Kids Games -- How long until we get there?

Now it's actually fun to hear this phrase in the car

ADDED August 17, 2008

The name of this game is, of course, a classic American kids' whine. No roadtrip is complete without hearing this complaint from the backseat - and without it being repeated every five minutes.

Well, why not turn it to your advantage? Why not make a game of it?

Since you're the adult and the person driving, you can make the best guess as to how long it will take you guys to reach your destination. So, make a guess, and announce it to your passengers. ("I think we'll be home in 20 minutes.")

This game is best played with two kids, one who can choose to say your guess is too low and the other to say its too high. I stick to my guns, and hope for my guess to be neither too high nor too low, but right on the money. The person whose prediction winds up being correct wins, of course. (If you have more than two kids in the car, you can figure out a way to make this game work. Teams of kids could hope for ‘too high, for instance.)

The true fun of this game comes after the guessing. My kids demand constant updates: they want to know how much time has passed and who is winning. We talk about how traffic and stoplights slow us down, making the trip longer. We talk about how a lack of traffic and good visibility helps us move along smoothly. (And we talk about speed limit laws - the reason we're not just putting the pedal to the metal with abandon.)

When you reach your destination, someone will have won and other people will have lost. Congratulate the winner, but here's another chance to help the kids be ‘good winners' and ‘good losers.' We're happy for the person who has won, of course, but it's just a car guessing game, and we'll do it all again during out next outing.

And in the end, everybody has won. You've taken the annoying whine and turned it into an entertaining game.