by Gina Cariño
Home >> Travelling with Kids
Fasten your seatbelt, the emergency doors are there, your life jacket will drop from the overhead compartment, put on your oxygen mask. Yes, YOURS first, THEN your children’s. Pay attention to the flight attendant. Think of yourself first. It’s the ONLY way to travel with kids.
If you’re in Barcelona for a weekend, a visit to the Tibidabo Amusement Park is not exactly your idea of enlightenment, is it? You don’t like theme parks, so even Poble Espanyol would only put you in a foul mood, wouldn’t it? Which isn’t good for the kids in the long run, is it? Am I such a bad mother for thinking that there is magic enough in the world of GaudÃ, magic enough in picture books you can buy about the white-haired old man who was run down by a streetcar? Incidentally, why not tell your 4-year-old son that “modernismeâ€? in English is neither modernism nor modernity, but Catalan Art Nouveau? It’s never too early.
The brick-and-iron building that houses the Tà pies Museum is “modernisme� of a less enchanted kind, but the sculpture of tangled wires that floats over the roof, which is turn-of-millennium Barcelona Design, is a sufficient treat for any child, I promise! So shut up about Camp Nou! It’s not necessary. Am I such a negligent parent for never taking my children to see “Snowflake� while it was still alive? It wasn’t necessary.
Speaking of zoos, it’s common here for folks, when announcing forthcoming trips to The Capital, to include the zoo in their plans. I never thought the Madrid Zoo to be more a must than the Prado. Nor any other zoo. Never did I go to a zoo of my own accord, so a zoo is the last thing I’ll take my kid to on a trip, unless I’m in Berlin and reading BERLIN NOIR, and the sexy detective is meeting an informer in the Berlin Zoo.
I cringe even more when Paris and EuroDisney (or whatever it’s called now) are pronounced in the same sentence. I’m not anti-Disney. You’ve got to be a grim fool not to acknowledge the genius of Disney. I love Disneyland and Disneyworld, okay? But in Anaheim and Orlando, never in Paris. I’ll sooner take my son to Monet’s garden and lily pond farther out in Giverny. The Pompidou Center is a giant Lego and children walk out of it forever able to spot a Gris. Months later you’re crossing the street and they blurt out, look at that woman, she looks just like a Modigliani! Ah, joy! All because you did what you yourself wanted.
Tips? Give them relevant reading. Have them draw, write, and paste things in a travel notebook. Let them send postcards to their friends. Growl at them when they mope. Snarl when they whine. Give them vinegar when they’re thirsty for the Nth time. But most importantly, pursue your own interests. They’ll get so much from it in the long run, including your good mood.
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Posted on http://www.weeklyletter.com at 2006-09-07 12:00:00 +0200
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As usual, good report Gina!
I think that we need two periods of holidays, one with kids and another without them.
Kids don’t like travelling around, when you try to visit a church or museum,.. they always get bored. They prefer to go to the zoo, amusement Park or aquatic park like their friends.
I disagree completely with Leticia. I have two children – one of them is 10 an the other 6 – and they enjoy a lot visiting museums and cathedrals. The youngest loves the organs to the cathedral and when we visit one we have to buy a postcard of the organ.
I don’t like to travel without my children. It is wonderful to realize how your children learn and grown travelling.
We have also two children ( 15 & 12 ) and the four of us go together everywhere . We ( my wife and I) like it and they (the boys) like it too. Not all of us like all the places in the same way ( sometimes more, sometimes less), but the real fun is doing all the things together. As a family. I know that this is not going to last much longer, because children grow very fast and mine will live their own life soon. That’ll be the time of travelling alone (and probably missing them).
Happy Saint’s Day, Gina!!!
Another promise is a promise
Hello Gina,
I think that there can be a big variety of motivations and objectives behind a trip.
We can travel …for the joy of the kids, the trip could have a cultural focus, it could be a romatic vacation, or all of them together.
Do kids fit in all of these trips? Each one of us would probably give different answers to this question, as we all have different interests and priorities.
I think that kids would learn and be what we teach them. So, in a trip, there should be a time for everyone to have fun or enjoy the trip.
Regards,
Cristina
Leticia – can I go on holiday with your kids? I prefer to go to zoos, amusement parks and especially water parks!
:-)
Thanks for the great article. Now, what do I think? I agree, for the most part, that children should participate in “adult” activities. When I was a child, I hated amusement parks. I would rather have gone to museums and churches. Now I have fun anywhere, whether it be Tibidabo or the British Museum. It is important for kids to learn to do this, too.
Here, I find that kids are treated as another (dumb) species. At our family dinners, if there was turkey, we got turkey. Here, they shove loads of croquetas at them to keep them quiet. Television wasn’t just dumbed-down clowns bouncing around singing nonsense; we learned from it. If we went on vacation to Disneyland, we went to Disneyland, but if we went to New York, we saw the museums and the buildings and the…everything! When we went to Dallas, we saw both the and the Sixth Floor Museum and Six Flags over Texas.
Just as we as adults like options, kids do, too. Show them everything and they will choose what they like. Don’t close doors, though, just because “they’re kids.” They are people in construction who, if they are never given the opportunity to love a museum, probably never will.
A very good article to discuss!. In my short experience as father; I have a baby of 10 months, I have listened for the same subject a lot of different opinions of everything, in general logical. My conclusion is the best for the baby is the father’s decision.
Apart of them, I remember when I was a child that my parents went with us (sons) to everywhere. I remember to visit cathedrals, castles, Romanesques ruins, … and in this moment, sometimes I was boring with it and said “no more stones, please�.
