Camping with Children: Dispelling Myths, Safety and more

1) Myth: Children should be old enough where they listen to you before you can take them camping.
False!
Fact: Infants and young toddlers have been brought camping for years without incidents. What IS true though, if the adult is not adult enough to watch the kid like a hawk, then camping is best waited until the Adult matures.

How to Camp with Runners and Crawlers:
There is a device called a Harness for Kids. I highly recommend buying one! If the young girl who died in the water would have been wearing it, with the other end of the strap attached to an adult, she would not have drowned. The adults were all distracted talking, and not attentively watching all the children.

Buddy System: This system has saved many lives before. You have to have a responsible person attached to another person, whereby, that responsible person is responsibly watching and interacting with their buddy at all times. It does not allow for Buddy 1 to talk with friend with back to Buddy 2. Buddy 1 can talk with friend, but must be watching and attentive to Buddy 2. Everyone, no matter what their age, should have a buddy!

2) Myth: Camping is boring with Rain
Can be made false with a little planning.

Now I have had camping trips that were pretty miserable because it rained almost the entire time, AND I was NOT allowed to bring with any toys except a deck of playing cards - because we are camping and we are going to be outside and that is that! :P Wrong attitude! Back in my day, we didn't have electronics we could bring with. BUT we could have brought some Legos with, a Chess set (or chess/draughts/checkers combination), and a book or two to read.

BWCA camping in the modern day:
They do have travel Scrabble (great with kids too!), travel Chess (cloth board, folds up tiny), travel Draughts/Checkers, Mill, and many other travel games. They even have Magnetic Playing cards (dickens to shuffle!), Plastic water proof cards, and long life batteries (expensive) for Mac products. Sorry! I forget the name of the company, but it begins with H and is pricey!

I would allow the kids to bring with a DS and see about getting extra batteries, but only allow a few games with. This is for the 1 hour of downtime that the child is allowed. Also, this works great if you are camping for 4 days, and it rains for all 4 of them. However, I would also invest in a waterproof bag made specifically to keep electronics dry in case of canoe flipping.

What to do in the rain (both non-BWCA and BWCA versions):
As long as its NOT lightning out, or too cold or too windy... you can make a fort out of tarps, chairs and umbrellas. Its fun to play the same old game, but in a new spot! I was bored with playing cards, but put me under a canopy in a cool fort, and those cards meant the world to me!

In the BWCA,  packing light is the rule, so you would have to use ponchos and an extra tarp, if you brought it. You aren't likely to have chairs with as the weight would kill you over time on some of those portages.

Lightning: It is dangerous to camp when it is lightning. I do NOT recommend it. But what do you do if you are stuck? Set up camp FAR away from ALL tall trees but short bushes and very short trees is are best, in the lowest part of land you can find, especially in a Valley. Keep the food packs up high between two trees, as bears still love food. But, in the Southern part of England what do you do? Find a dip or ditch in the land some wheres, but be aware of flooding. Then, I'd tell funny stories to each other to keep people calm. The funnier and sillier the better the story!

Myth: It is better to camp in an open field in stormy weather.
False! You will BE the first thing struck by lightning if you do this! You want to stay away from anything metal, or is tall (like telephone poles, tall trees, etc.) This is a change from what we were taught in the 60's and 70's. They still say that tall trees are bad, but short trees are good. You don't want to be directly UNDER the tree though as that is still bad. But, you do want to be near it so that it will be the target, but far enough away so that you won't be hurt when it IS the target.

How do you stay dry? Use the ponchos. This is also where a metal-free tarp comes in handy, because your tent, if it contains metal, will be a lightning conductor.

Do NOT use electronics here, because lightning is happening and makes electronics dangerous. You may die.

3) The Short of it:

Teach children how to swim.
Teach them to recognize Poison Ivy.
Make camping a fun hiking and science adventure.
Teach them how to respect Nature.
Bury waste far from bodies of water (if in Scotland or country that does not have outhouses).
[Personally, I recommend bringing with toilet compost material as the Victorian period damages lands with their unsanitary waste disposal, and I find that camping with the same methods, just as unsanitary.]

There is a compost material that works well in a self-composting toilet, but I do not know what it is called, and do not know if there is a self-composting portable toilet that is suitable for camping, but with the proliferation of "back to nature" types, I'm sure it exists.