Bug out Games for Kids when on an exercise
By Joseph Parish

When assessing your Bug out procedures and you are in the process of having an actual exercise, it is always necessary to try to put ourselves into the place of our children. Let us face it we as adults can converse with each other during the trip however often times the children are stuck in the back seat of our BOV with nothing whatsoever to do. To me this is very unacceptable. Not only does it turn the children off to the concept of survival but it also does not teach them anything but contempt for emergency actions.

A variety of things has been tried in an effort to appease the youngsters when taking these sometimes-long drives. During the survival exercise drive, group singing and the telling of various stories has traditionally occupied a small bit of a child’s time, however stories and songs can go only so far and children tend to get bored of them in a short period of time.

I personally have found that the “Dollar Tree” offers many interesting pocket type games enclosed in their own little plastic cases at a cost of - you guess it $1.00. I have purchased chess and several others in the store as well as a couple of board games. They have their own small plastic case so each of them can easily fir in a backpack. The cases are about 2 inches by 3 inches and take up little room.

I also require my grandson create his own BOB for entertainment purposes. In this bag, he holds various card games such as old maids, fish, etc. as well as several coloring books with crayons, notebooks, pencils, pens, etc. Things to keep him occupied when we are traveling and when we arrive at our destination.

The internet is crammed with various children’s games that are available for the download. I keep a set of CD’s ready to depart with me in the event of an emergency. On these CD’s are all of my survival files. I have also included files for children on them, such as puzzle and games. It is interesting to know that I maintain a laptop dedicated for emergency BOV use. This Laptop serves a dual purpose in that it also tends to occupy my grandson both in the BOV and at our base camp when we setup. He takes both movies and games with him on CD. He generally watches the movies on his DVD player, which I have found to be an excellent investment for him.

Most of the physical games are best left for when we have arrived at our destination and the children are no longer confined to the rear seats of the vehicle. They can finally get out and stretch their legs, run and play for a while. Any library can provide you with books of games from which you can always copy the games that appeal to you and your children.

Copyright @2008 Joseph Parish