School Holiday Road Trip

5 Proactive Strategies When your planning an ADHDer Road Trip.

School Holidays are almost upon us again here in New South Wales, and many of us are heading out on the road! This can mean lots of hours in the car, which can be excruciating for those of us with ADHD (and not just the kids!)

Remember, the ADHD body needs to move! If we aren’t moving, it can literally feel painful! I used to tell my parents that I felt as though my “body needed to get out of my skin!” It was painful and uncomfortable and if I couldn’t wiggle or move, I would end up getting extremely aggitated. It didn’t make sense to me back then, I just thought that something was wrong with me!

But now I know I’m an ADHDer, it was my body’s amazing way of telling me I needed to move! And by now allowing my body to move, or jiggle, I don’t often get that feeling anymore.

However, if stick me in a car for more than an hour, I will feel like I need to jump out of my skin again. I start to get really cranky and irritable, and my three ADHDer children are exactly the same.

Why is this the case?

ADHD brains naturally are hypoaroused* (meaning that ADHD brains tend to have difficulty reaching and maintaining an optimal level of alertness or brain activation for focusing, engaging in tasks or concentrating). But bodies want to be in an optimal stage of arousal

And our body’s amazing way of keeping ourself alert, awake and engaged in the world around us, is by making our body move or seeking out new and exciting sensations and experiences, which then increases our brain activity! Aren’t we amazing! The flipside is also true however, that we can also pick fights or cause arguments, often very unknowingly, in an attempt to increase our brain activity levels.

Long car trips, unfortunately aren’t that new or exciting (If you’ve seen one cow, you’ve seen them all!) and they definetly don’t let us move around enough! So, since we know that long car trips are going to be painful, and there is definite potential for our ADHDers to head into dangerous territory when we feel this way – let’s be proactive in preparing for them!

Here are my 5 top tips for road trip travelling with ADHDers these holidays:

TIP #1: Review your expectations!

You know that the car trip is potentially going to be challenging, so let go of the idea that you might have, that this is going to be a blissful family holiday where the kids are happily singing Kumbaya in the back seat. I mean if that happens – GREAT! As long as you like the song I suppose!

Make sure you have had enough sleep (or as much as you possibly can), maybe pack your own headphones or a book to read (if you can read in the car – which I can’t. The last time I tried that it ended not so well!) and remember to keep calm and breath when things get tough!

TIP #2: Plan to stop – ALOT!

Plan many stops throughout the trip! Depending on the age of your children, or the significance of either yours or your child’s need to move, I would say to try and stop around once every hour, even if it’s for 5 mins. Don’t try and push through when you notice them starting to get restless. Stopping for 5 mins at that time can really make the car trip so much more pleasant in the long run – even if it takes you a bit longer to reach your destination.

When you stop, try and make the stops as active as possible – have running races, play a game of soccer or handball or even grab the bike off the back of the car once in a while and go for a little ride. Enjoy the process, not just destination.

If you have time, (or the planning capacity), then look at your route on google maps and see if there are any unique places to stop. This can be fun for your kids too, if they are old enough. My son (14) loves planning our road trips. He will find us the coolest places to stop along the way.

We have a 4.5 hour journey coming up these holidays, so he has planned our stops. First stop is at a massive sundial! We will spend some time learning to read one, and it’s right next to a big park for running around in too! Then, because he knows me so well, has planned our next stop at a coffee shop with a beautiful garden attached.

We also have a list of all the “big” things in Australia, and are slowly ticking them off when we visit them. So far we have seen the big coins in Deakin, the big axe in Kew, the big banana in Coffs Harbour, the big Australian cattle dog in Muswellbrook, the big golden guitar in Tamworth, the big Koala in Port Macquaire, the big merion in Goulburn – actually we have seen alot, so I will stop there or I’ll make you very bored!

Tip #3: Have a range of basic games to play!

We always play games in the car, even on short trips! But having a good range of these games to intersperce between other games, stops and activities is a great idea! Putting my Speech Pathology hat on, these games are also FANTASTIC for facilitating language, pre-literacy, literacy and conversational skills!

Some of our favourites are:

I spy – we use lots of different categories to play, such as;

• Colours (e.g. I spy something that is red)
• Letters and sounds (e.g. I spy something starting with “ee” or E)
• Categories (e.g. I spy an animal)

The alphabet category game – This is where you each take a turn naming a thing from a pre-determined category moving through the alphabet. We often will do animals, countries, food, things from Harry Potter, Names of Pokemon (this is really hard! haha) – really anything you can think of!

