Crisis never plans and strikes, but we must be prepared to face every situation with utmost care and caution. Knowing these essential survival skills for kids, may mean a difference of life and death under severe situations. So it is important to teach these essential survival skills to your kids well in advance. Don’t be scared or anxious, just make these a routine learning assignment and survival skills will come as naturally as anything else. Summer vacation is a good opportunity to teach essential survival skills to your children.
[Read: Essential summer safety tips]
Life is unpredictable and specially at this time when children are about to head to summer camps and other outdoor activities. Survival skills would be a good information for their own safety. They must know how to sustain life. There maybe times when your child would even use these in routine activities at the backyard, imagine growing and preserving your own food, it is more life long skill and would be mean a whole new set of activities ahead. And while you check the below be sure to opt for your interest summer camp at campnavigator, we have some marvelous listings.
7 Essential Survival Skills for kids include:
You can live without food for 3 weeks, without water for 3 days, without air for 3 minutes and without a clear mind for 3 seconds.
1- Calm and composed mind:
Before you begin any survival skills, it is very important to have a composed mind. The situation must not make you so panicked that you lose it completely. It is never easy to be left alone by ourselves and stay calm but as a behavioral attribute, being calm and patient pays more than being aggressive and impulsive does. So teach these skills early in life. Even for your survival skills to function you would need a peaceful and calm mind
2- Find clean drinking water:
Even before you find food or shelter you may need to find clean water. As your body maybe dehydrated and may not support for long. Remember the water that flows downhill is clear and fresh than other forms of water available. Do keep a check by putting water in you hand and seeing its clarity. Also a flowing water means it may lead to some civilization and most animals too come for drinking water from it. So follow the water downhill and you may find some inhabitations.
3- Making fire:
A very important of the essential survival skills is how to make fire. As keeping the body warm will help sustain life for long, also fire prevents any wild animal attacks and its smoke and lights may make your visible to outer world. Make your fire at a very small location to prevent undue fuel usage. And make sure the wind does not blow directly onto it for it will extinguish the fire. All you need is old grass and leaves which make for tinder, sticks of wood which will bring some good flames for kindling and logs of wood which will be main source of fire fuel. Additionally make a wall of logs on all 4 sides to prevent wind
4- Food:
How to identify the plants which are edible. The child must know at least a few fruits and plants in your area which are safe for consumptions. There are ample movies and books on plants and specially fruits which may have medicinal values too. For the first few nights it is better to heat and then eat to prevent any microbial infection
5- Shelter:
Children must be able to make a bed from grass and leaves. A little over 3-5 inch is sufficient to prevent loss of heat from body. Keep the bed near the fire so that wild animals do not come. If possible find a shade and then make your bed. Do not keep away from fresh air to prevent suffocation.
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6- Fishing and hunting:
As a matter of fact, we all know how to fish with the proper gears but how about fishing without tackles when lost in the wilderness as you may not have any access to the tackles. So how to fish or hunt without them is a survival skill the kids must learn. Improvised fishing gears would need time and some materials so the first skill is noodling or fishing with own hands. Find banks that are undercut and overhanging rocks where suckers and cat fishes hide. Use hands and grab the fish. Noodling works only in warm water. Use stones and rocks to hunt small animals and insects which you may cook to eat.
7- What to do when wildlife encounters:
This is a important life skills more than essential survival skill for kids. What to do when you see a grizzly bear or a coyote. These are some important information you must gather for your child. Also teach them how to act still and dead for most animals would go away if they find you still.
[Read: How to find a summer camp job]
In addition they must also know how to start their own garden, first aid techniques without proper medicines, how to determine direction using sunlight. Self defense must also be natural in your child, when under such circumstances they must be able to protect themselves. And most important find ways to signal for help. Use fire, clothes display on trees and other items to make yourself visible to the outer world.
The above compilation on 7 Essential Survival Skills for kids is a basic safety and awareness guide for your little ones. These situations may not occur ever but having a knowledge is not only essential but also enriching for the knowledge about how civilization came, how men started hunting and gathering and also how life became what it is now.
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By Minu Manisha
