Summer is not only a time for BBQs, baseball games, and trips to the beach. The most glorious months of the year are also a perfect time to practice your preps. Getting the entire family involved in SHTF drills and enhancing your physical readiness can be both a fun and potentially life-saving endeavor.
Prepping isn’t all doom and gloom, or at least it shouldn’t be. Approaching living a self-reliant existence as a form of insurance helps to keep the focus on survival while still allowing us to enjoy our lives.
Working preparedness training into your daily life — and into the lives of your children — is not a complex concept. Mundane tasks and family-time activities offer a multitude of prepping skill enhancement opportunities.
Prepper Fitness
Every day I take the wild dingoes (aka blue heeler puppies that are supposed to belong to my husband and daughter) to the old high school track. The old track is in a beautiful secluded spot with mildly cracked pavement. Local folks can walk with their dogs off-leash and allow their children ride bikes without fear of traffic.
The lackluster state of the pavement has allowed weeds that have not been treated with chemical herbicides to grow freely. The weeds can be plucked and used for herbal remedies. The kiddos who accompany their mothers to the track frequently adorn the oval walkway with adorable and colorful chalk drawings. The temporary artwork is intriguing to view as I sweat my laps away.
A short while back I thought about stopping at the track a bit earlier than normal on the way back from target practice with my daughter. I had the wild dingoes with me, but hadn’t thought to toss my lace-up canvas shoes in the truck before leaving the house.
Being a good prepper, I had extra boots and socks, but no tennis shoes — never been a fan. Instead of adding about 12 minutes to my drive to fetch my walking shoes, I decided to turn my daily exercise laps into a prepper training session.
Cowboys boot and a sundress is my typical summer attire. If the SHTF during June, July, or August, I will likely be making my way home in those exact digs. I pulled into the track and instead of putting my gun and wallet (ID and CCW permit) in an Army pouch the hubby got me, I made room for them in my get home bag. I slung the bag over my shoulders, and got to walking.
The added weight and non-athletic footwear only slowed my usual lap time down about three minutes. The wild dingoes will get their own bugout bags when they get a bit older; six month old is just a little too young to be strapping any weight to their backs.
Other than the squeaky chew toy, which I would pitch immediately after opening the box, the Deluxe Small Dog 72-Hour Kit is about the best doggie bugout bag I have come across.
Of course there was no sense of stress or danger during my prepper fitness laps, but the survival gear hike did give me a better understanding of how I would adjust to the added weight of the pack and helped me to gauge how long it would realistically take me to get home from the nearby town where we go for groceries and other outings.
I like to walk during the heat of the day. The laps are a great way to relax after a morning of writing, and I can get a suntan in the process. It was easily 97 degrees and humid during my first of many prepper fitness lap sessions, and I did not permit myself to get a drink of water until I had completed the two miles in an effort to make the experience as rugged as possible.
Family Friendly Competition
Taking your children camping, hiking, horseback riding, and teaching them how to help care for the family garden are wonderful ways to enhance the preparedness level of your wee ones.
Organizing a family fun day (or evening) once a week offers more than the obvious summer skill-building possibilities. Create a chart with a monthly or end-of-summer prize for the child who won the most competitions, or reward each new skill successfully learned. Age-appropriate prepper gear makes for great survival skills competition prizes; a mini mag-light, glow sticks, pocket knife, compass, and binoculars are just a few suggestions.
The Venturer 2 Liter H2O Gear Hydration Pack is definitely suitable for most tweens and teens to carry; it offers a convenient way to carry basic survival gear with them wherever they go.
Kid-Friendly Survival Skill Booster Ideas
Teach map reading skills by making your own diagram, complete with a standard key, on some parchment paper or the inside of a cut-open paper grocery bag. Use the treasure hunt concept to teach kids, both younger and older ones, how to find their way somewhere or how to find an item camouflaged on your own property. Help the children learn the importance of having a Plan B and to be ready to alter their course when necessary. Have an adult pop out of the bushes with a sign that says “fire” or “danger” so they have to quickly reroute their trip.
Host a preparedness olympics event with family and preparedness-minded friends. A bit of friendly competition will make the activity fun while those involved will enhance their self-reliance skills and increase physical fitness. Instead of setting up a course that mimics what your elementary school gym teacher would devise, have nearly all of the events be survival related. Some prepper olympics activities could include:
- a fire starter contest
- swim and rescue race
- saddle your own horse competition
- catch a chicken in 15 seconds event
- use a bucket to put out a fire in a barrel using water from a creek or pond only
- make a fishing pole out of found objects
- nature scavenger hunt, i.e., find specific edible plants and berries
- splint your own leg and race to the finish line contest
Not all of the survival skills training activities have to involve physical activity. Seated activities on rainy days could include a bugout bag memory game. Anyone who has ever been to a baby shower has played the tray game. The activity will enhance mental skills and also help children to identify the items in a family bugout bag and learn why and how they are used. Place all of the items on a table and allow everyone to see and sift through them for no more than one minute. Stuff all the survival gear back into the bag and then have everyone write down all the items they can remember. Once the game is over, discuss the uses of all items.
Urban Survival Bugout Bag 72-Hour Kit
First aid trivia is another wonderful seated self-reliance training activity the whole family can benefit from. Make some first aid flash cards with an illness or injury listed on each one. Get out the family first aid kit and place it opened on the table next to an opened bugout bag. When a player draws a card, give them three minutes to figure out how they can use what is on hand to help the injured person. Make sure to address how the ailment or injury could be helped if the person who drew the card was the one hurt and was alone at the time.