• If we chose Harry Potter for example, the first person would say something starting with A – “Aragog” (This is the big spider that Hagrid loves if you are not a HP fan!), the next person is on B – Bellatrix (A dangerous witch!) , the next person is on C – Crookshanks (This is Hermione’s cat!) and you keep going until you reach Z!

The number plate game – This is where you collaboratively have to sequentially find each letter of the alphabet in number plates of the cars you pass by. You can also do this with numbers.

The Rainbow Car game – This is where you have to find a car in each colour of the rainbow song. Sounds easy? Well it’s really not! There are some rules. You have to do it in the order of the song (“Red and Yellow and pink and green, purple and orange and blue”). It’s really hard to find a pink and purple car!

Last, but definetly not least is the Cow Game. This one is definetly for a loud family who doesn’t get embarrased easily! That describes my family, so we LOVE it. We take turns “mooing” at cows in paddocks and if the cows look up at you then you get a point. If the cows don’t look up at you, you don’t get a point. But you have to be ok with “mooing” even if someone is in the paddock or there is a car next to you! That’s the rules! You can also “neigh” at horses or “baa” at sheep!

We always end up in hysterics and it really passes the time on country trips. Honestly – give it a try!

Tip #4: Take a range of printable games!

We love printable games in the car too. It gets the kids off the screens, even if it’s for a few minutes at a time. Most of the games can also be played as competitions between kids, so it can be so fun!

You can google printable car games or we have a printable pack available at our shop that I made for my kids when they were younger. If you use the code ROADTRIP723 you can get 50% off this printable until the end of the school holidays (Friday 14th of July 2023). These are printable games that you can give to your children to play as you drive. It includes:

• 4x Bingo Boards – as a competition to see who can cross off their squares first. The kids have to find a cow, traffic lights, a traffic cone, a slide, a red flower and other things that are common along the road.
• The Rainbow game – (4 sheets – one each with green, purple, pink and blue writing, so you can match your child’s favourite colour to know who owns which game sheet). This has coloured dots that encourages the children to look outside and find objects that are 9 different colours.
• The Alphabet Game – This is a printable version of the alphabet game of above. When we say “ready, set, go” the kids have a competition to see who can finish the sheet first. It is based on animals, but you can make it to reflect any category your kids would like!
• Shop Bingo – Your kids can tally how many McDonalds’, Kmarts’, KFCs’, Coles’ and other shops as they drive and see which shop they saw the most of during their trip.
• The Number Plate game – As above, there are printables that have the alphabet in cute little blocks, so you can find and tick off each letter of the alphabet when you find them in a number plate.
• What’s the car’s name game – We ADORE playing this game and we often end up in stitches. This game has 3 names starting with each letter of the alphabet that you allocate based on the car’s number plate. Do you see a car with a number plate of STV? The car’s name is Silly Troll Vacuum. A car with a KPE number plate? It’s name is Keen Pirate Eyeball!
• A scaffold for the 20 question game: Each person can take turns thinking of an object or thing. The other players in the car can use the scaffold to ask questions to try and figure out what it is they are thinking of. “Is it made of metal? Is it soft?”

Tip #5: Let them have screens – but set limits.

I remember when my kids were little I would make them have absolutely no screen time in the car on long trips. It made it very challenging and often just made me frustrated that the kids weren’t enjoying their holidays more!

But honestly, let them pass some of the time away playing some little games on the iPad or watching Netflix. Make sure you pre-set boundaries around screens though, to still encourage them to enjoy the world around them! It might be you can have your screens between this stop and this stop, or you can have your phones for 30 mins now. Whatever you feel comfortable with, but by setting the boundaries first and being clear with them, will help reduce any fights around giving them back. (I did say reduce not elimitate! haha)

Remember- have fun, make memories and keep in mind that your kids are only this age once – embrace and treasure this time together.

AND above all – drive safely! Happy Holidays from all of us at ADHD Done Differently!

References:

Huang, J., Ulke, C. & Strauss, M. Brain arousal regulation and depressive symptomatology in adults with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). BMC Neurosci 20, 43 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12868-019-0526-4

* It’s important to note that every ADHD brain is unique and not everyone with ADHD will have the same strengths or challenges. However, research will often make generalisations about ADHDers, if they see a trait in the majority of the ADHDer population. In this context, research shows that the statistical majority of ADHDers’ brains are hypoaroused on fMRI and EEG tests.