childrens involvement

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Jay

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If you have children, how involved are they in your preps? I've read at various times don't tell your kids anything, they are little loudpeakers, I was thrown off another forum for saying that we include our children that are at home (28 (yeah, 28 isn't really a child), 17 and 11) in pretty much everything we do. (The comment was "you must be an A$$hole father, I never tell my kids ANYTHING I do) and I said Oh like Obama? Apparently a poor choice of words. Anyway, what brought up this subject was dinner last night. We always sit down together as a family for dinner, seven days a week (sometimes someone can't make it). We were talking about the proposed gun ban (my wife and I) and my 11 year old looked like he was about to start crying. I asked him what was wrong, did the conversation bother him? He said "Other people buy guns to hunt, but you buy guns for protection (?). I asked him if guns bother him (he loves to shoot). No. I let it drop, but I thought about it for awhile. His best friend, with whom he spends the night almost once a week, has a dad who uses his garage as a gun safe. Probably five or six hundred guns. My caddy-corner neighbor ran a gun shop all his life. Lots of guns. And so forth. I'm undoubtedly the most under-gunned person on the block (single digits). Later on I asked Jon what that was all about, and he said nothing, I just woke up (from a nap).

Back on topic; the two kids that are still in school are going to public school. (Bing refuses to home school, although he is a professor and taught for five years. So we unlearn what the school is teaching them. (For example, they didn't know that Lincoln disliked blacks and thought them to be inferior to the white man). Sometimes the teachers tell them somethig useful (RJ said the smart a$$ sitting behind him in chemistry asked the teacher why we don't use gold and silver for money and the teacher went nuts. (Daddy, I think she is reading the same stuff you are). Fiat money, monetary collapse, etc. Likewise at least one of the teachers has taught him about die-off (the world population has gone from 3 to 7 billion in only thirty years), unsustainable.

The 28 year old is involved with his fiance, body building etc, but one day I looked at his facebook page, and he is posting articles that mirror what I'm reading about, so he's not asleep.

Bing has lived in four countries that have collapsed and plays her cards very close to her chest. She doesn't say much other than the United States is completely over, but Americans are too stupid to see it, and if you talk about it at work, they will fire you.

If you have kids, do you share your thoughts/some of your thoughts with them?


edited to add all the kids have lived in the Philippines at one time or another, so inequality is not new to them
 
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My kids are too young. I'm not burdening them with worries about the future.
 
My kid is nearly 18 and we share everything. She builds rifles with me and can field strip and re-assemble an AR-15 in just under 60 seconds.
 

probably better that my 11 year old didn't hear any of it (as least my way of thinking). I don't know if that is wishy washy of me or not. My wife does NOT agree. She says that kids here (US) are unprepared for life, as they are too sheltered. I did assure my 11 year old when I took him to school this morning that there will be no fire fights at my house (I'm not a soldier, I'm not a rebel, etc.). He seemed OK about that and said that he does like guns (he likes to go shoot) but it sounded to me like a subject he would rather not even think about. Bing pointed out that everything on TV and Halo is about killing.
 
My 12 year old is just starting to think about the world beyond himself. Don't get me wrong, I do educate him in small doses about important subjects. I just don't discuss the big picture with him yet. He has a lot more maturing to do before I think he's ready for that.
 
I am just trying to live my life. Thankfully, at this age (2 and 4.5), my boys are like a sponge, they will accept anything I do, as the thing that daddy does, so they absolutely thrive to do the same (like "helping" me fixing stuff, building stuff, repairing stuff, doing the gardening, etc... no matter).

Last autumn, my older one "harvested" all our apples he was able to reach to (together with his friend), long before they were edible :rotflmbo: I was pissed to no end, luckily, he did not noticed how much, before I started to laugh at the whole situation :)

Life :)

But hmmm, 10-11 y.o. - don't fall for the generational trap - while in many regards, they are still very vulnerable (and good for you, guys, that you are thinking hard about what & how to tell them things!) and need to be sheltered from the hardcore shit that goes around, but mentally, they are very capable already...

Having fecked up chilhood myself (divorced parents, drug addicted/recovering mother), I remember, at 10, I was in some aspects way more mature, than her - which is to say, pretty damn mature!

Hmm, the joys & tortures of parenthood :)
 
My 12 year old is just starting to think about the world beyond himself. Don't get me wrong, I do educate him in small doses about important subjects. I just don't discuss the big picture with him yet. He has a lot more maturing to do before I think he's ready for that.

PMB, please please please do NOT construe me asking you as an implication as to how you should raise your kids. I am struggling with this just myself. :)
 
I am just trying to live my life. Thankfully, at this age (2 and 4.5), my boys are like a sponge, they will accept anything I do, as the thing that daddy does, so they absolutely thrive to do the same (like "helping" me fixing stuff, building stuff, repairing stuff, doing the gardening, etc... no matter).

Last autumn, my older one "harvested" all our apples he was able to reach to (together with his friend), long before they were edible :rotflmbo: I was pissed to no end, luckily, he did not noticed how much, before I started to laugh at the whole situation :)

Life :)

But hmmm, 10-11 y.o. - don't fall for the generational trap - while in many regards, they are still very vulnerable (and good for you, guys, that you are thinking hard about what & how to tell them things!) and need to be sheltered from the hardcore shit that goes around, but mentally, they are very capable already...

