We have a portable DVD player for the car: it only comes out if we are taking a trip of 3+ hours. Shorter than that, we all listen to music or the radio together, or we talk or play car games.
I’m mixed on this, not that it matters since I don’t have any kids.
There’s a car commercial with that curly-haired blond kid that everbody loves to hate. A car pulls up next to him with one of his little friends in the back seat, and the friend’s parents are singing a bad ‘70s song and the kid is clearly suffering untold trauma over this. Our cocky little protagonist then puts on his headphones and turns his attention to the DVD screen in his parents’ SUV, smugly secure in the knowledge that, thank the Lord above, he will never be forced to interact with his family. Yeah, it’s just a commercial, but there’s a grain of truth in there that makes it easy to lament the state of the next generation.
But on the other hand, I honestly can’t say how much it really matters in the long run. Surely it’s no skin off my nose whether kids are looking out of car windows or not. And I really don’t know whether they’re ultimately better off looking out a car window or watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.
So in the end I just kind of shrug and think, “That’s just the way things are these days.” And my gut says this probably isn’t a huge factor in how the kids ultimately turn out.
Possibly, maybe even probably, not. I just thinks it’s worth noting that so many people can’t seem to spend more than two minutes without some kind of electronic distraction and I feel when I see situations like in the OP, I’m witnessing the next phone talking, texting while driving schmuck-in-the-making.
I agree with the gist of the OP.
My kids (K and G1) expect to talk to me and each other, to listen to the audio programming I choose, if any, and to look out the windows.
I think listening to music, or listening to audio books, engages the mind in considerably different ways from watching movies or playing video games. But often we keep the radio off and talk, or just watch the world go by, and think.
I have specifically encouraged the idea of noticing random things in the outside world and developing thoughts from them. Sometimes when it seems boredom may be wearing on the kids, I play a game: what do you see? They tell me something they see outside, and I ask questions. Why do you think that’s like that? What does that make you think of? And so on. Usually this quickly generates other thoughts and questions, and a new conversation under its own power.
Good for you!
There are a bunch of ways to keep a kid occupied. You can make up a kind of bingo card, with stuff you can expect to see on the way, and have your kid be on the lookout for items. We had a board game where you had to sing a part of a song containing a certain word - we took the cards from that game, and played it together on trips with no board or points. You’d have to keep the words to those in songs a six-year old would know.
Count animals. Be on the lookout for broken down cars. Talk about farms or ranches. Bring some coloring books. There are plenty of opportunities to teach numbers and colors and letters. Or, bring some favorite CDs and sign along.
We did all those things with our kids, who were that age before there were DVDs so we weren’t tempted. Hell, my wife took the kids in an RV and traveled all around the country - literally. on the borders from NJ down, across to California, up to Washington State, across to Maine, and back down, without DVD one.
We always looked for cars that were accidentally following us on a trip. Sometimes they’d exit for gas or food. But, we’d see them again hours later after we had exited and got back on the interstate.
We played tag with one car like that for three days on a long trip.
It happens a lot because there’s only a few main interstate corridors crossing the country.
No, it happened because your dad, like mine, was a spy…but he couldn’t tell his family. You were always being watched…
My kids don’t get a DVD player in the car (I’m way to cheap), but we also almost never take long car trips. When we do, we do let them use gameboys and iPods, etc. We let them watch movies on airplanes - both for their comfort and that of the other passengers.
I seldom even listen to the radio in the car. So I put up with “annoying things kids do” - and I’ll tell you, some day it makes you think that a 15 minute drive with your kids zoned out on Scooby Doo is far better than the “Guess What…Chicken Butt” and “He’s touching MEEEEE!” interactions of kids. On those days I resort to music they like and hope it distracts them as much as video, but it doesn’t. Yeah, TV as babysitter probably isn’t the best solution, but they don’t grow up into rational human beings if you murder them for singing “Jingle Bells, Batman Smells” just ONE TOO MANY TIMES either.
(ETA: Seriously, when its slippery out and I’m trying to drive two kids home who WON’T BE QUIET, I can imagine that a DVD player would be a safety feature. Make those kids comatose for the trip so I can concentrate.)
I’ll go even further: putting on movies or TV for kids before school is not just not beneficial, it’s actively detrimental. It’s firing up the wrong portions of the brain to ready it for a day of learning. It also inculcates kids with the idea that every experience in life must involve some form of entertainment, which is also detrimental in school.
When I was a kid en route to school, taken by own parents or by the neighbor in the car pool, we talked about school-related things, about the last night’s homework, about the day’s schedule, was there a test, was anything good coming up, what was for lunch in the cafeteria. Our minds were engaged. We weren’t just plugged into the DVD so that the parents could drive “in peace.”
I feel sorry for kids whose moms and dads can’t have conversations with them.