Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
Yup. I learned a lot of that stuff in Boy Scouts. I do not have kids, but my nephew's son is also learning that stuff in Boy Scouts now. But I suspect that the majority of kids are not learning how to camp as pre-teenagers now.
It is a lot easier to start bike touring if you already have the camping knowledge and skills. It is possible if you don't have that background but then there is a greater chance of having a bad day and calling it quits forever.
Ya know, thinking back I really wasn't technically taught the woodsy and camping stuff so much as it came to me because I was a feral child who ran off into the woods any time I saw a chance to escape. I did have brothers and friends who I learned some of it from. Also I was a voracious consumer of any kind of info on wood craft or other woodsy stuff. So books, magazines or whatever on the subject were devoured. Taking to canoe camping, backpacking, hunting and fishing was just kind of automatic.
Biking... Well I was born into a bicycling family. Everyone rode for utilitarian and recreational purposes. There wasn't any avoiding that.
I raised my own kid to know how to do outdoor stuff and have basic skills in other things that folks often don't these days. She started her kids the same way as toddlers hiking, biking and so on. Kids raised to love the outdoors are likely to raise their kids to do the same. The link can be broken though if it isn't passed on or the kid just doesn't take to it.