How To Explain A Work Trip To A Toddler

In a couple of days Kevin will be travelling overseas for a week long work trip.

During day to day activities we have found that if we don't explain what's happening to Brian he doesn't deal with situations as well. We often say "We are going to Nan & Pop's house", "We are going to the shops", etc. What do you say when Daddy is heading off to "work" (which Brian understands) for a whole week?

Kevin came up with the idea that we should explain this to Brian with a diagram. Some google searches, printing, laminating and cutting later this was born. We will count down the days until Kevin leaves - so that Brian understands the process of counting down days. Then the little Daddy face will hop onto that plane and fly across to Africa. Mummy and Brian will stay in Australia. We will then count how many sleeps until Daddy comes back.

We felt it important that both of us were there when we explained this to Brian. He reacted well, probably thinking he had a new toy to play with. When he first saw it he said "Mummy, Daddy, Brian" which was super cute. Then we explained Daddy's trip, put Daddy in the plane and flew the plane to Africa. Then we bought him back. Brian played with our faces and the plane for a bit - which is why everything is laminated!

Hopefully this helps Brian understand why Daddy is gone for so long. But I guess most importantly he knows we have taken the time to explain the process to him. There is nothing worse than saying nothing and the mind thinking all kinds of bad thoughts.

[How To]

All images were found online or from our digital photos. I pasted them into a Publisher document resized them and printed them out on regular paper. I then cut them out and laminated them.

We don't have a laminator so I bought some laminate pouches (100 for $19 - I plan to use this idea for other projects) and sandwiched the pouch in between and old towel and used an old iron to melt the laminate. It does bubble a bit and you will need to cut a generous border around your image so that it stays stuck but for a project like this it works well. Don't use this technique for important items!

Then I used blu-tac to adhere the items to the large sheet of cardboard. This way we can easily move the items around the page.