The Driver's Seat: Interviews with parents

To learn more about what its like to drive with children, I sat down with some of the survey respondents to gather specific stories. I was able to connect with three parents with varying social backgrounds, ages, and number of children.

What was the best long car ride with kids you've been on?

Parent 1: "Well my family lives in South Florida so a long drive for me is 17 hours and we've have many good drives on that route. My kids are really good in the car. I would say that we've done some straight through 17 hour drives where we had a lot of fun. I can't really put it down to one particular trip. I would say part of what made it good was having a variety of things to do to keep the kids busy. In a very small environment with seatbelts you have to have variation. One nice thing that was nice was that we had a TV we could play like DVDs on which would help some and then we played a lot of like yellow car... and all these things where you had to look for things in the environment as we drove."

Parent 2: "Let me see... the best long car ride was probably when we all drove down to Disney World which is quite a long way from New York. It was the best one because it was the first time we took them to Disney World so it was a very exciting destination and they had a lot of fun when we got there. The younger daughter was young so she was just going with the flow but the older child was very excited. Of course there were periods of boredom because it was a very long ride. Back then there were only two forms of entertainment back then one of which was a phone that had games on it that you could play online. I think it was called Angry Birds. The second was an on-board DVD player and they would watch a lot of Studio Ghibli films and shows on DVD."

Parent 3: "I suppose it was a drive to South Carolina and I remember it being fairly non-stress and stopping only a few times. Thats the most I can think of. There wasn't a hurry and yeah I guess that was it."

As seen with these parent's responses, entertainment and variety seem to be extremely important. Occupying children with different activities prevents boredom and therefore prevents upset moods. Conversely, the extended use of DVD players in cars suggests that long-form media such as tv shows and movies are still able to captivate children effectively. This points to the fact that children can remain focused for long periods of time on a single form of entertainment.

Parent 3 seems to have had trouble remembering the specifics of the best drive they'd had with kids. Despite this they assert that the best drives are ones with little stress.

What was the worst long car ride with kids you've been on?

Parent 1: "It wasn't that long of a car ride, about an hour. It was because one of my children who I will not name is very hyperactive and she figured out how to get out of her car seat. She was less than two! I was the only adult in the car and she got out while I was on the highway. It made me feel very unsafe because I had to keep stopping to put her back in her car seat. We eventually added safety pins to her car seat. Maybe not the safest choice but it kept her in her seat. She didn't like sitting still."

Parent 2: "The worst? The worst... I don't recall where we were headed by there was a car ride game that we used to play when I was younger and didn't have electronics. It was "Guess what shapes the clouds are making in the sky". You make up shapes that are in the clouds. My son my wife and me were just pointing at clouds and saying what types of clouds they were making. My daughter who was pretty young at the time wasn't very good at the game and she got very upset saying "I don't see anything you guys I'm so stupid". That made me feel really bad because you know the game is supposed to be fun and entertaining and creative and just a good time. I did not mean for my daughter to feel bad about herself so I was like "oh man'"

Parent 3: "It was a drive back from South Carolina when the weather was very bad here in Ohio with snow and ice. It caused stress between my wife and myself because it was a hard drive. The child was very young and I think had some kind of cold. They cried almost half the entire trip. All those noise distractions and the kid felt helpless in the backseat; there's not much you can do."

From these interviews we can see how a child's mood quickly affects the rest of the car. All three participants were able to remember specific details of these trips much better than the previous ones. Parent 2's story in particular highlight's an important design consideration: softness with failure. I'm sure that Parent 2 did their best to encourage their child in the moment but that still wasn't enough. Design aspects that make failure manageable or even fun would make first impressions with particularly restless children more likely to be positive.

Isolation of sound and environment is also an important factor as seen with Parent 3's story. If inducing mediation is the primary method that Honda wishes for me to investigate, this aspect becomes even more important. Quiet and a conducive environment are often thought to be the ingredients for good meditation. A function that isolates noise or alters the environment could kill two birds with one stone.

From these interview we can see that making a car ride less stressful isn't as simple as providing a feature that calms children down in the moment. Environmental factors, boredom, and fear of failure all require finesse to navigate.

All original works in this article were done without the assistance of AI tools.