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Reply to: Games that teach survival skills Posted April 12, 2023

This is a reprint of a posting that I made to another forum back in 2011. I thought that it might be of some use to us here, too: Here is a training project that I used on my youngest three with pretty decent success. I came up with this because, a little while before that time, three of our older kids had gotten lost in the woods at a friend’s property. When we could not find them, I went to our van and started honking the horn. I gave three short blasts, three longer blasts and another three short blasts (SOS in Morse). I repeated it after about 10-20 seconds of pause and then did about 75-100 reps – repeated those reps several more times. It took several hours for them, but they finally made it back, cold and hungry, but safe. The younger ones benefited from the older ones discomfort. I took each one out to a small, wooded area near our house. This is a very small area, you have to plug up your ears AND close your eyes, and work very hard to try to convince yourself that you are lost, but that is exactly what I wanted. When we went out (one kid at a time), I told them that we were going to go out in the woods and get lost – that was good for some interesting looks on their faces. We walked the block or so to the woods, and walked on in to the wooded area. We walked through the area for a couple of minutes, checking everything out – lots of cool bike paths and small jump ramps there along with some kids’ “camp” sites (coke bottles and candy wrappers.) After maneuvering the kid so that houses were (mostly) out of view, I would suddenly say, “Oh, look. Were Lost!” (comical exaggeration to keep real panic away, feigned panic is just right for this!) Next, I walked the kid through the STOP method of surviving. This is the acronym for Stop and Sit down, Think, Observe and Plan. I asked each kid about how to spell the word stop, and then had them recite, after me, each part of the acronym. After each part, I had the kid act out that step. For the S, I had the kid find a nice log or stone and then sit down. I actually let them sit for a minute while I explained how panic is what kills most people who get lost. It’s kind of difficult to panic if you take the time to sit down, do a bit of relaxing deep-breathing, and rest a bit. After this, for the T, I had them think about what we were doing and start getting mentally prepared to get unlost. I again mentioned how Panic=Bad, Calm=Good. Using your head to think about your situation and resolve your dilemma is waayyyy better than using it to panic. Next, for the O, I told them to list their five senses and then think about how they could use those for observing (explained how observing is more than just looking). I had them close their eyes and listen. Of course they were able to hear kids playing and cars driving by. Trains’ whistles, and horns, are easy to hear from a long way off. Next came looking for any signs of civilization – the neighborhood houses were hard to miss, and I had to tell them to ignore those, because in a real event, the houses may not be visible. We did try smell, and I told them that sometimes you can smell civilization (vehicle exhaust, BBQs, etc) before you can see it. I did say that taste might not be a real good idea to try , but we touched on foraging and how God provides a LOT of stuff in the wild – that will be another training session. We next tried standing up, closing their eyes and feeling the lay of the land, then opening their eyes and looking at the slope. I mentioned that water flows downhill (we live in “River City”, Pittsburgh, there is always a small stream around) and that if they follow water downhill, it will always lead to a bigger stream and then finally to one of the three major rivers here. Along nearly every one of the bigger streams, or smaller rivers, there is a more major road. Once the find that, they can either find a way to call us for help, or find their way home. Finally, for the P, I had them go over our little talk and make a plan for how to recover from their temporary setback. I had each one of them come up with at least one or two ways to go about working towards getting unlost. Finally, we worked through one of the plans (each one of them came up with the idea of following the stream downhill). This of course took us out of the woods right behind a local drug store; great time to run in real quick and get a bit of candy and a drink. It really builds up the hunger and thirst to be lost in the Great Outdoors for a full twenty or thirty minutes. With each one of those little trips out in the woods, we had a great time to build up our Father/Son and Father/Daughter relationships. We all loved the time, and I think that the kids learned something that could help them, if they follow in their older brothers’ steps. I have already told my Daughter-In-Law that, this spring, I was taking my granddaughter (she just turned two) out and we were going to get lost in the woods. The look on her face was every bit as entertaining as the look on my younger kids’ faces several years ago. She apparently has learned to trust her (kind of strange) Father-In-Law though because, other than the strange look, she didn’t object. Her look did clearly say that she thought the baby was a bit too young, but you know… little kids can run out in the woods and get lost, just like their older uncles. Hmm, maybe the word STOP will be the first word that she learns to spell.

