There is one nightmare that rattles every traveling parent and makes them sweat their sheets at night: your child becoming that child on a flight who won’t stop crying, yelling, or kicking the seat in front of them. In a recent survey of British parents, nearly one-third said they wouldn’t take their child on a flight longer than three hours because of this fear.

But there’s one simple, low-tech line of defense on which savvy parents rely. Rather than stimulate a child with an iPad or movies on the seatback entertainment system, a majority of well-prepped parents say they never board flights without notebooks, pencils and crayons.

Read more at Coastal Living.