How to Keep Your Children (and Your Neighbors) Happy on a Long Flight

Before the Flight

Talk to your children about flying. Reassure them that it’s safe, especially if they have never been on a plane before.
If possible, book your flight during times that coincide with your children’s sleeping patterns, such as early morning, late at night, or naptime.
Pack a healthy dosage of your children’s favorite snack. Not all children like pretzels and peanuts, and a hungry kid is not a happy kid.
If your children have a favorite stuffed animal or blankie, then pack it and ensure that it’s readily available to them during the flight.

Take-Off and Landing

Children’s ears can pop painfully as a result of pressure changes during takeoff and landing. There are several ways to alleviate this:

Drinking lots of water
Chewing a pacifier (for infants and toddlers) or gum/chewy candy (for older children)
Yawning and/or swallowing frequently

Give your children a special ticket for every half-hour that passes. Children can get impatient on long flights, but giving them a physical, tangible indicator of the passage of time that tells them exactly how much time has passed and how much time is left will make the flight go by faster.
Have a secret stash of toys at the ready. In order to make sure they don’t get bored, give them one toy at a time. Reward them for fifteen minute or half-hour blocks of being well-behaved with a new toy. That way, the novelty doesn’t wear off on the toys all at once, and good behaviors are reinforced.

A few suggestions for plane-friendly toys include:

Coloring books
Play-Doh
Etch-A-Sketch
Have an iPad? Sit your children down with a movie or their favorite TV show and they’ll be entertained for hours on end.

Get creative! Children can be entertained by all kinds of unexpected things.

Wear jewelry, especially jewelry that makes a little (non-intrusive) noise, such as beaded necklaces. The noise and stimulation is perfect for amusing babies.
Bring post-its from home and let your children use them to decorate the seat in front of them.
Do each other’s hair and/or makeup, especially if they like to play dress up.
Pack some scrap paper or cardboard and a sticker book, and let them go to town!