Keeping Peace in the Car

Bickering in the car: it’s enough to drive any mother over the edge. My kids sit three in a row across the backseat of our car with plenty of access to one another’s toys, hair and within easy spitting distance. It can get ugly. 

When our youngest was an infant, she served as a good buffer between the two older kids. But now, at 19 months, she’s in the game. She pulls hair, snatches toys and snacks and uses her best weapon— her voice. Sometimes my son and older daughter say things in response to her whining that I think I’ve heard come from my own mouth: “What do you want?” 

One trick I’ve used a lot with my older kids comes from a book called Parenting with Love and Logic. The authors recommend, among other tactics designed to throw kids off their normal course of arguing, simply pulling over to the side of the road and hopping out of the car. The first time I did this, I happened to have the novel I was reading with me. I pulled over into a bank parking lot and found a grassy spot to read my book. 

This works best if you’ve got extra time, of course, but it did exactly what the authors promised. My kids were shocked when I calmly told them that I could not drive while they were fighting and I’d be outside reading my book until they were ready to find a new way to talk to each other. They sat in the car, mouths agape and eyes wide at first, and then panicked. 

I’m sure this tactic would lose its shock value after a few times, but since then, I’ve only had to do it a couple more times. Just mentioning that we might need to pull over is enough to snap them back to good behavior. They just can’t handle their mom acting so strangely. Of course, this is not at all effective for my toddler, but that’s just the phase she’s in. 

One offensive maneuver for keeping fighting at bay in the car is keeping the kids distracted from each other. We have learned to love the variety of audio books available at the St. Louis County Library. The first set we tried was Adventures in Odyssey, which contains four discs of episodes from the kids’ radio program. 

My kids have also loved listening to Beverly Cleary books. My 5 year-old daughter complained about listening to the mishaps of Ramona Quimby at first, but before long I think she was identifying with the heroine’s quirks. 

Another book, Young Fredle, by Cynthia Voigt, received mixed reviews. My son loved it and recently asked to check it out again, but my daughter said that it was too boring. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, one of my childhood favorites, was another that didn’t receive much enthusiasm and was abandoned by Chapter 3, much to my disappointment. 

The audio books especially came in handy in July, when our family trekked across Nebraska and Wyoming for 20 hours to get to the Grand Tetons and Yellowstone National Park. We have yet to purchase a DVD player for the car because audio books meet the same need, but without the guilt we might experience if we opted for multiple hours of movies on the road. 

When I notice that my kids have had a good long run at any good behavior, including being polite in the car, I love to surprise them with a quick stop at Kipp’s Candies near Bayless and Interstate 55.

Run by family friends, the kids can pick out car-shaped chocolates, handed to them in their own individual white paper bags, a move that impresses any young child and makes a $2.00 purchase seem like an exciting celebration. I make sure to pick out some molasses puffs or other chocolates for my good record of not losing my temper in the car, too. 

With our mouths full of yummy chocolate from Kipp’s I can almost guarantee there will be no fighting on our way home.