Going on holiday with four kids under seven is a nightmare — what do you do in the car?

3 April 2010

Toby Young suffers from Status Anxiety

When you’ve got as many young children as I have, the prospect of going on holiday anywhere isn’t very appealing. It’s not being somewhere else that’s the problem, though there’s a risk that their sleep patterns will be disrupted. Rather, it’s getting to wherever it is you’re going. How do you keep four children under seven entertained during the journey?

This Easter we’re off to Suffolk to stay with my parents-in-law and that means a two-and-a-half-hour drive. One method of passing the time is to get all four children to play I Spy, not easy given their ages. Charlie, our one-year-old, only participates in the guessing part of the game — and he always guesses the same thing, namely, ‘choo choo’. If I happen to see a train, I’ll say, ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with “t”,’ in the hope that when Charlie immediately pipes up with ‘choo choo’ I’ll be able to say, ‘Yes, Charlie, that’s right.’ But six-year-old Sasha is wise to this and will usually shout out ‘train’ before Charlie has a chance to speak.

Sasha, like her father, is pathologically competitive. When it’s her turn, which it is at least 50 per cent of the time, she’ll always come up with something fiendishly complicated, such as ‘I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘r-h-t’.’ That is to say, three words rather than one. After five minutes, when nobody’s managed to guess it, she’ll say, ‘D’you give up?’ ‘Certainly not,’ I’ll say, even though I know it’s hopeless. Finally, after exhausting every possibility, I’ll reluctantly concede defeat. ‘Right hand turn,’ she’ll say, quickly followed by, ‘OK, my turn again.’

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