Traveling with Kids: What Parents Need Most

Michelle Nott discusses the importance of having hope in the kindness of others while traveling alone with her young kids.

I did something scary the other day; I flew on an airplane by myself with my five young kids, ages 6 years to 1 year old (no twins). This is the first time I have flown with all five kids by myself, but it’s not the first time I have made a trip like this.

My husband is in the Army National Guard, which means he drills one weekend a month and has annual training in the field every summer that can last for a few weeks. When he has his annual training, I opt to take my kids to visit my parents on the East Coast, so I have some help and we get a longer time to visit. However, it does mean that I have had my fair share of traveling solo with young kids.

I have never enjoyed flying as an adult; the hustle and stress raises my anxiety. But flying is a lot less stressful for me than being in a car for hours with young kids, so I make it work. The question is, what do you do to prepare for a trip with young children when you’re the only adult traveling with them?

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One thing I have learned through the years is that most people are kind and willing to help. You can choose to go into a situation seeing the good that surrounds you—or seeing the bad that surrounds you. When you’re put in a survival-mode situation like I am every time I travel with the kids by myself, you must go into the situation with the hope that kindness will win that day.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t get nervous or do my best to prepare myself and my kids, but it means that I understand that things might not go as smoothly as I hope they will, and I will need to depend on others for help. That is exactly what happened on my trip the other day.

My husband was able to secure a boarding pass to assist us past security and up to the gate in the airport. But once we got on the plane, I was on my own with the kids. Things went ok at first, until we started getting close to our destination. Suddenly, we heard the pilot announce that we were not able to land in DC, and instead would be rerouted to Pittsburgh! I thought I was going to have a panic attack.

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My 2-year-old was already in tantrum stage because she didn’t want to stay in her seat, and my other kids were getting upset that we weren’t going in the right direction. But fortunately, there was a very kind family sitting behind us who shared their snacks with my kids to help calm them down and held my 1-year-old so I could help my other kids go to the bathroom and tend to my 2-year-old.

Their kindness towards my family helped make a stressful situation better and kept me calm for my kids when I wanted to cry myself. Everything worked out; we did make it to DC after refueling in Pittsburgh, and we never even had to get off the plane.

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That is not the only time someone has gone out of their way to help us when we have traveled. There have been flights where the pilots stayed with us and made sure we got our stroller when we were waiting at the gate for it, or times when the flight attendant brought cookies for my kids when they were crying, or even held my baby so I could use the restroom. I have had people help carry my suitcase to the check-in counter, waive the bag fees, even bump the kids and me up to first class!

Click to tweet:
When you’re put in a survival-mode situation, you must go into it with the hope that kindness will win that day. #CatholicMom

Each time I have traveled with my kids, I held onto the hope that things would go smoothly, or that someone would be there to help us if they did not. If I didn’t have hope, I would have been a lot more stressed, and would have failed to see the kindness of those around me.

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