Peugeot’s guide to kids and long journeys

In conjunction with the launch of Peugeot’s new 3008 family car range, the French manufacturer has carried out some research on long family car journeys. According to the Peugeot survey 55% of parents admit to losing their temper with their children on long car trips.

Furthermore, 62% of parents admit to being happier without their children in the car and 43% say they feel anxious, irritable or simply angry when travelling with their children. Tanya Byron, a child Psychologist has been working with Peugeot on this survey. She has come up with a number of suggestions to help ease tension on long drives.

Byron said, she said: "In order to ensure a happy holiday, it's important to make sure the journey there can be part of the fun too," suggests Tanya. "A stressful journey with whining and fighting kids can cause huge tension and lead to arguments and a bad atmosphere that can overshadow the holiday barely before it has begun.”

She encourages parents to include activities that can be carried in a moving car that involve four key elements:

• ·         Distraction

• ·         Communication

• ·         Relaxation

• ·         Having fun!

Call it lazy parenting but my way of dealing with long journeys is to buy a few new DVDs and let the kids go through them. On our last trip to and from Scotland the kids went through the entire Harry Potter collection. They were so engulfed in the movie(s) they did not make any noise!

Our road trip started at Peugeot Bristol and went right across the middle of the UK to Edinburgh, Scotland. We made a couple of pit stops but the kids didn’t want to get out and miss the movie.