I admit when Judy Colbert contacted me and told me about her book on temper tantrums I was skeptical. But, I was also interested. After all, who hasn’t had a temper tantrum on a road trip? I’m not even going to pretend I haven’t had a few world class tantrums in the car.

Colbert’s book aims to help parents prevent tantrums in the first place, cut them short when they do occur, and, failing both of those, just help you roll with the punches and make it thru. I found most of the information to be pretty common sense, and I would have appreciated a lot more tips on exactly how to handle more specific situations.

But, I did find some useful advice on preventing tantrums that seemed particularly suited for the road. In particular, Colbert really re-emphasized that kids need a schedule, regular breaks and being an overachiever in terms of how much ground to cover doesn’t always pay off. I think I always try to approach a trip as if a tantrum isn’t a possiblity, that we’ll have all put our super-power-tantrum-busting capes on that day and life will be swell. Wrong! I see that I need to do more planning and avoid the more common causes of tantrums in our family.

I’ve really noticed how much junk food makes us all cranky after a long day in the car so I’m going to try to do as much healthy eating as possible. It’s also too easy for us to run late getting started and then really punish ourselves with late arrivals, not enough sleep and a second day of road trip hell. I’m going to work on setting a more realistic schedule this summer when we go to Yellowstone and then stick to it. We’ll see how that goes.

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