Kids & hunting.......

[Termite]

Is anyone else having my problems? That is: your kids beg to come hunting, but then refuse to get up in the morning at the camp? Once on stand, they are OK.......for 2 hrs or so. Then it's: "I'm cold/tired/bored/thirsty/need-to-pee........


I'm learning patience.........maybe that's God's point.........

[308Mike]

AWESOME, you're teaching them necessary discipline, which they'll need to get through more challenging things in life!! It sucks now, but they'll thank you for it later. The shared miseries are the things that they'll discuss as bonding experiences later and things they'll build cherished memories.

They'll need the discipline for anything else they'll want to do worthwhile in life, whether it's going out for sports, joining the military, working their way through college.......

Make them stick it out with lots of encouragement, but don't let them quit. And good luck!

[Aglifter]

Heh... my father's cure for this was to take us "walking" around the farm at first light -- after months of being dragged through mud, up creeks, through snow, etc, we handled hiking across the ranch in MT just fine. (I learned early that whining to my father was NOT productive.)

Dad also played chess w. us, had us listen to classical music, etc. Try taking them into the outdoors more than just to hunt -- have them watch birds, ID plants, etc.

[mekender]

my 9 year old starts getting impatient after 20 mins of a 2 hour movie...

i seriously have no idea what to do with him.

[SeekHer]

Instead of a tree stand have you thought of the slow walk and stop method of hunting, sometimes called still hunting or to borrow the military term "sneak & peek"...more activity!

I started mine with upland bird hunting--first as retrievers then as shooters--then to rabbits over dogs and squirrels and then to deer...the grouse hunts started when they were still in diapers..."Sorry, guys, can't beat that covert, gotta give the kid(s) a bottle or slow up, I gotta change a diaper"...

For the wakening difficulties, try having them drink like 10 glasses of water before bed; they'll have to get up on their own--to pee!

I also had them play games, like how many different birds or mammals did you see when they were younger; they’re now between 13½ and 16¾ and they now go out hunting on their own, usually with their cousins, at the farm so it becomes a competitive thing between them…

The one thing that you can do to help is to keep the stakeouts shorter, you probably wouldn’t like four or five hours in a tree stand either, so make it for maybe a couple of hours to start and get your deer on the evening hunt by yourself OR you do the morning hunts by yourself and the evening hunts with them…

[Whirlibird]

Okay, I'm gonna have to ask for help with this one myself.

The GF has 3 kids, or should I say we have 3 kids under the roof.
Thankfully I missed the diaper stage but am looking squarely at a 6yo that wants to go
out and blast deer and elk. I'm not complaining about that part at all.
The whole license/season thing is gonna confuse him enough, he want's to go up to the mountains tomorrow and whack half a dozen just to do it.
The rabbits around here are going to think that war's been declared on them.
But with an attention span that's shorter than some commercials I'm gonna need a lot of help.

[mekender]

Okay, I'm gonna have to ask for help with this one myself.

The GF has 3 kids, or should I say we have 3 kids under the roof.
Thankfully I missed the diaper stage but am looking squarely at a 6yo that wants to go
out and blast deer and elk. I'm not complaining about that part at all.
The whole license/season thing is gonna confuse him enough, he want's to go up to the mountains tomorrow and whack half a dozen just to do it.
The rabbits around here are going to think that war's been declared on them.
But with an attention span that's shorter than some commercials I'm gonna need a lot of help.

has he been shooting yet?


if not, take him to the range and focus on safety and on killing plastic drink bottles...

if he is already a safe shooter, then you have to progress beyond what i have to offer, i have never hunted myself either...

[ZeroGravitas]

Like Seek, I take my kids (6 & 7) out upland hunting. It's not hunting, but hunting with the kid.

If your child is in a tree stand being quiet for a single hour, you're both doing great and both should be proud! That kind of quiet time is not easy to get from a kid these days. The frenzied mental pace of TV/internet/computer games is creating the least attentive generation in history, and one quiet hour is pretty darn good. Congrats.