Prepping Tasks for Kids

Often prepping falls to the "man of the house" but if you want your family to be totally effective in a disaster situation, EVERYONE in the family needs to be a prepper.  Here are a lot of ways kids can become preppers (mostly without even knowing they are doing it).  Kids can:

• Learn how to swim.
• Take a lifeguard course.
• Take a kids-oriented first aid/CPR/AED class (often taught in schools).
• Earn all of the Boy Scout Merit Badges.
• Participate in the police Explorers program.
• Volunteer in the community.
• Participate in family drills (fire drills, lock down drills, etc).
• In addition to driver's ed, they can take specialized defensive driver's classes geared specifically for teens.
• Go on family camping, fishing, hunting, and backpacking trips.
• Be assigned one night a week to shop and cook for the whole family.
• Participate in team sports (soccer, track, etc) in order to learn teamwork and leadership skills.
• Set and achieve athletic goals (participate in a 5k or marathon, do a Mud Run, hike the Appalachian Trail, etc).
• Be introduced to a wide range of hobbies (HAM radio, knitting, metalworking, etc.).
• Help in the garden and with preserving food (canning, making jam, etc).
• Participate in shooting activities: youth shooting sports, hunter's ed class, gun safety class, etc.
• Travel nationally and internationally with the family.
• Be responsible for chores.
• Be taught how to manage, save, and invest their money.
• Learn personal and cyber safety.
• Take self defense classes (karate, tae kwon do, etc).
• Learn how to use a variety of vehicles: bicycle, motorcycle/dirt bike. drive a car/tractor, kayak, motor boat, etc.
• Be taught how to build things: tree house, soap box derby car, bicycle from parts, computer from parts, etc.
• Be taught manners, good character traits, how to write effectively, how to speak effectively, how to advocate for themselves, etc.
• Learn how to handle difficult situations (social situations, legal situations, how to grieve, etc).
• Play games with the family (card games, Monopoly, chess, other strategy games, etc).

...basically all the things kids learned as part of everyday life a century ago.  I think society is losing a great deal of human potential when kid's lives only include sleep, fast food for breakfast, go to school, play video games, keep up on social media, fast food for dinner, spend all evening online.