Survival is an essential aspect of our lives today. You just have to survive every day – it is compulsory and not an optional choice if you want to keep living. Let’s face it, as a parent, you are quite conversant with survival in the wilderness or any great outdoor events.
This is what you have built yourself with to fend for your family, including your kids, whenever you go camping, hiking, and the like. But have you ever thought of introducing or teaching your kids basic survival skills when they are outdoors? Probably never because the thought of leaving the kids to fend for themselves can be scary.
Come to think of it, parents want their kids to grow into hat independent and adaptable adults in the future so that when life throws shit at them, they will survive it. So, why not teach the necessary survival skills at a young age.
Research has shown that kids can grasp knowledge and skills pretty fast. This makes it very convenient to teach them the great outdoors and how to deal with any form of danger in the future. Fortunately, this guide will show you how to do just that!
How To Introduce Kids To Survival In The Great Outdoors?
Now that you have come to realize the essence of survival to kids, the following will help you start on a better footing on how to go about introducing kids to survival in the great outdoors. Let’s dive in!
Inspire and Educate
The first thing you need to do when introducing your kids to survival in the great outdoors is to inspire and educate. Kids love it when they are inspired to do something.
Discuss the Essence of Survival
You need to discuss the essence of survival in the outdoors. Doing this will create the right drive and mindset in them. Let them know what they will need to survive and make them a part of the preparation before going.
Pack Their Own Survival Kit
Allow them to help put the necessary items required for survival into the bag and educate them to know their respective names.
You could also allow them to pack their own survival kit. Tell them about the environment you are going, the dangerous animals and plants they need to beware of and prepare for, the items that should be in the survival kit, and why they are there.
The knowledge you give them from home before going to the outdoors will be of immense help when setting up.
Make Them Feel Comfortable
You want your kids to have the best positive experience when in the great outdoors, so make them feel the comfort the outdoors has to offer. It is better to motivate them at the earlier stage than to allow them to lose total interest in it.
Show them around the outdoors, the different environments and landscapes present. As time goes on, they will begin to understand the need to survive in such environments. Take every slightest opportunity outdoor to teach them different survival scenarios.
You could keep them engaged by turning it into a game in a controlled environment. Pick a night with nice and comfortable weather, build a shelter near the camp, and spend the night in your shelter just for the kids to know what it is like.
This will later help the kids in case they find themselves in such a similar scenario.
Check out more guides with tips, tricks, and more on How To Introduce Kids To Survival HERE
Put the Tricks and Tactics
Once you made them feel comfortable in the great outdoors in your desired location and your camp is all set. Now teach them about the necessary skills they will need to survive to if they were alone. You should discuss some priorities of survival with your kids to handle anything life throws at them in the future. This includes:
Positive Mindset
Fear is one of the major things that destroys a good mindset. But you should allow them to know that fear is natural in any emergency. Teach them to relax and make smart judgments by giving them tips on how to handle themselves. There is a trick to staying put in case they get lost.
Tell them to find a natural element such as a tree or a rock if they get lost. The kids will give that thing a name, make friends with it, talk to it and stay with this new “friend” until a potential rescuer comes to help them
Shelter
Another survival skill is building a shelter. Tell them shelter will protect them from dangerous things such as animals, and weather conditions like cold, rain, wind, or heat. Tell them about the options they could have in the outdoors to build a shelter, where they should build it, and the necessary materials they will need to protect themselves from harmful things
Fire
Kids love to make campfires. This is a tradition that beats TV hands down when kids stare into the flames. Tell them about fire’s usefulness, such as warmth, cooking, and signaling in dangerous times. Fire can also boost their morale, especially when they make campfires.
Food
Discussing food in the wild will pique their interest in the great outdoors. Tell kids about the animals and plants that are safe to ingest. There are some edible wild plants also that could arouse their interest in things of the outdoors
Other things include first aid, signaling, and lots more!
Find the complete step-by-step survival guides on our website.
Conclusion
Introducing the kids to survival at a very young age goes a long way to making an independent and resourceful adults in the future. You don’t need to worry about the thought of the kids fending for themselves because you are building their future gradually.
Remember to inspire and educate them, make them feel comfortable, give them a happy memory that they can always remember, and, most importantly, teach them survival skills.
Keep their safety and happiness a top priority. If you can do this, you will be building a young survival bad-ass in them!
Tell us in the comments what you think about it.
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