One of the great joys of camping with my kids is watching them discover new things and grow in their appreciation of the outdoors. It came to me the other day, though, that my kids are not the only ones who have been learning and growing, from our family camping adventures. Here are three things that camping with my kids has taught me.
Patience
Appreciation
Creativity
See also…
Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience, Roy! I have a preschooler and he likes to read nature related books. I’ll take definitely take him out on a camping trip soon! ^Eric
Nice topic. My kids always seem to find a million things when we head on an adventure. Always something new to learn. I can’t wait to have kids and have them experience the joys of camping! Thank you so much
We have a toddler and just had our second baby girl. This experience has taught me again how to slow down and appreciate it as well.
nice topic. there is also a book called 40 things i learned from my kids. check it out free at http://www.scribd.com/doc/93506632/40-Things-I-Learned-from-My-Kids
I can’t wait to have kids and have them experience the joys of camping! Enjoyed your site!
I My kids always seem to find a million things when we head on an adventure. Always something new to learn.
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We can’t wait to take our granddaughter camping. It is so much fun to see the amazement and wonder on a child’s face as they experience new things. I can remember as a kid myself – laying in the sleeping bag in the tent and listening to the night time sounds. I wonder if I drove my dad crazy asking “What was that?” Not asking because of being scared but because of being curious. I still have the sleeping bag that I saved green stamps for weeks just to get it – gosh that shows my age!!
I’m not a parent, I’m a first grade teacher. We take our students camping once a year. Most of our students aren’t native speakers, but when we go camping they remember so much of what they were taught in the forest. It always makes the year move along smoothly.
Clark I know just what you mean. I enjoyed doing just that with my boys, and now I’m showing things to my grand children. It’s so much fun!
SF, that’s a interesting point, and one I’ve thought about watching my own boys.
As much as I lament the disappearance of the kind of unstructured time outdoors that I enjoyed as a kid, I wonder if the continued rise in popularity of activities like birding means that more kids today have access to adults who can serve as “naturalist mentors.”
As a kid, I would have loved it if an adult could have pointed out some of the wonders to be found out in the woods, but my own parents (and all of my friends’ parents) had no idea.
It is interesting how as we grow up, we wouldn’t care a whole lot about new types of bugs or things like that.
But kids could gather around and be amazed at new bugs and many things we take for granted.
And for adults, somewhere along the way it had become more interesting to watch how the kids marvel at such things. Almost as though that type of naive excitement is something that would be great to have back.
That’s a cool tree. My kids would get a kick out of that.
Those are perfect words to go with those photos. Thanks for sharing.
I love it! I have so much fun camping with my grand kids. We look for crawdads, throw rocks (skip rocks) and really enjoy eating campfire cooking and enjoying the campfire. They always have to have a fire poker to poke the fire. My 3 sons still love to camp.
Is that an elephant?!?! Where did you find that!
It is weird looking, isn’t it Mike? That is a burl on a redwood tree in the Stout Grove, in Jedediah Smith State Park.
Youthfulness. My boys taught me what it was like to be a kid again. A virtual fountain of youth.
{headslap} I could not come-up with the right word, Eric – “youthfulness”! I had a picture all set (my son throwing pine cones in a lake) but I could not think of the right word.
Patience is a BIG one. I wrote the following two summers ago after a three-week road trip with my boys (Mom had to stay home and earn a living, so i was solo):
“I was wrong when thought I’d be the one who most wanted to camp. I figured the boys would push me to stay in hotels more often. In fact, it’s been just the opposite—the boys love camping, are disappointed every time we head for town. And why not? Each campsite is a big playground for them.It’s just so much bloody work–unpacking the car, pitching the tent, inflating the mattresses, assembling the stove, cooking the food, cutting the food, washing the dishes, picking up and disposing bear-attracting scraps and so forth and so on. All while “Daaad†rings out every three minutes.”
So true, Clark 🙂