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Summer Series: Camping & Day Trips with Kids
68 Plays27 days ago
Hosts Sandy Inkster, Sam Ennest-Wallis, and Kelly Armstrong dive into summer parenting, discussing adventures and challenges. Kelly shares her family's tradition of "no devices" camping, but Sam offers insights on planning trips for neurodiverse children, emphasizing preparation and the role of devices for "reset" time. Tune in for practical tips every Wednesday; it's delightful.
In This Episode:
[01:42] Summer Activity Ideas & Planning
[01:50] Kelly's "No Devices" Camping Tradition
[03:26] Neurodiversity & Trip Planning
[05:49] Following the Kids' Lead
[08:16] Preparing Kids for Adventures & Packing Tips
[09:47] Budget-Friendly Gear & Bags
[14:52] Day Trips & Finding Delightful Moments
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Today's episode of On the Ground Parenting is brought to you by Red Juice Studio, bringing context and empathy to audio and creating pathways between generations.
00:00:34
Speaker
Hi everyone, welcome to Muskoka Family Focus brand new parenting podcast called On the Ground Parenting and we are here to explore topics to dive into what it's like to be a parent.
00:00:46
Speaker
We're all parents ourselves. My name is Sandy Inkster and I'd like to offer my parenting education team to introduce themselves. Hi there, I'm Sam Ennest-Wallis.
00:00:57
Speaker
And hi folks, I'm Kelly Armstrong. So here we are today and for many occasions in the future, we want to talk about what it's like to be a parent and what are the exciting moments, what are the challenging moments, what makes you go, er what makes you go, Yahoo!
00:01:14
Speaker
And at this time of year, we are now coming into summer, the weather's getting warm, we're not shoveling, We're not worried about the school buses being canceled because, do you know what?
00:01:28
Speaker
It's summer holidays. We've already come into the end of the school year, and now you're faced with this big question. What are we going to do during the summertime?
00:01:39
Speaker
So we thought it would be wonderful to launch our first podcast with, what are you up to? What are you going to get out up to this summer? What's on on your radar? What things do you want to explore?
00:01:52
Speaker
So, Callie. What have you done with your family in the past? Well, we have a tradition in our family of taking my nieces and my nephews camping. It's their Christmas present.
00:02:04
Speaker
So we take five kids. We started when the second youngest one was in diapers, and it took a little while for the youngest one to join us. But we spend five days, no devices, camping in tents, catching frogs, swimming, playing on the beach.
00:02:20
Speaker
It's something we all look forward to every summer. So, okay, you're camping, you're in tents, you're catching frogs. I want to hear about the stuff that didn't work out well. Did you plan with the kids? Like, did you talk it all out in advance or what went down? So it's it's our Christmas gifts. So they start by getting an invitation. But after that, we try to we've tried different things at different times.
00:02:45
Speaker
We've tried involving them in making snacks. So ah one year we had them all come over a few days before our camping trip and they all made their own gorp, um good old raisins and peanuts. But because it wasn't good old raisins and peanuts, we had so many other things and they had a blast. They made giant amounts of their snack.
00:03:04
Speaker
Turns out what we didn't say to them was, do you like the food you just put in your snack? They were having so much fun mixing it. So then they all had snacks they wouldn't eat. oh Oh, what a riot.
00:03:16
Speaker
And that's always a big thing with kids too, isn't it? Yeah. What they will and what they won't eat. Now, Sam, how about you? So I know that you've talked an awful lot in the different parenting workshops about neurodiversity um and for your children, what would that be like for you?
00:03:32
Speaker
Do you include them in the planning or is it better to not give them too much time to ah project issues that may happen or Is it a surprise? How do you go about this? Oh, oh gosh. There's no surprising that that is not a, it doesn't fly at all. So there's always time to prepare, not so much that everybody's perseverating on what's going to go terribly wrong, ah but we definitely plan ahead and talk about what kinds of foods people are going to want to eat.
00:04:01
Speaker
Lots of conversations about the fact that We need to be sure we're going to eat what we're taking because it's what we have. That's what we're going to have for the time that we're there. And if you don't like it, you're going to be one hungry human being by the time we get back home again. So um definitely lots of planning, but our experience has always been very different than Kelly's because of the neurodiversity and ah routines required. So My youngest loves the idea of going camping.
00:04:29
Speaker
And then we get there and we're there for at least three days and he does not, he's ready to go home. We get there, I barely get everything set up and he's like, okay, when are we leaving? h Well, you know, it's Friday night. We're not leaving till Monday morning. So buckle in. So devices do come with us, which is totally different than Kelly's experience.
00:04:47
Speaker
But we would download um certain comfort shows on the iPad on Netflix so that he would have something to do when he needed to have his time to reset and and realign himself again.
00:05:00
Speaker
i I think that that's a big, important part of um any parent or for me now as a grandparent, I'm going on adventures with my grandkids. So, and I will just put this out there. My kids are probably, you know, if they listen to this they're going to say, yeah, mom, we we we've realized that what was happening with us or was not happening with us, it was a whole new ballgame with the grandkids, with their kids.
00:05:23
Speaker
But I'm thinking about that range of preparedness. So Kelly, I get the sense that you're you're wanting to give your nieces and nephews sort of that away from technology.
