Travelling with Kids 5 - 12 Years & Teenagers

Car travelling is a necessary part of the 4WD experience but too many people cram too many kilometres into a tight itinerary and set themselves long boring days on the bitumen. To many city dwellers, it may be a long drive to actually get off the bitumen and many people mistakenly think that the real trip doesn't begin until they hit the dirt. Please, do not subject yourself and your family to long drives of over 600km in one day just to "get started". The trip starts when you leave your driveway. With this in mind, you should consider that by pushing the family in the car for hours on end will only create bored passengers. Our first section then concentrates on making the driving fun.

For car travelling, game consoles or iPads with game apps, educational games or kids movies are often provided by parents to their children to keep the kids quiet most of the time. These small electronic devices usually run on rechargeable batteries and can keep the kids entertained for hours.

The problem is that car trips can often well exceed the recommended 2 hour screen time duration. There is much evidence to show that exceeding the recommended screen time can be detrimental to sleep patterns, and behaviour so you may well wish to consider how you can monitor this.

One suggestion you might consider is to have an "electronic free day" in which everyone in the family curbs the temptation to use their phone, tablet, or game console. If there is a navigational device in the vehicle then discuss if this is to be included or excluded. Get the kids involved in making the rules for best success.

Other ideas that can be trialled on trips are to find apps and tools that you can put on the device that makes the device a tool for the trip and not just a game console. eg. download a compass app and get the family involved in Geocaching.

Talk about the Tread Lightly principles and encourage your kids to use the phone or iPad camera to take photos to record special memories and sights. Use a voice recorder app to capture sounds of bird calls. Perhaps you can even encourage them (post trip) to create their record of their trip using one of the many online book creation tools.

In Australia, education is compulsory for all children between the ages of 6 to 17 (Tasmania 5-16 years) either in school or registered to homeschool. Once enrolled, children are required to attend school each day it is open for students, with occasional absences being allowed on justified grounds (eg. sick, medical, urgent family, religious).

In regards to travel, families are encouraged to plan for this during school holidays, however in some circumstances students may be eligible to enrol in distance education for travel periods over 50 school days.

Most teachers of primary school aged children will accommodate parents wishing to take their kids out of school for a few weeks for a trip. At this age, educators recognise the importance of giving young minds the opportunity to explore and experience different environments and lifestyles as much as possible, plus they recognise that sometimes learning in context from parents in real-life situations is just as valuable as in the classroom - and sometimes even more so.

For older kids, your school may not be able to cater for your absence. Generally each state operates its own Distance Education Scheme. Talk to your school principal well in advance and seek their advice and referrals. Don't leave it to the last minute. Start with looking at the Australian Government's website and follow links.

Here are a few useful websites you can refer to for further information:-

• Homeschooling Downunder
• Home Education Association