Kids have their own set of complaints about travel

By Karla Cripps CNN

9 years ago

Kids should ride in rear-facing car seats longer, pediatricians say. New guidelines in the April 2011 issue of Pediatrics advise parents to keep their toddlers in rear-facing car seats until they are 2 years old or until they reach the maximum height and weight for their particular seat. Kids younger than 8-years-old should be seated in a belt-positioning booster seat.

Whether you’re strapping lawn chairs between the seats to keep the kids from maiming each other or secretly fantasizing about that bottle of Chardonnay you’re going to reward yourself with for enduring yet another round of “The Lego Movie” during the drive, road trips with the kids can be painful.

But guess what? In their eyes, you’re no rainbow-pooping unicorn either.

Car maker Ford surveyed 2,002 children children aged 7-12 in Europe, asking what annoys them most about car journeys and how their parents handle stress.

Countries included in the survey were France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the UK.

What’s their number one gripe?

Having to endure their parents’ singing.

They also complained about badly behaved moms and dads who shout at other drivers, swear and pick their noses.

“I was just scratching it!”

The Ford survey, conducted earlier this year, was aimed at better understanding what children like and don’t like about traveling in cars, says the company.

Singing parents were found to be least popular in the UK, where 39% of children ranked this their biggest pet hate.

Children in France — the only country that didn’t rank singing as the worst habit — were twice as likely to complain about their parents shouting at other drivers.

In fact, it would appear quite a few parents should introduce their mouths to a bar of soap.

Across Europe, 61% of children revealed parents got angry or used “naughty words,” with French parents being the worst offenders (74%).

Of all the kids questioned, those in the UK were most likely to choose nose-picking as the worst parental habit, followed by Italy and Germany.

As for getting kids to behave, snacks, TV shows, smartphones and movies were the most common bribes, said surveyed children.

So what question are you most likely to get asked by a child during a boring car journey?

According to the survey, it’s: “Are we there yet?”

Nice to know some things never change.