Stress Management Tips for Family Vacations
Is your family preparing for a road trip? Or a quick overnight at Grandma’s? Or a flight to a faraway adventure across the country?
As you prepare your packing list, be sure to add “nervous system regulation” for everyone. It’s the invisible item that will save you from epic meltdowns and give you the best chance at creating fun memories that will last.
Keep reading to learn how to stay regulated during every family outing.
3 Tips for Staying Safe and Regulated While Driving with Kids
If there’s one situation where all the ideal parenting strategies go out the window, it’s got to be when you’re behind the wheel.
PSA: Don’t drive while dysregulated!
When you’re on the road a lot of stressors cross your path: unexpected construction causing massive delays, reckless drivers cutting you off, or your children acting like they’re in a UFC match in the back seat.
#1: Accept the current reality.
Things that are outside your control will happen. However, you still have a choice of how to respond: stay stressed about it or accept it and relax just a little.
If you’ll be late, communicate with whoever is expecting you, activate a contingency plan, or release fear of anyone’s judgment because there was nothing you could have done. By accepting the reality you can stay more focused on the task of driving, and maybe have more presence of mind and a longer fuse for dealing with everyone’s impatience.
Using a mantra like, “We’ll get there eventually and right now my focus is staying safe,” can help your nervous system downshift from anger to neutral while you’re still stuck on the road.
“We’ll get there eventually.”
My go-to in this situation is to turn on some Paul Simon for myself and start a game of I-Spy for the kids. A quick text to Aunt Martha or skipping the stop at the fruit stand along the way might be necessary, too. I don’t like being late, but I’d rather shrug it off than let it ruin my day.
#2: Manage your self-regulation.
This is hard. If your favorite parenting self-regulation techniques include going for a run, splashing cold water on your face, or sitting in a dark room, you are SOL in the car. So then what?
It’s time to get creative.
Can you ensure you always have a cold beverage in the car to get that cooling effect in your body?
Chewing gum can help ease the tension of your clamped jaw.
You can even squeeze and relax your glutes to loosen the tight muscles in your legs.
My personal favorite is gripping the steering wheel like I’m strangling a venomous snake or banging on it like an 80s hair band drummer (ya, I’m a whole different person in my imagination).
In extreme cases remember the option of finding a safe place to pull over, stop the car, and get out.
I’ve done this. Many times. This typically happened on the daily commutes when my kids were loud, bickering, and not responding to anything I suggested or requested. And usually, I was stressed about other things before they even got in the car. Remember: don’t drive while dysregulated!
#3: Be prepared.
For longer road trips, preparation goes a very long way. I’m talking about all the obvious stuff: snacks, activities, entertainment, snacks, and more activities. If you are the sole driver this becomes even more important. If you have another adult and they can be the snack & entertainment manager and referee, make a plan for what that will look like.
Do whatever you can to keep the kids happy, relaxed, and engaged so you can focus on the road, no matter how many bags of goldfish get dumped on the floor or how many stickers end up all over the seats. Road trips will be messy >> refer back to tip #1.
Parenting while driving may be the hardest situation. Your attention is on the road, and your kids still need you. Rock, meet hard place.
You can still use strategies to lessen the damage from unexpected delays or hours-long trips:
accept it rather than fight it
manage yourself with strategies that work in the car
plan and plan even more to set everyone up for success
No matter what comes your way, remember that you always have options for regulating your nervous system while traveling.
Leave a comment below and tell me: Which of these tips will you use the next time you buckle up?
How to Create a Sensory Profile for Kids and Parents
AKA: What Every Family Member Needs to Get Calm After Nervous System Dysregulation
A Personal Story
While Disney World calls itself “the most magical place on Earth,” not every experience feels magical in this old lady’s body.
When we lived in South Florida I took Nina to visit Disney, and most of the trip was beyond amazing.
But when I climbed out of my seat at the end of Space Mountain, my stomach was wobbly, my head was throbbing, I felt nauseous, my back ached, and my eyes were straining to find anything to focus on.
Parenting during sensory overload is a very real struggle!
AND Nina was on the verge of tears, completely overwhelmed, too.
That was NOT the magical Disney experience we signed up for!!
The ride on Space Mountain was an intense example of sensory overload:
😣 a dark space (sent my mind racing)
🤢 unpredictable twists and turns (too fast for my vestibular system to comprehend)
🫨 jerky, bumpy rails, and a hard plastic seat (too much pressure for this old lady)
😲 a strange vacuum of smell, too sterile (made me sense something was wrong)
The thrilling fun I remember from riding Space Mountain as a teenager was a far cry from the disorienting chaos I felt as an adult.
Thank goodness adult me understands that I can resettle my system by giving it what it needs, inside and out:
☀️ sunlight to literally see more clearly
👟 my two feet on solid ground to let my stomach settle
🎒 setting down my backpack until my back was less tense
👃 breathing the smells of salty popcorn and slathered sunscreen as a reminder of the familiarity and comfort around me
I took a moment to get a little more centered before focusing on caring for Nina.
