Don't know where to start with a city kid? Try the Boy Scouts of America

Prepping in a urban environment has presented numerous challenges, not the least of these is children.  Getting kids interested in, and learning survival skills and critical thinking in this MTV video game infused world can be difficult. Adding to this complication is peer pressure and hopping your children find the right crowd.  Well here is my solution, and endorsement for the Boy Scouts of America.  IMHO Its a safe place for like minded kids, all learning valuable survival and problem solving skills together so there is no peer pressure.

Let me give you a little example.  I recently spent a whole week with our troop at one of the BSA canoe base camps.  Scoutmasters and volunteers only act in a support roll, the BSA troop & patrols are run by the boys.  They take responsibility for all their own needs in-between their training and activities.  Unlike a normal summer camp where meals are provided, this how Boy Scouts get their meals.  Each patrol gets a cooler full of ingredients 3 times a day.  They have directions and menus and set up their own kitchen.

Now this doesn't sound like much sitting at a computer in the comfort of your house, but to watch at a distance while 4 patrols of 11 year old new Boy Scouts make all their own meals for a week is impressive.  I watched them learn their own capabilities, trust themselves, and grow into a team through the course of a week.

There was a base menu for each meal, but they made a lot of their own decisions.  Sometimes they would get a container of peaches or something like that, and could at their choice could come to base camp storage and get a pie crust for a pie, a cake mix and make a crumbler, or they could just dish out peaches for desert to each patrol member.   Do we make eggs and toast for breakfast, or combine ingredients and make french toast?  Here are your potatoes boys... then they could fry them, mash them, boil them, wrap em in tin foil an "camp bake" them.  Their decision, their execution.

Now having seen the patrols in action on weekends is one thing, but over the course of 7 days, things real start to fall in to place. lessons get learned, leaders step up, but everybody grows.  Could you teach these skills to your child?  I guess so.  But its not like learning on your own, with your team.  And all this is between 5 mile hikes, canoe trips, archery, target shooting, fire building, rope knot classes, and other bushcraft skills classes.

Oh, did I mention the flag ceremony twice daily, oaths, pledge of allegiance, prayer of reverence before meals, and responsibility?   To me, BSA brings what is sorely missing in today's society, a code of honor.

Oh, and girls are no longer left out.  While they are not integrated into the boy scout program, the BSA has created the "Venture Scouts" program.  its co-ed and parallel to the regular scouts, so they do everything the regular scouts do and more including some high adventure activities. So if young ladies want more adventure then what the girl scouts offer, and some tougher leadership challenges, the BSA has a solution.