Parents across the country are saying the same thing, "If I had a pound for every time I heard 'Are we nearly there yet?', I would be rich."
I know what it's like to be 30 minutes into a five-hour drive and the interrogation begins.
It begins in our family in a nice way. From the back seats, "Mummy, are we almost there yet?"
This approach is quickly replaced by an aggressive cross-examination, which looks at how long I am currently saying remains.
I have made a promise to myself that I will never take them again.
Why is the journey so long for children?
The sensation of time passing more quickly as we get older is one of the reasons.
The feeling is that Christmas comes around more quickly each year.
Increasing age is thought to cause time to pass more quickly because it reduces the amount of time we have left to live.
At seven years old, a year is 14.30 percent of your life, and at 70 years old, it's only 1.43 percent.
A five-hour car journey may feel longer to a five-year-old than it does to a 50-year-old.
There is more to it than that. As we get older, we learn more about distance and geography.
We can use this knowledge to know how much of the journey is done and how much remains.
This knowledge helps structure the time for me because I know that I'm halfway there when we clearBirmingham. The satnav gives an arrival time and warns me about delays.
Children are more reliant on asking adults how long is left to judge the progress of the trip because they don't know this knowledge.
Children's lack of control over the journey itself makes their uncertainty about how long has passed worse. The grownups decide which service station to stop at and which way to go. The journey dragging by for children could be contributed to by this.
Temporal uncertainty can cause the passage of time to be slower. Many of us have experienced this.
Think back to the last time the train stopped just outside the station or when the "Wait" sign flashed in the baggage claim area.
I think an update from the train driver or airport staff would have been great in these moments. The events drag because of the not knowing.
Monitoring is a priority when there is uncertainty. Humans can't pay attention all of the time. We prioritize what we do according to our circumstances.
When time is uncertain, we pay more attention to it than normal, and this causes us to feel that time is passing slowly.
Children will fixate on the progress of any journey if they don't have something to distract them.
Time in the car may drag for kids because they're not allowed to do anything but stare out of the window.
It's a trial of boredom for children while their parents sit and reflect.
Children's desire for stimulation and entertainment causes boredom to set in quickly, and this causes the passage of time to be slower.
Our level of boredom affects our experience of time by changing how much attention we pay to it.
Time feels like it is crawling by when we're bored. When we are happy, we pay less attention to time because of our attentional capacity. Time goes by when we have fun.
Parents should do something.
You may already be rushing to stock up on games and snacks to keep your kids busy while you're away.
I would like to caution you. If you don't reduce the "Are we nearly there yet?" refrain, there is a risk of a new chorus: "I feel sick!"
Research shows that being covered in your child's vomit is likely to make the journey feel longer for you.
She is a researcher in experimental psychology at John Moore's University.
Under a Creative Commons license, this article is re-posted. The original article is worth a read.
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