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Reply to: Games that teach survival skills Posted April 12, 2023

This is a reprint of a posting that I made to another forum back in 2011. I thought that it might be of some use to us here, too: Here is a training project that I used on my youngest three with pretty decent success. I came up with this because, a little while before that time, three of our older kids had gotten lost in the woods at a friend’s property. When we could not find them, I went to our van and started honking the horn. I gave three short blasts, three longer blasts and another three short blasts (SOS in Morse). I repeated it after about 10-20 seconds of pause and then did about 75-100 reps – repeated those reps several more times. It took several hours for them, but they finally made it back, cold and hungry, but safe. The younger ones benefited from the older ones discomfort. I took each one out to a small, wooded area near our house. This is a very small area, you have to plug up your ears AND close your eyes, and work very hard to try to convince yourself that you are lost, but that is exactly what I wanted. When we went out (one kid at a time), I told them that we were going to go out in the woods and get lost – that was good for some interesting looks on their faces. We walked the block or so to the woods, and walked on in to the wooded area. We walked through the area for a couple of minutes, checking everything out – lots of cool bike paths and small jump ramps there along with some kids’ “camp” sites (coke bottles and candy wrappers.) After maneuvering the kid so that houses were (mostly) out of view, I would suddenly say, “Oh, look. Were Lost!” (comical exaggeration to keep real panic away, feigned panic is just right for this!) Next, I walked the kid through the STOP method of surviving. This is the acronym for Stop and Sit down, Think, Observe and Plan. I asked each kid about how to spell the word stop, and then had them recite, after me, each part of the acronym. After each part, I had the kid act out that step. For the S, I had the kid find a nice log or stone and then sit down. I actually let them sit for a minute while I explained how panic is what kills most people who get lost. It’s kind of difficult to panic if you take the time to sit down, do a bit of relaxing deep-breathing, and rest a bit. After this, for the T, I had them think about what we were doing and start getting mentally prepared to get unlost. I again mentioned how Panic=Bad, Calm=Good. Using your head to think about your situation and resolve your dilemma is waayyyy better than using it to panic. Next, for the O, I told them to list their five senses and then think about how they could use those for observing (explained how observing is more than just looking). I had them close their eyes and listen. Of course they were able to hear kids playing and cars driving by. Trains’ whistles, and horns, are easy to hear from a long way off. Next came looking for any signs of civilization – the neighborhood houses were hard to miss, and I had to tell them to ignore those, because in a real event, the houses may not be visible. We did try smell, and I told them that sometimes you can smell civilization (vehicle exhaust, BBQs, etc) before you can see it. I did say that taste might not be a real good idea to try , but we touched on foraging and how God provides a LOT of stuff in the wild – that will be another training session. We next tried standing up, closing their eyes and feeling the lay of the land, then opening their eyes and looking at the slope. I mentioned that water flows downhill (we live in “River City”, Pittsburgh, there is always a small stream around) and that if they follow water downhill, it will always lead to a bigger stream and then finally to one of the three major rivers here. Along nearly every one of the bigger streams, or smaller rivers, there is a more major road. Once the find that, they can either find a way to call us for help, or find their way home. Finally, for the P, I had them go over our little talk and make a plan for how to recover from their temporary setback. I had each one of them come up with at least one or two ways to go about working towards getting unlost. Finally, we worked through one of the plans (each one of them came up with the idea of following the stream downhill). This of course took us out of the woods right behind a local drug store; great time to run in real quick and get a bit of candy and a drink. It really builds up the hunger and thirst to be lost in the Great Outdoors for a full twenty or thirty minutes. With each one of those little trips out in the woods, we had a great time to build up our Father/Son and Father/Daughter relationships. We all loved the time, and I think that the kids learned something that could help them, if they follow in their older brothers’ steps. I have already told my Daughter-In-Law that, this spring, I was taking my granddaughter (she just turned two) out and we were going to get lost in the woods. The look on her face was every bit as entertaining as the look on my younger kids’ faces several years ago. She apparently has learned to trust her (kind of strange) Father-In-Law though because, other than the strange look, she didn’t object. Her look did clearly say that she thought the baby was a bit too young, but you know… little kids can run out in the woods and get lost, just like their older uncles. Hmm, maybe the word STOP will be the first word that she learns to spell.