Survival Skills: 3 Ways To Get Your Kids “Survival Ready”

Being both a parent and a survival instructor, it’s easy for me to spot opportunities that will better prepare my kids for emergencies and survival scenarios. There are many ways train yourself and your kids in self-reliance skills. There are also many people who you can pay to provide your kids’ training.

But no one knows your kids better than you do, and by providing this training yourself you can tailor the skills perfectly to their ages and interests. Let’s look at three areas where you can work on survival with your kids every day.

Be Entertained By Survival
There is more survival-related programming on tv and online now than there has ever been. Surely you can find a survival personality that will interest your kids and reflect your family’s philosophy and ethics–at least a little bit. But don’t just settle for the shows that are on TV right now. Search for older shows and documentaries, too. Some of my favorites are BBC programs featuring Ray Mears. Mr. Mears is an English woodsman, instructor, author, and TV presenter whose programs were filmed with a lot less drama than today’s contrived shows. Mears also takes time to walk the viewer through the “how-to” part of many skills, even weaving in facets of the history and anthropology of the cultures that relied upon the skills. Whichever show you end up watching as a family, don’t just sit there with your eyes glazed over. Talk about what you are seeing. Ask the kids some questions about the show’s content and survival methods. Let them ask you questions as well. Discuss any bad decisions that were made on the show. And don’t forget to ask the kids how that survival situation could have been avoided in the first place.
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Talk About Survival**
You certainly don’t want to sound like a broken record to the kids, but it’s worth bringing up survival topics often. Discuss wild food at meal times. Talk about skills during car rides. Make use of downtime to instill the thoughts and ideas that could help your kids survive. One area that is often neglected is the survivor mentality. This will have massive carryover value into your kids’ lives. You can teach them about adaptability, mental toughness, motivation, and, most of all, attitude. By making these things relevant and valued in daily life, these mental traits will be there for the kids to call on in emergencies, too.

**Make A Game Out Of Survival **
Games (5 best survival games) are the easiest way to get through to most kids (and many adults). What kid doesn’t want to play a game? You can teach your kids archery and then play games based around target practice. You can teach your kids about the edible plants in the backyard, and then see who can find the most. The subjects of survival are plentiful, and the ways to turn them into a fun activities are limitless. You just have to make time to give this knowledge to your kids, because you never know when they might need it.

Tell us in the comments what kind of survival training you do with your kids.