What Children Can Bring to Packing for a Trip : Let everyone pick their favorite things, and go from there. If nothing else, you’ll avoid doing it all yourself at the last minute.

The night before a trip, I’d turn into a witch. My kids learned to stay out of my way as I rushed around, simultaneously cooking dinner, doing laundry and packing for all of us--snapping at everyone in the process. Sometimes it would be 3 a.m. before I’d fall into bed, completely exhausted after spending hours searching for ski socks, beach shoes, the right size batteries for the camera or sun screen.

But then I got smart. I got the kids to help. And, more importantly, I stopped waiting until the last minute to get everything ready.

“That never works when you’re packing for a family. With kids, you’ve always got to leave time for the unexpected,” explained Evelyn Kaye, veteran family traveler and author of the new book, “Family Travel” (Penguin Books).

When her children were young, Kaye would give each member of her family a big box, a week in advance: They put in whatever they wanted to take. She’d transfer the gear to the suitcases. “Maybe you don’t take everything in that box, but it makes the kids feel more involved,” explained Kaye, who lives in Boulder, Colo. They also couldn’t complain about her choices. Even better, having everyone’s belongings sorted and ready would make the packing progress move a lot more quickly.

Chicagoan Joanne Cleaver is also of the let-the-kids-throw-their-stuff-in school. Cleaver, editor of Heartland Adventures, a family travel newsletter, bought each of her three kids his own, inexpensive, monogrammed gym bag to be used exclusively for trips. “When they have something they want to take on a trip, they just toss it in,” Cleaver explained. “And later, they’ve got plenty of room for all of the junk they’ve bought.”

She also suggested giving each child a little toiletry kit (those distributed as cosmetic samples or on overseas flights are perfect) that they can keep ready for that overnight at a friend’s or weekend at grandma’s house. It prevents you from forgetting to pack everyone’s toothbrushes . . . as I’ve done more than once.

My kids, 7-year-old Regina, 9-year-old Matthew and even 2-year-old Melanie now each have their own soft duffels with lots of pockets they can stuff. A few days before we’re set to leave, I take out the bags and together we pack the things they will need that they won’t need before the trip.

I try to make everything interchangeable and include as many dark things as I can: They may get just as dirty but they look better. The less-is-best school of packing doesn’t apply with children. Throw in a couple of extra T-shirts, bathing suits and underwear. On vacation, the last thing you want to be doing is laundry. Worse yet is to find there’s not a clean, dry shirt left, just as you’re ready to go out for dinner.

The day before we leave, the kids lay out the clothes they most want to take and also put anything they deem essential into their bag: a book we’re reading, a teddy bear, a certain T-shirt.

Then I pack. The children, meanwhile, have grown so partial to having their own suitcases, that I always take them even if we don’t need the packing space. Better to have half-empty suitcases, I figure, than squabbling kids.

Matt and Reggie also know they’re responsible for their own backpacks. I don’t care which toys they bring--as long as they can carry them. Next time, even little Melanie will have her own pack. “Having her own bag is very exciting to a small child,” explained Victoria Lavigne, a child psychologist in Chicago and herself the mother of two sons.

For an older child, learning to organize his own things and pack a bag can help him become more independent and self-sufficient, as well as make your life easier, noted Jill Waterman, a Los Angeles child psychologist on the UCLA faculty.

“Putting things in one place and taking them out somewhere else provides a transition,” she added, which is especially helpful if the kids are going somewhere unfamiliar; to dad’s new home or to camp, for example.

But be forewarned: When children do the packing, you won’t always like the choices. Don’t count on them to remember key things, such as dress shoes or a nice shirt for a family party.

In part to avoid this very thing, Jane Marcus of Palo Alto makes a list for each member of her family, including 12-year-old Marc and 7-year-old Molly. The kids follow her list and lay out their clothes and then their father packs the bags.

Psychologist Jill Waterman, the mother of 8-year-old twins, suggests that if you have a home computer, let each child make his own “trip list” to keep on file. They can adapt it themselves for each trip--whether it’s a week at the beach or an overnight at a friend’s house.

To help the kids be self-sufficient while we’re traveling--and to save myself time--I pack one complete outfit (underwear and socks included) together in a resealable plastic bag. That way, the kids just pull out a bag rather than rummaging through the entire suitcase. (We reuse the bags many times.) Other mothers tell me they roll the clothes and use rubber bands to hold them together or use giant diaper pins, stringing together each child’s underwear, for example.

All of this effort will pay off in the long run. Just ask Chicago social worker Susan Kennedy. When her son went off to college, she didn’t have to do a thing.