How to Survive an International Flight with Kids

An international flight with kids is challenging.

This is our first week back in the United States, and after two years of being away, it is an amazing feeling! This has been our most difficult move yet. Anything that could go wrong did go wrong. PCSing internationally  is never easy. We traveled from South Korea to Detroit, which was a 12-hour flight to Detroit, a 3-hour layover, then a 2-hour flight to North Carolina, which thankfully was our destination.

My kids are 4 and 1, so you can imagine how our flight went.

Here are four steps to surviving an international flight with kids:

1. Expect meltdowns. 

Don’t be disillusioned that you won’t experience this because it will happen. Once the novelty of being on a plane wears off and the seatbelt sign has been turned on for the last two hours, a meltdown is bound to happen. I should have apologized in advance to the people sitting around us. It would have benefited us since even before take off my son shook his drink and it sprayed the people in front of us, behind us, and next to us.

A word to the wise: don’t bring fizzy pink lemonade on a flight unless you want to be covered in stickiness for 12 hours.

Knowing that meltdowns are inevitable makes things a little less stressful than thinking there won’t be any. Traveling is an exhausting, boring business, and everyone knows how an overtired child will act. Tantrums of epic proportions are bound to happen. Kids will be kids, and hopefully, everyone will understand that. If not, the ear plugs the airline graciously provided travelers with will come in handy!

2. Pack toys and snacks. 

Before our flight, my husband and I bought small toys to put in the kids carry-on bags as little surprises for them. In my son’s bag, he had three new superhero action figures, and in my daughter’s, an Anna doll from the movie Frozen. My daughter is only 1, so Anna wasn’t much of a distraction for her, but my son’s superheroes provided hours of entertainment for him. I also packed each child with their own lunch box filled with special snacks. Snacks they don’t normally have on a regular basis. Hey, I wasn’t above bribing my kids on the flight if it meant keeping them happy! Plane food isn’t very kid friendly, so this helped us out a lot.

3. Bring all electronic devices. 

I packed all of our electronics. You name it, we had it. The laptop, Nook, iPad, and phones all came with us. I loaded them up with all of their favorite movies and apps. Scooby-Doo for my son and The Bee Movie for my daughter. I can probably recite every word to those movies now. I also recommend investing in a portable charger. This is something you can use to charge all of your electronics without needing an outlet. We never ended up needing ours, but knowing it was there with us was one less thing to stress about.

4. Take a deep breath. 

It will all be over soon. It may seem like 12 hours is a long flight, but I am here to tell you it really does come to an end. We survived it and so will you and your family. The best advice I have for you is to try not to sweat the small stuff. Things will go awry, but it’s not worth getting a headache over. Pretty soon it will all be a bad memory.

Now that we have the flight over with, I’m on to the fun part of setting up our house. I think that is one of my favorite parts about PCSing. Being able redecorate every few years. Moving around a lot definitely has its perks!