At the present, I like to travel around Spain and abroad and visit and know all the monuments. Thanks parents to give me culture!.
Good weekend!
When I write a dictionary this will be in it.
Child, n.: a noise with dirt on it.
My parents take me to lots of places, including art museums. Just yesterday we were in the Guggenheim-Bilbao to see a big exhibition on Russian art from the 13th century to recent times, and the other weekend we were in Bilbao’s Fine Arts Museum to see an exhibition of paintings, drawings, and theater costume designs by Malevich, who is also in the first exhibition because he was Russian. Some of his paintings are suprematist. Suprematism means very abstract. For example, just a black or red or white square. I like his paintings that are cubist, especially the pictures of people formed by colorful triangles and circles and rectangles. Yesterday, after RUSSIA, we saw CABARET in the Teatro Arriaga. There were about six children in the audience.
As Gina says at the very end of her article, the most important thing is for the parents to pursue their own interests, i.e. they should not go out of their way just for the sake of their children. In Gina’s case, art and history are her main interests, so why should she sacrifice a visit to a Uffizi galleries if she happens to be in Florence? If, however, Leticia thinks that amusement parks and aqua parks are more her thing, then why should she sacrifice a visit to Aqualung?
There’s one thing I’d like to add, though. As someone (was it Mar?) said in the forum, sometimes children find museums absolutely boring, even if their parents happen to be super-interested. I think this is more a question of motivation. If you make your child visit the whole Louvre, taking a look at every single work of art from room I to room MDV, it’s no wonder that kids – or adults – get bored. But if you sign up in a special children’s workshop in which the kids have to search for certain animals in the background of certain Flemish tapestries in order to find a treasure, then… of course they’re going to have fun! The secret is to make culture something cool.
Perhaps one of the best kid’s art workshops I’ve ever been to was in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Vitoria. You don’t have to go all the way to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York or to the British Museum, London, to find cool art and cool workshops. Sometimes the best pedagogical stuff are just around the corner…
The idea is not to over-dichotomize between what’s for kids and what isn’t, not only in travels but also in food, entertainment, reading material, etc. With a bit of imagination and a lot of conversation, lots of things commonly considered “not for kids” can be made to be “for kids.” For this approach to child-raising/parenting I have been admired, praised, and emulated, but also criticized, reprimanded, and vilified. But I simply do with my children what my parents did with me, including the travel notebook requirement, which is a GREAT exercise in every way.
When I was young, the only thing that I need to entertain myself was my imagination, so when I visited a horrible musseum with my parents, or when we jumped and screamed and enjoyed in a wonderful aquatic park, I thought that I was this guy that was painted in this picture, or that I was the valiant knight that was riding that horse, or tried to find in this mixture of colours of a Miro’s picture something real, like a hand, an eye, the sun … or simply I put my body in this narrow tunnel that sent to me to the cold water.
I’m trying to say that the parents must to do all they want when they were on hollydays, because their children find the way to entertain themselves in the worst place in the earth with the only ‘help’ of their imagination. The ‘parents role’ on hollidays must be to develop their child’s imagination and let them to play with it.
What a pity to lose this kind of imagination.
First of all, I want to tell It’s a very good article and very apt in this time: holidays!!. I suppose when you spend your holidays with children, sometimes It’s very difficult to speak about ” your holidays” because that concept refers to them. If you want to enjoy as they do it’s to become like children too, and if for example, you like playing or going to the same places they like, That’s all O.K. if not, it’s very difficult to stay in the same line.
An the other hand, you can enter into negotiations with them, and you can divide the time in two parts, one for things they like and the other part for your likes. Try it and good luck for all !.
Concepción Fernández
I do agree with Paola, I mean, what really matter is travelling because it gives parents and children a great opportunity to meet other cultures , to taste local food, to see wonderful landscapes and nature or be delighted in museums of Art.
What kids will learn depends on theirs parents interests, so I think they might consider a holiday which includes not only going to the zoo or not only going to museums but a well balanced mix
The best thing is planning a variety of activities: indoors (culturals like museums, concerts or theatre plays) and outdoors (snorkelling, whale watching, visiting thematic parks,….).
In a few words: The more kids travel the more they will learn.
Gracia
Travelling with kids begins at home and around it, through books, cultural events, conversation, etc. Then when we really do go far, nothing’s really new. It also goes without saying that travelling kids are pre-trained to be observant as well as to adapt to things and circumstances and be considerate and well-mannered.
Hello,
Some time ago, I read that human beings learn by imitating the people around
them. So I think that if you go to a museum or any other place “for adults”
with your children and you have fun, the children have fun too. I agree with
Gina and Paola when they say that when you travel you must visit the places
that you want. But I also think that children are children and they want to
visit zoos, water parks, etc., so you must visit those places too and enjoy
them.
Ramón
Hello, I don’t have children but I’m pregnant and it’s good for me your way to travel with children. But I think, with my experience when I was a baby, that when you travel with them, it must be a mixing of vacations, you can visit churchs, castles, etc. and you can enjoy with amusement parks, zoos, etc.
Gina,
I don’t have children and I like travel, and I think that it is not the same the trips that you can do with or without children, you must change the “chip”.
It is not the same to go to another country, and I think that it isn’t possible to go to tropical or to third world’s countries.
With children you must go to beach, to theme parks or to small villages in your own country, if you don’t want to have problems.
And if you do other kind of trips, you’re very courageous.
Conchi Calvo
I am from a tropical Third World country!
My husband and I have two chindren (5 and 2). We like to travel with our children. We prefer to go to the sea or a mountain. But other periods of holidays, my husband and I try to visit other place most interesting for our.
ANA