Subway Madness.

Getting a young child to behave on public transportation is no easy feat. It is akin to traveling on an airplane with a preschooler every single day, twice a day. Kids are prone to yell, stand on seats, touch other passengers (especially hands and backs of heads), make rude comments about other passengers (“She is being too loud.” “She is stinky.”), sneeze/cough without covering mouths (usually on other passengers), etc. Or wait, maybe that’s just my child. 

But we don’t have a car and we are certainly not going to walk everywhere. So train and/or bus it is. I have found the key is to be prepared. I always have a mini bag of tricks on hand to keep her entertained.

The Transportation Kit includes: 1 book of her choosing, 1 small coloring book, a baggie with 5 crayons, my iPod loaded with at least 1 kid game, 1 kid tv show, and 1 kid movie, and a snack (usualy fruit or goldfish).  All of this fits into her bag/backpack (minus the iPod, of course) and she feels like a big kid. Plus, it stays in her cubby at school, so I don’t have to lug it around with me at school.

Now, there have been days when she has rejected all items in the Kit. Lately, she has become quite content with looking out the window and singing nonsensical (to me anyway) songs to herself. There are days where her refrain at every stop on the way home is “I want McDonalds!” There are even days where she yells and scream. Those are the days where we get off at the next stop and she promptly gets a time out. It might take us longer to get home, but as with all things parental, the magic lies in consistency.

The result is that 80% of the time, we have a nice  (dare I say enjoyable?) ride.