Teaching kids

[Sender]

Had a chance to go out on a hike with the family today. Great weather for it. Anyhoo, I wanted to teach the boys a little about how to help themselves in the forest.

Both boys are in scouts, 7 and 9, but young enough that almost all their exposure to the outdoors has been from my wife and I.

The first thing was to give them each his own emergency kit. I've been working on the kits since November. It's basically a fanny pak with a matchsafe,tinder,matches,signal mirror,whistle, rain poncho, and space blanket . I plan to add a few more things, but have to decide just what.

They also have their own backpacks. I just had them add a liter bottle of water and a coat to it. My oldest is allowed to carry his knife (sak).

We walked for an hour and then turned back. Since we had the entire mountain to ourselves, I decided an impromptu fire making class was in order.

I set my oldest son to gathering tinder, and the youngest to kindling. I showed my oldest son how to strike the lifeboat matches, and then let him light the aspen bark. The look on his face was worth a lot.

One of the recent threads on hiking staffs had a note about just using a found piece, and that's what I did. Both sons soon followed suit.

It seems to me that all of the things that can come between a father and son tend to fade away in the mountains.

 

[Seth Thomas]

Sender-

You are a great Dad. I'm reminded of my deceased pop, who often taught me lessons that I did not understand at the time, but as I grew into adulthood found to be invaluable.

May your sons make you proud.

Seth

 

[coyotlviejo]

I recently went out to my parents' property to visit and ended up digging some soap root (amole). My seven year old neice was there, so I enlisted her help in digging the bulbs and processing them into soap.

I was back out there this past weekend, and lo and behold there was my neice making her own batch of soap! So I showed her some wild chamomile (pineapple weed), and next thing I knew she was making tea.

What kind of value can we place on teaching our kids to be self-sufficient and confident? I hope and pray that when my son is older I can have the kind of relationship you have with your sons (mine is only two right now).



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Camine con tranquilidad, sirva con humildad, y viva en paz.

 

[VampyreWolf]

I went through the whole scout line(beavers, cubs, scouts) up here in canada, then joined Air Cadets in my last 2 yrs of Scouts.

Scouts set the base for me, Cadets allowed me to practice in a controlled setting.

Air Cadets does a survival thing in spring and fall. Normally we go out to the army testing ground, middle of nowehere.

We get army ration packs, 2/day, and whatever we have on us. Groups of 3-4.
They dump us out there, with a cell(one for the whole group) in case of medical emergency, and come back in 3 days for us. All 30-40 of us.

I take minimal gear, and a bit of sucking candy for the sugar intake. I go the weekend on about 5-10lbs of gear, shelter included. You can't even tell I have a lot when you look at me, and yet I'm one of the top people for survival(most comfortable).

So, in regards to the question:
Give them all the knowledge you can, then take them out. By building a base then working off it, you get a great idea of what works and what doesn't. I get a fire going with one match, or a magnesium firestarter, and have about a 3' flame in 5 minutes. It's not hard.

Hope you have fun.

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~Alea iacta est
~Par Palam e Flamma Fert Spiritus
~Regere Sanguine Regere In Veritatem Est
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~Mortem Recipis, quod Vita in Morte Venit

What's sharper? Your Mind, or my Spydie?

[This message has been edited by VampyreWolf (edited 05-21-2001).]

 

[alco141]

well i have started in out door education with my two daughters, now that the weather is improved , we are going to sleep out in the woods accross the road from the house, nothing that primative, but we did watch the woodsmaster videos together and they seem real eager to try some of the stuff out. they were very attentive to the videos, with a lot of questions about the things they saw.

they are very excited about the "camping trip", glad i bought the 25 acres when the old couple living there decided to move to a retirement community. it may get more use than i imagined. the girls invited their cousins to come up, boy is this going to be a hoot.

alex

" the time we spend with children tells them who we are"

 

[swede79]

Congrats to all of you dads, and keep up the good work! My kids are only 1 year old, but I can't wait until they are old enough to teach.

Whenever my wife and I go home to visit (we both come from a long line of farmers), all my relatives run and hide, they know that they are going to get the 3rd degree from me! I am fascinated how people lived 50 - 100 years ago (and more) without any of the modern conveniences. To get the old stories of how they rendered hogs, kept the meat from spoiling in the root cellar, etc., is just great! Too many of the old ones are dying without passing their knowledge on to the younger ones.

Keep up the good work!

 

[coyotlviejo]

Maybe the public schools should pick up a program like the old Foxfire program, where high schoolers were sent out on classroom projects to record the old ways. I wonder what it would take for our communities to adopt some sort of program into their curriculums?

Or maybe we as parents should assign it as homework to our children.

Hmmmm...

 

[thatmguy]

You'd have to dump the dumba**es on the education boards who suspend a kid for having a pair of nail clippers with a nail file, the you'd have to eliminate the parents who are too stupid to.... never mind. This is not the place to get into this conversation. Yes, it would be great for kids to have the opportunity to learn outdoor skills.

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