OT-- TLC's "Our 27 kids"

Did anyone see this show on TLC? It was about a family with four biological children and 23 adopted special needs children.

All of the Murphys' adopted children have some type of disability. Most of the children (who range in age from toddler to mid thirties) have Down Syndrome, but there are other disbilities, such as visual impairments, traumatic brain injury, heart defects, etc. It is amazing what they have done. The Murphy children are ones upon whom others had given up. The Murphys have given these children a home and have challenged them to become productive members of society.

On the show, the family was shown going on a vacation to Florida. I am not sure how many of their children went on the trip. I am thinking it was at least 20 of the children. Anyway, the family used a big van/mini-bus vehicle with what looked like bench seating along the sides. I didn't see any seatbelts and/or carseats being used. However, I did find a website that shows a picture of some of the children in the vehicle and it looks like they have lap belts. Wow. I am sure that it is not easy to find a safe vehicle for transporting a family that large, but I was a bit disappointed to see the type of belts available. Maybe there isn't anything better. I don't know. I was also curious about how you would restrain a child in a carseat in a vehicle with side-facing seats. I didn't think you could use a carseat in a seating position like that. Or can you?

Wow, what an awesome family.

But lap belts on any type of vehicle seat aren't safe for anyone except for a properly installed harnessed carseat on a forward facing vehicle seat. You're absolutely right about the side facing vehicle seats not being approved/appropriate for carseat installation. Every carseat manual I've ever seen expressly states to install a carseat only on a forward facing vehicle seat, not on side facing or rear facing vehicle seats.

For such a large family, I realize travel has to be an enormous challenge. The only idea I have off the top of my head is to use multiple minivans/vans with shoulder belts, headrests and forward facing vehicle seats for everyone and use carseats as appropriate for the children. The Sprinter comes to mind with seating for a max. of 10 passengers, for instance, along with 8-passenger minivans such as the Sienna or Odyssey. It could be challenging to have enough drivers available for such a fleet of vans but this would be a much safer alternative to what you're describing from the show. I imagine special needs type carseats would be essential for some of the children depending on their needs.

Actually, at that point a special-needs school bus is probably their safest bet for travel.