Responsibility can be hard to teach kids. If you are like me, I find it easier to just clean up the messes than to fight with the kids to clean them up themselves. Have you been there?
Regardless of it being easier for us as parents to do it ourselves, we are not teaching our kids anything except that someone else will do it and to be lazy. In today’s world, there are enough lazy people out there and I don’t want my kids to join the numbers.
That being said – let’s talk about how camping can teach responsibility.
Photo Credit to emily katherine may on Flickr
Teaching Responsibilities
For starters, if you have never been camping, you should give it a try. It doesn’t have to be fancy with a huge RV and you don’t have to travel far away from home. There are thousands upon thousands of camping sites scattered across the globe each a little bit different than the next.
You may live where it is hot all the time or you may live where it is freezing, but you can be sure there is a camp ground near you. Of course, teaching you about camping isn’t why I’m here, so let’s get started.
First, you should think about getting your child or children their own tent. Even if you decide to take along the RV, take their tent along as well. Next, you’ll need to make sure they know they will be responsible for certain things during your camping trip.
What sort of things?
Before heading to the campground, make sure your children have all their camping gear, including sleeping bags, a flash light, a lantern, a small cooler, and maybe even a crank radio. Your child will be in charge of packing each of these items along with drinks they will need, batteries for the lantern and flash light, toothbrush, toothpaste, brushes, combs, shampoo, towels, clothes and other items they will need. They will need their own duffle bag as well.
Responsibility comes through the following:
- Be sure your child knows how long the batteries will last them. When they run out, they will not get any more batteries. They need to be responsible for turning them off and conserving their battery life.
- They will be in charge of zipping their own tent door. If they do not, they will come back to find it filled with little critters and mosquitoes. You can be sure they will only do this once.
- They will need to keep ice in their cooler along with drinks. If they run out of ice or forget to put the drinks in, they will be drinking hot drinks instead of cold.
- If they forget to bring a pillow, they will be sleeping on the hard ground.
- If they forget to bring their toys, they won’t have any to play with.
- If they run out of underwear, they can wear it dirty (You can take some extra along just in case. It is their first time. Remember, we want to teach responsibility, not be mean.)
You can use this technique of teaching responsibility with other camping ideas. Some may be more suited for older children while others are great for younger children. They have to learn sometime that mommy and daddy won’t always be around to hand them things when they run out.
While some of these responsibility ideas may seem minor and others harsh, it will be a learning experience for the both of you. Take it one step at a time and learn as you go. Good luck and have fun camping!
Just a tip: Don’t run out of anything yourself, because your kids won’t give it to you either!
