Prepping can be a lot of things – a means of survival, a way to keep your family safe or simply a fun hobby with a beneficial outcome.  Sometimes preppers, especially those of use with kids, can get so consumed with the big picture that we forget the simple fact that prepping with kids means we’re more apt to experience the little things than the big things.  I was reminded of these little things over the last few weeks.

Life Is Getting Fun

My wife and I have been blessed with twin daughters.  At four years old, they are just now getting to the point where I can start taking them into the outdoors for more than ten minutes.  I’m trying to use this time both to instill a love for the outdoors and teach them different survival and outdoors skills.  This process is, admittedly, a slow one but it’s one all of us are starting to truly enjoy – it’s very hard to tell who is more excited to go hiking every weekend!

Part of the process is letting kids be kids.  Typically we walk into the woods for twenty minutes or so and find a nice place to have a break, complete with a little snack.  I use this part of our trip to reinforce the ‘pack in, pack out’ mentality and we make it a point to pick up any extra trash we see.

After our snack, we continue on some more.  In most cases we look for a cool place to stop and let the girls run around.  In order to keep these trips fun (and keep the girls coming back), it’s important to allow them to have some kiddo time where they can run around and use their imagination.  They love ‘exploring’ on their own with the only rule being they have to stay within eye sight of me.  We’ve also started to build geocaching into our trips – it’s both exciting for the girls to find ‘buried treasure’ but it’s also teaching them navigation and situational awareness skills.

I was reminded  during one of these play sessions that prepping with kids means being prepared for the little things.

Kids Will Be Kids

On one of our hikes, we were exploring the coast of Long Island Sound.  Because it was low tide, there were a ton of tidal pools around and the girls were begging to explore on their own.  I, of course, encouraged it.  They took this opportunity to take their shoes off, run through the tidal pools, try to skip rocks and run onto the little sandbar (which they called their island).  They had a blast running around and I had an equally fun time watching them.  Side note – watching four-year olds try to skip rocks may be one of the funniest and cutest things I’ve ever seen!

When it was time to go, I was wiping the sand off their feet before putting their shoes on when one of my rugrats started howling.  Taking a closer look, I realized she had cut her foot open during her adventures.  I can only assume it was on a jagged sea shell as I was pretty diligent about looking for broken glass, metal or anything else that may have been present from unsavory previous visitors.

A situation like this one would have been a bit more chaotic in the past.  But, since I had my EDC Bag and my Altoids EDC Kit (more on that in a future article), I was easily able to take care of it.  I flushed out the cut with some fresh water, applied some anti-bacterial cream and a band-aid.  Her shoes held the band-aid in place perfectly and she was able to walk without comfort.  We were good to go.

Prepping With Kids Pays Off In Multiple Ways

Being able to treat my little lady paid major dividends for me.  First and foremost, I was able to take care of my kiddo – that’s a primary concern for any parent.  But, more importantly, it gave her confidence that being prepared is a good thing and it gave me a way to talk about being prepared with her – “It’s a pretty good idea that daddy carries this stuff with him, huh?”  On a personal note, it helped me due to the fact that we were about a quarter to half mile from the car and I would have had to carry her back if I hadn’t been able to bandage her up.  She’s not heavy, but the terrain was sandy with large rocks, not the easiest place to walk when you’re carrying a child.

Personal reasons aside, being able to take care of my daughter and have a chance to promote being prepared were well worth lugging in my ‘man purse‘ with some key pieces of kit.  At the end of the day, she was happy that Daddy took care of her boo-boo, I was happy that I was able to take care of her and we were able to bond over something that could produce a lifetime of good habits – both exploring the outdoors and being prepared while you do it.

What are your experiences prepping with kids?  We would love to hear your stories in the comments or on our Facebook page!

Dan

Founder/Owner at Suburban Steader

I am a middle-age guy with a wife, two young kids and a crazy dog. We live on Long Island, NY and had an interesting experience with Hurricane Sandy. That experience led me towards the self-sufficiency movement and eventually led to the founding of SuburbanSteader.com. I aim to provide suburbanites with the confidence and know-how to become more self-reliant by providing content on topics such as gardening, personal health, financial responsibility, cooking, self-preparedness and self-protection.