I bought my kid her first multi-tool for her 11th birthday not long ago. She was so excited she used it to open the rest of her presents and it has hardly left her pocket since, (except to go to school). As I sat to reflect about all this talk about preparedness it made me smile to know the effect I am having on my kid and the role it will play as she gets older. By age 9 she could light a fire with a spark tool(in winter) and now we sit often and watch Ray Mears, Survivorman or similar shows together and talk about upcoming camping trips. A while ago we watched the rerun episode of survivorman on OLN where he eats the "unknown mushroom" .she actually knew what it was because I have tried to teach her about bad plants, good plants, animals and so on. With big eyes she looked up at me an said

"wow dad, that was pretty stupid to eat that mushroom wasn't it?"

" Ya, stupid kid, but its just a show. don't do it because he did"

'Oh I wouldn't do that... But that one was safe to eat because its a ......."

"How the hell did you know that?"

"Because you taught me last year while camping"

To tell the truth, I could not even ID the dammed thing at the time but she did. I guess I am getting rusty. The big thing however, is that nothing on earth is cooler than seeing her show interest in that sort of thing without me pressuring her into it. Sure she likes all the normal stuff kids do, but ask her how to sharpen a knife or how to tie a bowline and she can do it quite well.

My point you ask?

Knowledge is USELESS unless you are willing to share it with someone. For those of us with kids it is both a pleasure and a responsibility to share(not force upon) this info.

Now that she has shown the proper attitude and responsibility not just to use, but to own her own blades the next stop will be a brand new shiny rifle. This weekend the training in firearms safety continues, followed soon with a trip to the range to fire her first live rounds.

I thought I would share it here.


A VERY proud Dad.