There are many things you can do to make your family holiday as stress free as possible, whether you are taking a short flight for a holiday to Costa Blanca or travelling further afield. Every time you take your children on holiday you will be faced by the usual problems: forgotten toys, long flights and fussy eating. These problems will never go away but there are ways that you can cope with them to make your life easier and your children’s holiday more enjoyable.

The first thing you need to do is to get them involved as early as possible, by getting them to help you chose the hotel or resort you will get them excited and they will be happy to be involved in the decision process. The best thing that you could do would be to create a countdown calendar. Then you can make sure that the essential tasks are dealt with in time for your holiday. So for example you should aim to be packed at least one week before you leave for your holiday. Then you should get you children to help you find all the passports and documents. You could create a mini treasure hunt out of this activity and hide the passports around the house. By doing small things like this you can build their excitement and get them geared up for the main event.

Sometimes taking advantage of low cost holiday deals means having to catch early flights, so you should be prepared for grumpy children. When you arrive at the airport and have to go through the rigmarole that is airport security you can keep them occupied and interested in the whole process. You could describe to them how an airport works or even describe the many locations that the planes travel too. At this stage your role will be more about keeping them occupied above anything else. By talking about the jobs of pilots or airhostesses you can keep them from misbehaving.

Once on the flight make sure they have enough to keep them occupied during the long flight. By packing books, games, colouring books and other activities you can keep your children occupied. We all know that flying can be boring, but if they are kept busy they should be happy enough.

When you arrive at your resort you should have a look to see if there are any children’s clubs and other things that you can do with your children. This might include water parks, museums, the beach or historical monuments.
You have to remember that taking your children on holiday is less relaxing than going as a couple, but travelling with children can be incredibly exciting. Children see things that we can’t and going on holiday with your kids may just teach you a thing or two.