Wednesday, October 6, 2021

Why It's Worth Teaching Your Kids Outdoor Survival Skills

Investing in education is a good idea when it comes to helping your child succeed. However, a well-rounded and healthy lifestyle isn’t just about making sure they can navigate the responsibilities that come with adulthood and employment. It’s also about making sure they’re competent and confident about being able to survive in the world around them. When it comes to that, teaching them about how to survive in the outside world can be very worthwhile.


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Setting up camp

The first step of any camping trip is to, of course, set up the tent. Consider looking for tents from places like theglobetrottingteacher.com that offer good waterproofing and other essential survival qualities, but also take some assembly to set up. This makes them both a hand-eye coordination task as well as an engineering challenge for your kids to build. It’s not just about putting up the tent, however, it’s also about making sure that it’s in the right place. Access to water is important, but so is making sure the tent won’t get flooded, as it is liable to be if it’s downhill. Another consideration is to make sure that it’s not too near the tall grass where parasites like ticks might be making their home.


Taking care of their essential needs

After making sure they are situated, safe, and sound, then you need to look at making sure you’re ready for all of the challenges that the outdoors can bring. Being able to keep things visible in the dark with torches from providers like ecogearfx.com is one example. Another is making sure that they learn how to start a fire on their own (or with a fire-starting kit.) Similarly, teach them to be prepared for the sun, with the right clothing and UV protection, and for the risks of pests, making sure that they have anti-bug products at the ready, such as mosquito nets and bug spray to use.


Securing food and water

Making sure that you have shelter, warmth, light, and relative safety from the elements should be the first priority. But after that comes the task of survival. This is going to largely depend on your ability to secure food and water. Of course, for safety, you want to bring enough to keep you and your kids going. However, helping them learn how to get their own food such as getting them a learner’s fishing rod from scoutlife.org, or teaching them to forage with the help of apps that can help them identify safe and edible things in the woods (with your supervision) can teach them more about self-reliance. You can also teach them about things like water purifying tablets, essential for turning wild sources of water into safe drinking water.


It’s not likely that your child is going to be stuck in the wilderness any time soon (though you never know.) However, teaching them about camping and survival in the wild makes them a lot more competent, confident, and practically minded. It can help them navigate the hands-on aspects of life much more easily.


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