous problems that can greatly impact our ability to drive and we can feel that we’ve got to have the equivalent of four brains in order to keep everything under control! But let’s be honest, driving with kids in the back is one of the most difficult things, not least the potential for an accident, but if you’re a parent who really doesn’t want to shout at your kids, what can you do to make sure that your children don’t distract you while you’re behind the wheel?
Make Sure They’re Entertained
It’s the most obvious solution, but we need to find the right sort of entertainment for your children to be distracted while you’re on a long journey. While games, tablets and the like are a simple solution, if your child gets car sick easily, this won’t help matters. Instead, consider giving them some music and headphones so they are entertained. You can always ask your children to play amongst themselves, but this could give way to arguments which will distract you no end!
Keeping Them Happy Before Getting In The Car
Children are distracted in the car because they’re bored, so, consider exactly what you can do to prevent them before getting into the vehicle. Having them fed is a great way to ensure they are happy to an extent. But on top of this, if you are undertaking a long journey, you have to make sure there’s plenty of snacks, and drinks, as long as they aren’t easily spillable.
Keeping Yourself Focused
If our children distract us, is it because they are being too noisy, or we don’t have a good tolerance of outside distractions? We can very easily blame our children if we get our attention diverted from the road, but we can also minimize the potential for an accident by making sure we are as focused as humanly possible. The fact is prevention is far better than cure when it comes to this. We don’t want it to get to the point where we have a near miss or a devastating accident and have to go down the auto accident attorney route. Unfortunately, with these type of situations, it’s the only way many children will finally learn their lesson. But this means that we have to take it upon ourselves to develop our tolerance to noise. There are two solutions to this; we can learn how to focus better, and find coping strategies, but we can also employ the stern parenting approach. Why this isn’t shouting or raising our voice in any way, it appears to work for a lot of children. If they’ve been too noisy, you pull over somewhere and state that you’re not going anywhere until everyone is quiet. This is great if you are going somewhere on vacation because it’s a place that your children actually want to go!
Distracted driving is one of the biggest causes of accidents on the road, and when we have children, this could further increase our likelihood for an accident. So it’s a very swift combination of distraction, but also looking at your own ability to focus behind the wheel.