Her physical body didn’t have as much sensory overload, but she needed my full presence to take care of her emotional body.
When she yelled at me, “How dare you take me on that ride! I’m too young! I’m never riding that again!!” I had all the empathy she needed and had no urge to make her speak kindly and calmly.
How You Can Help Your Family
Understanding sensory needs (mine and hers) helped me turn a nightmare experience into a blip of yuck during our whole vacation.
You can take stock of your own sensory needs, and those of your children.
👉 Download my sensory profile PDF for family travel success!
When you can gather sensory tools for family trips, you’ll be able to minimize meltdowns and offer attuned co-regulation with kids so you can get back to having fun together.
After you create a sensory profile for each person in your family, keep it in mind for all stages of your vacation:
packing
traveling
activities at the destination
decompressing when you return home
Do you need guidance to create a sensory profile for yourself or your child? That’s something we can explore together in a private coaching session.
Vagus, Baby: How to Parent Consciously Despite the Stress of Family Travel
Here’s a question parents ask me all the time:
How do I stop flipping my lid?
I love this question because it is full of hope and personal responsibility.
You, the parent, get to regulate yourself in order to show up for your child.
Kids are gonna be kids; there’s no avoiding it, no matter how prepared and well-intentioned you are.
Parenting always has chaotic moments, so how can you extend your fuse and have more tolerance for the inevitable stress?
Vagus, baby!
No, not the gambling mecca in the middle of the desert.
I’m talking about the massive cranial nerve that is the key to your self-regulation: the vagus nerve.
Here’s the gist: the vagus nerve is the braking system that helps your body slow down and shift out of “fight or flight” mode into “feed & breed, rest & digest” mode.
Among many other things, the vagus nerve impacts:
~ sleep and wake cycles
~ digestive function
~ immune system
~ stress tolerance 👉This is where I’m gonna help you today.
Did you know you can continually enhance the effectiveness of your vagus nerve?
It’s sort of like a muscle in the sense that you can strengthen it; it’s not fixed like your bones that stop growing once they reach full maturity.
5 Simple Ways to “Tone” Your Vagus Nerve
… so that even when the kids are fighting over the last bag of Pirate Booty and you see solid red on the GPS, adding at least an hour to your drive, you can keep your cool and arrive at your destination ready to relax rather than pulling your hair out before vacation has even begun.
Try out some of these simple vagus nerve exercises for parents to increase your bandwidth before your next outing.
#1 Nature: Any Small Dose
As a human, you are an organic being.
Noticing other organic beings like trees, animals, and flowers creates a sort of life-to-life connection without any extra effort. Even noticing elements that signify life in our ecosystem, like clouds in the sky, wind brushing across your skin, or viewing a sunset, will have an engaging effect on your vagus nerve.
It’s not essential to immerse yourself in nature (although swimming in the ocean, hiking in a forest, or walking barefoot in the grass are massive boosts) - just finding any small sign of life will have a positive effect, like seeing clouds reflected off a skyscraper.
The critical piece is your intention: noticing nature and how you feel as you connect with another living being.
#2 Music: Listening, Singing, or Humming
It doesn’t matter what genre you choose; just that you enjoy it.
The physical vibrations happening in your inner ear, pharynx, and larynx as you listen to or create music work positively to activate the vagus nerve.
This can be especially helpful when you’re stuck: waiting to board a plane, scanning the highway for an exit with good lunch options, or lathering up squirmy children with sunscreen.
Who knew that nervous system regulation for parents could be this easy?!
#3 Smiling & Laughing
Knock, knock.
Who’s there?
Yoda-lay-hee.
Yoda-lay-hee who?
I didn’t know you could yodel! 😂
Terrible jokes aside, smiling and laughing are quick and simple ways to stimulate your vagus nerve.
This is when I confidently recommend scrolling social media, but only on accounts with cute puppies or goat yoga.
#4 Making the “Voo” Sound
This 3-minute video demonstrates a few ways to stimulate the vagus nerve with long vocalizations, increasing its capacity to move stress through your body.
Yes, this exercise may seem awkward, so try it out when no one’s watching. And if anybody asks, just tell them you’re preventing your own meltdown!
#5 Horse Lips
This practice has many names like motor boat, zerbert, and raspberry.
Whatever you call it, fluttering your lips with a long exhale is a simple way to check how much tension you’re holding in your face, and release it.
Bonus: invite your kids to do it too, and pretty soon everyone will be laughing together.
As you prepare for a local day trip adventure, a full-blown vacation in another time zone, or something in between, be sure to add “vagus nerve exercises” to your plan so you have a better chance at creating happy memories on your family outing.
Which of these parenting self-regulation techniques will you put on your list?
Leave a comment below! 👇
Whether you’re hitting the highway for an afternoon at grandma’s or flying across the country for a grand family adventure consider trying one of these stress management tools for families.
Find one that will help you stay regulated so you can effectively co-regulate with your child… and have the best chance of creating legendary memories of a fun family event.
