Mom's genius cardboard trick to stop her kids from fighting during a road trip is parenting 101

When it comes to long road trips with kids, every parent knows the struggle. Constant bickering, sudden outbursts, and the never-ending “He’s touching me!” But one mom’s hilarious and clever solution to sibling squabbles is now going all over the internet for all the right reasons. Katelyn Hurick, a mother of three, shared a now-popular video showing how she maintains peace among her two sons and daughter during long drives. She doesn't have an extravagant trick, but it is a simple piece of cardboard.

In the video, Katelyn, who goes by @katelynhurick_ on Instagram, has cleverly placed the cardboard between one of her sons and the other two siblings, acting as a makeshift divider. The camera pans across the backseat, revealing one son fast asleep with a blue neck pillow and the sister sitting beside him, visibly drained, whether from the journey or the chaos is unclear. Both seem momentarily at peace, unaware of the tension they’ve managed to escape. On the other side of the makeshift cardboard wall, their brother sits happily alone, casually munching on snacks and flashing a cheeky "hi" to the camera, blissfully unaware of the storm he may have left in his wake.

 However, the story doesn’t end there. Viewers were quick to notice a curious detail, that being a piece of chewing gum stuck to the cardboard. While the cardboard divider she placed between her three children was a stroke of practical genius, it was the children’s expressions and Instagram's running commentary that truly brought the moment to life. But it’s the daughter sitting squarely in the middle who caught everyone’s attention. 

“I know that girl has been fighting for her life since the day he was born,” wrote @davydogz, while @keelindunsmore echoed the sentiment, saying, “That girl looks like she’s been fighting for her life for the past 10 hours.”  As @cameron_roseberry put it, “The poor girl is dissociated and having flashbacks at the same time.” And perhaps the most poetic comment came from @dr.hz_ who said,  “Eldest sisters always looking like ‘A single mom who works too hard. Who loves her kids and never stops.’” Then there was the gum stuck to one side of the cardboard. It said everything without saying a word. As @ea_hunt44 joked, “The gum stuck on the wall told me why the wall was there to begin with.”

Katelyn’s video is a part of a larger trend online, where parents are sharing their most unusual but surprisingly effective parenting tricks. The Daily Net recently featured a roundup of such “crazy but clever” hacks that parents swear by. One of the standout contributions came from TikTok user @_casmc, who shared, “We play Cinderella, they clean and I yell in a funny voice, they love it and my house gets cleaned. We also play Sleeping Beauty. They have to go lie down with their eyes closed for 10 minutes, 99% of the time they fall asleep.” The approach, like Katelyn’s, turns everyday tasks or struggles into a game, giving kids something fun to focus on while also helping parents maintain some peace and order. The internet is indeed full of parents thinking outside the box.

You can follow @katelynhurick_ for more videos like this.