Children, Camping and Chores

Most of us have consulted a book or researched how to camp.  For some reason, many of us missed the chapter on kids and chores.  I have a few suggestions to make your camping tasks go smoothly.  They are:

• Involve the whole family.  Kids can help too, especially if you make it fun.  My children never got the sense they had to help – they wanted to.

• Make a list of things that need doing.  Each person in our family had a job to do that was his or hers alone.  One handed out tent stakes, one unloaded items from the truck, one picked up twigs for starting the fire – you get the idea.

• Stay focused.  The kids will be excited to get on their bikes and explore, but if you arrive at your site a couple of hours before lunch, for instance, they will be hungry, glad to help, and not as anxious to get away.

• Designate one person as cook for the first meal.  Our son was a great cook even at the age of ten so while we all unloaded and set up he was preparing an easy meal.

• Let your children bring along a couple of favorite toys or games.  They'll want to get them put away in their tent or bunk.

• Allow your children the freedom to explore the campgrounds on their own, but make sure they know there is responsibility involved and they must first help get things ready at base.  Once everything is finished they can see what’s available to do nearby.  We always took a short bike ride of the area first so we would all know where playgrounds, the pool, etc., were located.  Also, many of the camping places we visited offered the children camp activities to keep them occupied.

• After a meal, designate turns to do cleanup.  Since they were outside, I let my kids have fun.  It didn’t matter how the dishes got done, just that they eventually were finished before the next meal.  A little water didn’t matter outside and they could have fun while they worked.

• Let your kids learn how to do things like starting the campfire (with supervision), setting up the tent, etc.  Once they got older, my kids were much better than I at setting up a tent and they did it alone while I unpacked the camper.  They knew that we’d have lunch and be off to have fun in no time so they never grumbled.  They also were responsible for blowing up air mattresses and making their own beds.  Most of the time we got into a campground and were unpacked and ready to go in an hour or less.

• We gave the job of finding out what activities were available to one of the older kids.  That way they could pick out a few things the whole family might be interested in and we could choose from several (such as horseback riding, canoeing, etc.).

Camping doesn’t have to be frustrating and a lot of work for parents if they involve the whole family.  And believe me, once they’re grown your children remember all those summer times (and the funny things that happened too!).