I recently had to fly internationally to help my elderly parents return to the US. While I would have loved to have my kids with me on the trip to visit their grandparents’ home country, I was relieved not to have to drag them through the long security lines, complex masking rules, or just the exhaustion of modern travel for families. You may not believe me when I say this, but when I’m traveling, I am not diagnosing or judging anyone for anything! I feel for all families who are traveling, as parents try to wrangle overwhelmed kids, keep everyone fed and watered, and reach their final destinations all in one piece. Children’s experience of travel has also changed: What used to be perhaps an adventure - an exciting chance to explore new people, places, and experiences - can increasingly turn into an exercise in tedium, prolonged discomfort, and family stress.

The reality of unpredictable schedules, confined spaces, limited access to comforting routines and coping strategies, and the prolonged exposure to sibling dynamics can all add up to an emotionally taxing experience.

Travel generally presents a challenge to most children. The reality of unpredictable schedules, confined spaces, limited access to comforting routines and coping strategies, and the prolonged exposure to sibling dynamics can all add up to an emotionally taxing experience. If your child also lives with an emotional health challenge (e.g. anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or autism spectrum disorder (ASD)), travel can be even more of an ordeal. What’s generally stressful for most children becomes an emotionally exhausting experience for children who struggle with avoidance, impulsivity, and/or feeling overwhelmed by sensory or social overload.

But over-accommodating their anxiety can lead to further avoidance and missing out on important experiences they need and want to have.

At the same time, all of us as parents have to recognize that avoidance can become the twin of anxiety. If travel anxiety builds to the point that children refuse to leave the house or to get into a car, fear and avoidance alternately provide fuel for anxiety’s fire. The more fearful I am, the more I avoid the things that I fear. The more I avoid, the more fearful I am of the unfamiliar and challenging. A similar process can happen for us as parents as we try to help our children navigate their travel anxiety. It can be much simpler to default to “problem-solving” mode, trying to fix the things that our children are anxious about or agree to avoid the experiences they’re fearful of. But over-accommodating their anxiety can lead to further avoidance and missing out on important experiences they need and want to have. What we need to do as parents is acknowledge that there will be tension, take a deep breath, and dive into helping our children face and overcome their anxieties. Of course, the actual process of working through anxiety is often really complicated—here are some evidence-based steps to take that can help.

Step 1: Understand what travel anxiety might look like in your child

We want to be careful not to confuse normal worries with anxiety. It’s natural to have some concerns about a new experience or an unfamiliar place. But generally, with a little support from family, most children can work through worry to enjoy a new experience. Anxiety refers to really missing out on important experiences due to worries that might not distress most other children, often accompanied by physician signs of stress like stomachaches or headaches, fidgetiness, or difficulty falling asleep. Travel anxiety can take on different forms. It can look like sleep problems before a big trip. Or like increased irritability leading up to and during the travel journey. Or new or worsening motion sickness or nausea in a moving vehicle. It can even present in the form of panic attacks, with acute bursts of anxiety, a feeling of one’s heart racing, breathing difficulties, sweatiness, and/or shakiness. With all these different ways that  travel anxiety can present in children, we want to think about why they’re feeling anxious.

Step 2: Discern why your child might feel anxiety about traveling

When it comes to travel, all children have to go through a disruption in their usual routine. As adults, we sometimes tend to forget how challenging this can be for a child. While their brains are still developing strategies to cope with surprises, changing course, suddenly making new plans, a routine serves as a kind of scaffolding for their brains. It provides structure where they need it, an outline of what is to come, a blueprint of what they need to do to be okay. When our family routines are disrupted by travel, anxious children in particular can really struggle without the scaffolding that routine provides. 

Ask yourself, Do they struggle with the changed schedule of a travel day? Do they seem to miss the familiar home activities that help them regulate themselves? Do they continually ask what will happen next? With travel, children are expected to follow the “old” rules, but often don’t know all the “new” rules that travel requires.

Travel also presents new social experiences that can be challenging for children. Anxious children can find the interaction with adult travel workers and officials (e.g. attendants at the travel counter, security officials) especially difficult. Travel also involves a great deal of new social stimulation. Children will be around large groups of unknown people. They will be navigating new physical environments. There are often a great deal of sights and sounds to process. All of these new social inputs can overwhelm a child’s ability to regulate, contributing to feeling emotional and exhausted.

All of these new social inputs can overwhelm a child’s ability to regulate, contributing to feeling emotional and exhausted.

Sometimes, children can have more specific anxieties. Perhaps a fear of enclosed spaces or fear of being in a crowded area. Or perhaps a fear of flying or of heights in general. Children often struggle to put these fears into words, and repeatedly asking them why they’re anxious often yields mixed results. Parents often need to be observant, make inferences about what may be bothering their child, and sometimes even test out different possibilities. If you are noticing your child struggle with travel anxiety, try to take a deeper dive into exactly what aspects of their travel experience they’re struggling with. This will help you plan ahead.

Step 3: Prepare yourself and your child

In general, we do a lot of research when we plan family trips: What’s the best deal on tickets, where’s the best destination for kid activities? When your child has travel anxiety, you just need to add a few more items to your research agenda. Try to imagine the different stages of your journey: 

What are you going to need to support your child on the trip? 

What’s it going to be like for them in the airport or in the car? 

Are there any sights, places, or experiences that would be familiar or exciting on the way? 

