One could be to use car time as communication time. Jason Gunn shared a tip with me. When he picks up his children from school and gets a call on his mobile, he often says, ‘I hope you don't mind, but I've got some special guests in the car. I'll need to call back.'  He tells me his kids beam.  He is subtly, and not so subtly, communicating that this time is very important to him - because it's time to listen to what's going on in their lives.

One of the problems with modern living is stress. If we can use travelling time, even if it is waiting in traffic queues, to have relaxed conversation with our family, we can alleviate some of that stress.

Conversation starters in the car could be, ‘How would you rate your day out of 10? Why is that?' or ‘Tell me something fun that happened to you today?'

I love ‘story time' in the car with my grandchildren. It's a little ritual whereby I make up the beginning of a story and when I say, ‘and then', the child next to me has to continue.  They add their sentence or two, then the person next to them carries on the story.  It is amazing how children will grow story lines and plots - and you will be surprised about what recent family events and favourite haunts appear in the plots. 

Story telling can be great for boys who are inclined to only give one syllable answers if you ask them questions about their day. An adventure of some sort will fire their imagination and you will notice their ability to verbalise surprisingly creative. 

Then there are fun games such as Eye Spy for little ones, or mind games for those a little older such as first to 10 by counting letterboxes of a chosen colour, or playing an alphabet spelling game, where everyone has to spell out the word of something that can be seen from the car.

These help with communication and can help unlatch any tired, negative behaviour such as fighting for leg space. If you want to talk to your teen about the importance of relationships, intimacy and sex, you could play our Big Weekend CD, designed as a talk trigger to communicate some good information on puberty, romance, self-esteem and sex. If you play it in the car, while you are both looking straight ahead, there is no embarrassment and it's amazing what you talk about! 

So don't just rail against the cost - become proactive and make trips in the car more fun. It's not hard and you will get more for your petrol dollar.

by Ian Grant