Jump to content

Menu
Giving You and Your Child a Road Map to the Best Possible Education
The Well-Trained Mind Community

I want to train my girls in the art of comfortable 'survival skills'!

Blueridge

By Blueridge,
in The Chat Board

 Share

Recommended Posts

Blueridge

Blueridge

Posted
Posted

I am looking long-term at increasing our ability to be more self-sufficient so that we can be prepared for the future. Sort of like a Home Economics course on steroids! ;) I'm not fearful of doomsday approaching, but want my girls to practice how to feel confident if the power goes out or how to prepare for bad weather, or how to 'make do' when money is tight and feel the joy of being prepared for any circumstance by being knowledgable and prepared. Being able to garden successfully, preserve things, keep adequate food and supplies, have resources on hand to keep learning about things...this is what I want to teach my girls. Have you any suggestions for where to begin? I would love websites, curriculum suggestions, book titles, any thoughts you might have so that we can learn together how to live a life that is simple, enriching, inspiring, and full of knowledge and peace. Thank you for your insights!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
....

....

Posted
Posted

Not sure if this would help, but we did an entire month-long unit study on survival skills in December. Here's the resources I used:

 

1. Read My Side of the Mountain and did the Hands of a Child unit study

 

2. Improve Your Survival Skills -this looks silly, but we did fire safety drills and sure enough...in January, our house caught fire (the dryer caught on fire in the laundry room). My kids knew exactly what to do, because we had just done fire safety.

 

3. Basic Illustrated Wilderness First Aid - we bought a BIG first aid kit and went through everything in the kit and the book. They learned a ton of first aid.

 

4. Tools of Navigation

 

5. Peterson's First Guide to Clouds and Weather

 

6. Knotcraft: The Practical and Entertaining Art of Tying Knots - we bought green cord from Home Depot and this was a huge hit

 

Not sure if anything out of there is useful to you, but my son had a blast that month. Like I said, we had never done fire safety before and a month later, we had a house fire. So, if nothing else - don't forget fire safety!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites
fairfarmhand

fairfarmhand

Posted
Posted

My all time favorite? Carla Emery's The Encyclopedia of Country Living. I could read this book for hours and it is full of practical down to earth tips, from homeopathic medicine, growing stuff, raising animals, it even tells you how to give birth unassisted.

 

I second he idea of 4H

Link to comment
Share on other sites
hillfarm

hillfarm

Posted
Posted

The Carla Emory book is a main reference for self sufficiency topics. There is also a good one that Reader's Digest published several years ago. Depending on the ages of your dc, you might want to use the table of contents of these books and flesh it out with more age appropriate books on the outlined topics. You will have to either identify a few of the higher priority (for your family and area) topics and do them thoroughly or skim the surface of many things. It would take a lifetime to learn all there is to know about these subjects. This is more for long term situations, such as a prolonged personal unemployment, Great Depression type event, major governmental change, etc.

 

Regarding disaster preparedness, it comes down to a few basic categories: immediate safety during the threat (storm, earthquake, flood, etc.), then how to manage the basics of life: safe drinking, cooking and bathing water, food (storage and preparation), basic health (medications, accident prevention, sanitation, etc.) shelter (from heat or cold), communications, trade/barter, and possibly self and home defense.

 

A lot of crisis situations are very similar once the actual precipitating event passes. You have to deal with:

-loss of power and all that entails within your home and in your immediate community,

-lack of communications to reach loved ones who are not home and to find out what is going on and what, if any help is available,

-loss of other public utilities such as natural gas, city/county water

-inability to travel, usually due to roads being blocked or destroyed, or possibly by prolonged weather conditions (ice, snow)

-most support businesses being closed (banks, gas stations, grocery stores, doctors and hospitals, etc.)

-possible damage to your home

-possible damage to your health or that of loved ones

 

While the disaster preparedness is usually more immediate, self sufficiency is often based on the main elements of it. IMO, it is more important to be prepared for the disasters that you KNOW will occur in your area (storms, quakes, floods, tornados, hurricanes, etc.) or those you suspect could happen (man-made chemical spills, explosion at local manufacturing plant, terrorist attack of sensitive targets nearby, etc.). Then, as time and money permits, you can add skills that are needed for longer term survival. For example, if your area gets tornados, it would be more important to know where the best hiding places are both at home and away and to practice seeking shelter than to focus first on how to shear sheep, process the wool and spin it, then how to crochet it into sweaters. IMO, that would not be very helpful to you in your more likely preparedness scenario of a tornado. Knowing how to process fiber is great, but a moot point if you have been wiped out by a tornado.

 

It would probably only take a few weeks or a couple of months to get the basics of your disaster prep curriculum covered. After that, it's just a matter of gathering things as time and money permit. Then I would suggest moving on to the self sufficiency skill areas, but in an orderly fashion. Water first, then food or shelter, etc. The order will depend on your family needs and your current situation and location. Shelter, for example, would be a big priority to those of us who live in the north, not so much for those in the temperate south.

 

Good luck with this. Feel free to pm me if you have any other questions you think I might be able to help with.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
KungFuPanda

KungFuPanda

Posted
Posted

Chech your state's DNR. Many of them have weekend camps for Becoming and Outdoor Woman. The fees are VERY low and it's a good time. It's not for children, but if you have some skills you can pass them on. I know I learned about gardening, and functioning without electricity from my parents who just grew up at a time and place where most people had these skills. Rustic camping might be a good place to start. The ability to build a fire and cook over it is pretty important in my book. I know it's come in handy even in suburbia when there was a power outage and I had a fireplace and a fire pit at my disposal.

 

For gardening, you can try a master gardener in your area. Those folks LIVE to convert normal people into competent gardeners :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Sara R

Sara R

Posted
Posted

I would also recommend camping as a family, as this is a realistic-ish but fun way many of these skills are practiced. Also it helps with the just-as-important mental preparation--remaining cheerful even when it is rainy and cold and dinner got burnt is in some ways as important a survival skill as knots and tents and canning.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Stacia

Stacia

Posted
Posted

My dd loves checking out books on assorted topics like that from the library. She always picks up a variety of them. Two she had recently which cover lots of basic skills are:

How to Sew a Button: And Other Nifty Things Your Grandmother Knew

How to Build a Fire: And Other Handy Things Your Grandfather Knew

 

They cover everything from practical, everyday skills to fun things to know to longer-term happiness/self-care/community issues....

Link to comment
Share on other sites
J-rap

J-rap

Posted
Posted

I think that's a great idea! Another thing you could focus on is how to make a meal out of nothing -- haha! We used to kind of make a game with that a little when the kids were all home. We were on a strict budget and sometimes I didn't feel like going to the grocery store for just a few ingredients. We would see what we had on hand, and instead of complaining about it ("We have nothing to eat!"), we would figure out how to make a whole meal out of it.

 

It's a skill that my kids have really grown to depend on, as they become independent and learn how to live and eat on a very limited budget.

Link to comment
Share on other sites
Rosie_0801

Rosie_0801

Posted
Posted

Add how to fix the basics with their own cars. (My dad always told us to learn, but swore so much when fixing cards my sibling's first sentence was "Oh s***, d*mnit!" so we ran away and hid instead.)

 

It occurs to me that buying the kids a tool, then teaching them what to do with it would be a way to learn. You want to be careful though. My aunt taught dd to use a screwdriver and had her help put a door on the walk in pantry, so now I have screws in the kitchen wall. She taught her how to drop the jockey wheel on the trailer, which dd did, and it tore to pieces as my aunt drove down the very rocky driveway. Luckily she doesn't leave the power drill lying around. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

×
 Share
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...