Having fecked up chilhood myself (divorced parents, drug addicted/recovering mother), I remember, at 10, I was in some aspects way more mature, than her - which is to say, pretty damn mature!

Hmm, the joys & tortures of parenthood :)

mom shot herself when I was six, dad drank himself to death shortly thereafter. Adopted into an alcoholic family, in which the dad left a month after adoption (he was smart, couldn't take her drinking). All of us kids (3) took to the streets by the time we were fourteen. Spent until I was 27 in and out of correctional facilities, uneducated.
Wife grew up in abject poverty, disowned by family early on because she was raped. Fought in war and had a bit of what I can only call a very unfortunate life (not necessarily improved by marrying me 19 years ago).

so we've been around the block, and I think I'm way overprotective, but also aware that things can change very, very fast.

And Bing picks the apples green and eats them with salt.... :)
 
...

Our daughter is 28. She bought into Hope & Change in 2008, but now that she is on her own, she feels very differently. She "gets it", but does not have enough earnings to buy PMs. Buying the PMs is MY job...

allrmetalsr(eventually)blong2her!
 
...

Our daughter is 28. She bought into Hope & Change in 2008, but now that she is on her own, she feels very differently. She "gets it", but does not have enough earnings to buy PMs. Buying the PMs is MY job...

allrmetalsr(eventually)blong2her!

ask her if she remembers when Obamacare was going to lower our insurance premiums? (Three years ago). I make 27,000 a year. (!). The cheapest insurance plan for a family of four under Obamacare is 20,000. Wow! I'm gonna have 7000 dollars a year for mortgage, gas, food, clothing etc. Time to go on welfare! Ya'll work a little harder for me, would you? And since most employers are going to the 28 hour work week....
 
My kids know about our preps and understand how much sense they make. Last spring when we had a blizzard and were snowed in for 3 days, they were very glad we have lots of stuff stocked up. Same with when the power goes out for several hours. They like that we have ways to get things back up and running so even if the cable is out, they can still play video games or watch DVD's. Around here having guns & supplies is fairly normal. We tell them not to let people know exactly how much of everything we have. We've told them just to say we have a couple guns for hunting & some for protection. They don't need to talk about how much ammo or reloading supplies we have. Same with water, food, & other supplies. My kids (3 out of 4 anyway) are also getting into collecting silver. My son has been doing it for years now, but my 2 youngest daughters are on board now too. When it was still under $20/oz I told them what a good deal it was and they decided to each buy a little bit. I also want my kids to know how to shoot, and not be afraid of them or be so curious about things they are "never" allowed to touch like with some people that the curiosity becomes so great they play with them and something bad happens. To me part of prepping (survivalist when I was a kid) means utilizing all your resources and eliminating liabilities as much as possible. If I don't teach my kids, I am not utilizing a resource and they become more of a liability if the SHTF.
 
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My kid isn't so little anymore and she is totally on board the prep train. If you get the kids on the same page, the wife will probably follow right behind. My wife is still skeptical, but she's slowly coming around day by day. anyone with half a brain and a set of eyes can see what's happening around us, and it's not good at all. This Potemkin economy is threatening to come off the rails at the slightest provocation and I for one, intend to be ready for it.
 
My kids are 8 and almost 10. My 10-year-old knows all about inflation and "fake paper money" as we call it. I want them to understand what real money is, so they've seen some of my silver coins and I've told them about the importance of having savings in gold and silver. For the sake of security, they don't know about the rest of my hoard that I lost in a boating accident. In fact, they don't know there's gold at the bottom of the lake. I figure, if they ever mentioned the coins to the wrong people, I could say I was an amateur collector who only has a few coins. It's harder to spin yarn about gold bars though, so I won't tell the kids about it until they get older.

When if comes to survival prep, I only recently told them that all the buckets in the closet are full of food. I tell them it's good to be prepared for natural disasters that could take out the electricity for weeks or even months. I haven't told them that the main reason is to survive a financial crisis. No reason to worry them :) I also teach them how to fish, start fires, collect berries etc. and walkie-talkie communication is a daily routine for us.
 
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No. I have stopped all conversation with family on this topic.

(I dont have kids)

Family knows I stack.
 
I was a kid once. One time I asked my parents why they didn't have a smoke detector because I started to notice that other people had them, and they said "why would anybody ever need one, that's why we have the fire department"

You watch old movies from the 50's and 60's and you see cars didn't have seat belts and neck rests, you could smoke a cigarette on an airplane, heart patients were told to stay in bed and rest, they used X-rays to treat tonsillitis. I think it's pretty easy to discuss emergency planning with kids. I just think you need to put it into the context that things are always changing and you might be wrong. This is just the best information you have now. $.02
 
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My brother is buying a 2nd home. In a gated community. I wonder how strong the gate is.
 
When my son was six years old, he went to a zoo and was impressed with how nice it was there. We talked about how the animals were taken care of, but had to live confined. He thought it was better to be responsible for yourself and be free. I was so proud because I simply helped him understand both options and he chose correctly. As I need to explain the how & why of things to him, I think he'll get it.
 
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