Family Camping Activities
The Family Camping Tents Are Here
Autumn Grandeur, Grand Teton National Park
Family Camping – A Time For Bonding
Taking your family camping can be a great way to reconnect. In today’s busy routine that all families seem to be stuck in, camping can be an opportunity to relax, and actually engage in some meaningful conversation with the ones we love. That sounds so simple doesn’t it? Somehow it’s nearly impossible when we are at home in front of our televisions, computers, video games, telephone calls and assorted other distractions that, inevitably fragment us each to our own corners of interest.
Take Your Family Camping
If you find yourself feeling a widening gap between yourself and your children, a family camping trip can be a great idea for breaking down these communication barriers. The peace, solitude, and reward of sitting by the shore of a perfectly calm lake and watching the sun set while you talk with your kids cannot be purchased. This can be especially difficult to experience as your ‘kids’ grow in to teenagers, and lose interest in spending time with their families.
Ideally, I would recommend this kind of one-on-one time with them before they develop their own social agendas but, in any case, they will want to go again if they have fun after trying it initially. Your job as the camping leader is to make sure they do.
Okay great, you say. So what do we do while we sit by our tent? My kids aren’t gonna go for this! Well, there are tons of things to do if you plan it out a little in advance. Use your imagination, paired with your knowledge of what your kids like to do. What your family finds to be entertaining will differ from family to family depending on individual interests but, here are 10 great ideas to get you started:
- Camping Games
- First to see a selected animal or bird
- First to catch a lightning bug
- First to find volcanic rock, etc…
- Camping Contests
- First to build a 2 foot tall camp fire
- First to to find something eatable you didn’t bring along
- Best at telling scary stories, etc…
- Hiking / biking / Sight Seeing
- Canoeing / River Rafting / Swimming
- Animal / Nature Charades
- Nature / Scenic Photography
- Cave Exploration
- Rock Climbing
- Survival Training
- Campground Activities (socializing)
Now, if your children are over the age of 10 years old and have never been on a family camping trip before, breaking them out of their normal routine of playing video games and texting their friends will be a bit more challenging, but doable. Sometimes allowing them to bring along a best friend can go a long way towards hedging against an argument about going camping.
Even though I was raised in a family where camping trips were quite normal in the summer months, I can still remember protesting several of them because they conflicted with events taking place at home, or with my friends that I was going to miss out on while camping. Planning around these important events, and trying to avoid scheduling your camping trip during one of these times, will reduce your teenagers anxiety about going and give them a better attitude once your family weekend of camping begins.
Just remember, the whole idea behind taking your family camping is to spend time with them and create memories that will last a lifetime. If you want to be successful at this, sit down with pen and paper and discuss openly what you’d like to do on your camping trip. Make a list and get feedback from everyone in your family about what sounds fun to them. Allowing them to take ownership of a thing or two on your activities list, will involve them in the decision-making process, and help them to feel more in control of their weekend.
Happy Camping!