What are the types of experiences most likely to be overwhelming for them? 

What’s helped in those types of situations before? 

Are there some options of calming places or activities if they get overwhelmed? 

As you go through these preparatory questions, you’ll begin to develop a Plan A and Plan B for most stages of your journey.

Okay, I know she starts to feel cooped up about two hours into the car ride, so let’s plan to stop for snacks and a stretch a little before then. If she’s still struggling, we may need to stop for an early lunch and reset for the next stretch.

As parents, we need to acknowledge that travel preparation and planning can be stressful. Coming up with great Plan Bs and letting go of your ideal timeline or itinerary can be tough. It’s important to have some space to work through that. We want to work hard to keep venting and other intense emotions to other adults, but in that context, it’s okay to share our disappointment, anger, or frustration. It’s also important to carve out time to engage in activities that you find calming or enjoyable. Don’t feel guilty about getting out for that early morning hike. It’s okay to leave the kids with another caregiver for a bit while you read a book in the sun. We need to have strategies to recharge, for our families and for ourselves.

Think about the 5 Ws! Help them understand as much as they want and need about why you’re going on the trip, where you’re going, when they’ll be doing different things during the day, who they’ll be interacting with, and what they’ll be expected to do (or not do).

As we are doing our travel preparation and planning, we can also help our kids prepare for the trip. Think about the 5 Ws! Help them understand as much as they want and need about why you’re going on the trip, where you’re going, when they’ll be doing different things during the day, who they’ll be interacting with, and what they’ll be expected to do (or not do). If you know they’ll struggle with talking to a ticket attendant or security officer, for example, help them understand the process and consider a little exposure to some of those experiences beforehand. Can you have them help you check out at the grocery store? Or approach a friendly security officer at their school?

You can also help them by understanding and recognizing “reroute” moments, times when you have to make unavoidable, unexpected, and unclear changes in plans. Before the trip, when you have “reroute” moments in your day, spend some time letting them know what’s happened, how you’re thinking through the situation, and what decision you’re making and why. Afterwards, review with them how you were able to work through the sudden change to “reroute” and get back on track. Practicing this beforehand can take the edge off some of those sudden and uncertain moments that are bound to happen in travel.

Children can also really benefit from hands-on strategies to help them calm down in the moment. Homemade “sensory calm down kits” are a great way to help a child regain control over their anxiety. Help them pack a small bag with items that provide sensory stimulation that are calming and enjoyable for your child:Have a few items to color or draw with, a few items with interesting tactile textures, or an item with a pleasant smell or a silly sound. Encourage your child to prepare the kit well before the trip and practice using it to keep themselves calm. A transitional object can also be a great tool for travel anxiety. Often soft or huggable, transitional objects are items that provide children with a sense of security and comfort. Hugimals, weighted stuffed animals, are a great example of a creative combination of a transitional object that also has a strong sensory component. Weighted objects can help children feel safe and secure in the midst of the stresses of travel.

Step 4: Work through tough moments

Despite our best-laid plans and strategies, travel anxiety can inevitably catch up with our kids. What do we do in those moments? Given the public nature of many travel settings, we as parents can be tempted to overly accommodate our children’s anxiety avoidance or irritability. Or we can respond with irritability and frustration of our own. As much as possible, we want to encourage you to allow your child to experience the anxiety, to sit with it for some time, and stick with it until it begins to fade into the background. As distressed as they may be, we can help them understand that even challenging experiences generally become less distressing with time. We can support them by helping them utilize some of their positive coping strategies or to use their transitional object, but we want to be careful of over-accommodation.

As much as possible, we want to encourage you to allow your child to experience the anxiety, to sit with it for some time, and stick with it until it begins to fade into the background. As distressed as they may be, we can help them understand that even challenging experiences generally become less distressing with time.

This is easier said than done, of course! This may mean tolerating an anger outburst in a public setting. It may mean having to witness your child in temporary emotional distress. It may mean delays or other complications on your trip. It will most certainly mean a significant expenditure of time and energy on your part! Part of navigating this as a parent is managing our expectations. If we go into a trip expecting some difficult moments, this can be a very different experience than simply hoping and expecting that “everything will be fine.” Similarly, it can be helpful to anticipate that other people in public settings may glance over at your family (or even offer their unsolicited advice!) and that we simply cannot put a lot of weight into other peoples’ opinions. The truth is that, while we’re wanting our anxious children to work through exposure, you and your family will be going through an exposure process of your own. It’s not easy, but just being able to recognize it, discuss it within the family, and crafting strategies to respond can go a long way.

Step 4: Take care of your family’s feelings after the fact

When we are supporting our children navigating travel anxiety, there are often moments of “big feelings.” If your child has reached a point of total exhaustion, you may need to wait until they’re out of the “red zone” of the emotional storm to talk to them about what’s happened, teach them regulatory strategies, or brainstorm potential future solutions. Similarly, if you have multiple children, you may need to find ways to emotionally support your other children after particularly taxing family travel anxiety challenges.

Ultimately, if we can recognize and differentiate between travel worries and travel anxiety and gain a better understanding of what may be contributing to a child’s travel anxiety, we can develop strategies that help prevent or mitigate it. If and/or when children still get dysregulated, if we can find ways as parents to help children understand anxiety’s general resolution over time, we can help them build the skills and confidence to go anywhere their travels take them in life.