As a parent and a prepper nothing plagues me more than my fear of my children being in a SHTF scenario. As a parent it is your natural instinct to protect your young ones from any and all harm. However, as a prepper I have learned that part of being prepared is to accept that sometimes things can happen that you have no control over. Once you relinquish this false sense of control you are truly ready to equip yourself against the worst.
The best way to protect your kids is to arm them with the facts and get them into prepping as well. Have an open and honest discussion with them. Find out how aware they are of the world around them. What do they know about emergencies and things going wrong? Highlight your fears to them. Tell them what you think can happen. Work on an emergency plan with them. Get their input as well. Kids are innovative and they have a way of looking at things with a unique perspective. You might be surprised at how many good ideas for prepping your child might come up with.
An important thing to remember when getting your children involved – do not overwhelm them. While it might seem like a good idea to tell them everything you fear, this is not always appropriate, they are children after all. Start small, talk about the more realistic and likely scenarios with them first. A good place to start is school shootings. This is a very common topic and sadly a very commonplace occurrence. Schools nowadays are also focusing on running drills for school shootings. This means your child will have at least some understanding of the topic and a good idea of what to do. Once you have established an open talking channel with your child you can move on to the more outlandish cases out there.
Start by formulating a family emergency plan. Make your child a planner. Don’t just ask them to be a passive onlooker in your family’s emergency plan. The more your child is involved the more likely he/she is to become serious about it and follow through with it, should the need ever arise. Work on making your child independent. Society today is very removed from nature. Too much food comes out of a box or plastic bag. Teach your child where their food comes from. Teach them how to be self-sufficient in their needs. Start out by taking a few camping trips with your child. Get them in touch with nature. Children actually enjoy the out-doors once they get used to the idea of being away from tv/computer/phone screens. If you make these activities family centered and fun your child will look forward to the trips. Focus on building key skills like fishing and hunting. You might even pick up a few fun hobbies along the way. Using the best spotting scope, we got for hunting, my son and I spotted some beautiful western bluebirds. After this we both actually fell in love with bird watching. Now we enjoy our skill-building camping trips even more as avid bird-watchers.
Prepping doesn’t necessarily have to be a frightening experience for you or your child. Make it a fun, family activity. Get your children involved when they are young. Don’t leave out the girls, survival skills are important for everyone. The last thing I would say purely as a parent – trust your children. Trust them to do what’s right in a survival situation and teach them all that you can when they are still in their teenage years. Happy prepping!
No comments:
Post a Comment