00:05:36
Speaker
So getting them back into nature. But I think that that's really what we're wanting to encourage all families to understand. What's a realistic approach for you? and And I want to bring in this phrase that we've talked about together as as a facilitating team about ah Following the kids lead.
00:05:56
Speaker
Anybody want to add anything ah ah to that? Well, I i think... That's a really important part. And I think for me, the following the kids lead is right there with what's their learning edge. And so when Sam's talking, what I'm hearing is that if they had no devices, that might be a giant meltdown end of camping trip, whether they wanted it or not, because that's the place where one of our kids needs to find comfort or maybe both of our kids until they can find their feet again.
00:06:22
Speaker
And then likewise, although we say no devices and we mostly have no devices, I do have a couple of audio books in my back pocket because sometimes we are so tired that my mom used to say, you're so tired, you don't even know which end is up.
00:06:38
Speaker
And one of our learning edges for ourselves with this adventure is because of everybody's schedules, we often go early July. Well, early July is stunningly close to the solstice and we have a bright yellow tent.
00:06:51
Speaker
So we realized these small people who are often in bed by 8.30 at night are now like the sun doesn't even go down until 9.30 and then they're up with the sun. So at four in the morning, one of my nieces wakes me up eyeball to eyeball, leaning over my sleeping bag.
00:07:07
Speaker
Good morning, Aunt Kelly. Can we go swimming right now? And one of my goals is to just say yes. So if I can, even if it makes me uncomfortable, even if I don't want to, i try to say yes.
00:07:19
Speaker
If it's a safety issue, we say no, but that's a whole different conversation. I think that'll be a great conversation for us to have another time. like i I know that there's been a lot of attention brought into the that just say yes day movie or the yes day, things like that. I think We all have had experiences where um maybe we followed the lead of a child. We've had a yes day and we've got some hilarious stories that we can share with everybody.
00:07:45
Speaker
So um thinking about again, Kelly, how you were preparing your nieces and nephews. So, and, um, you know You started with the making the gorp, and then the next realization was, oh, okay, they've loved mixing all this stuff together, but they're not going to eat any of it.
00:08:01
Speaker
So what was the next step? So obviously, this was like you were preparing them for ah for a bigger adventure. And I will say that that was a word that i started to use with my grandsons who are now 18 and 16.
00:08:14
Speaker
And so it was always like, are you ready for an adventure? And just that would sort of, I could just see them vibrating with excitement. They had no idea what it was, but it was just how it was delivered.
00:08:25
Speaker
So what was the next thing for you? What did you do next, Kelly, to help them get prepared for this ah exciting adventure? Yeah. Well, one of our big goals, so we do this both as a gift of joy, but we also have a bigger goal around being responsible for yourself and learning through your mistakes.
00:08:44
Speaker
And we love lists in our house. So my husband prints off a list when the kids were younger, they had some pictures. These are the things you need to bring to sleep with. These are the things, the clothes and the things that you might want to wear.
00:08:57
Speaker
And then these are a few handful of activities that you might want to bring with you. Usually it's, you know, if you're in the middle of a personal book or those kinds of things. And one of my goals is always for the kids to put together their own stuff.
00:09:11
Speaker
And that always involves parents sort of supporting them in this. So whether or not they bring it all on the bed and then they pack it into their bag or whether or not ultimately I'd love to see every kid pack their own bag.
00:09:23
Speaker
Because then they know where things are. And when parents have packed everything, i have been told by my nieces and nephews sometimes adamantly that they don't have that.
00:09:34
Speaker
They did have it. They didn't pack their bag, so they had no idea that they had it. And every kid I know sometimes doesn't look very well. Exactly.
00:09:46
Speaker
Okay, so we're talking about tossing some stuff into a bag. And an important part for the three of us and the rest of the parenting education team is that we really want to minimize cost.
00:09:57
Speaker
So ah I know that you can find bags, backpacks, especially important to have like a zipper, something to contain it, because I will talk about the experience where there wasn't a zipper, and somebody picked up a bag and all of their stuff went all over the vehicle.
00:10:14
Speaker
So um having a zipper is really essential. What are, where are some places, Sam, that you might recommend if, if parents wanted to get something to contain it, it might be that maybe you've got a toddler who hasn't been going to um any space where they've needed a backpack or a special bag yet. So where could you find one without spending a lot of money?
00:10:36
Speaker
I think it's a great idea to first ask, and especially in this social media age, it's really easy to just put a post out saying, hey, does anyone have ah backpack we can borrow? We're going camping this weekend.
00:10:48
Speaker
And if that doesn't work out, Marketplace on Facebook is a great place, or thrift stores are another great place to find things like that, because people are always getting rid of bags. there's We all seem to have too many bags, and people are getting rid of them. So um Garage sales, again, would be another spot to have a look for them. I think there's lots of ways of minimizing some of the costs for sure. And it doesn't have to be new, right? Like and if it needs to be waterproofed, you can buy waterproofing stuff. But if you're tent camping, your stuff is going to be in your bag in your tent anyways. So yeah, I think there's great places to look to save a few dollars for sure.
00:11:23
Speaker
Yeah. And I think even that whole practice of modeling to our kids that, you know, we don't always have to go and spend a lot of money that it's okay to reuse. Um, my kids, for example, when they were little, when they would get bags of clothes from their cousins, it was like Christmas, Easter, you know, the gifting was amazing. And, um,
00:11:46
Speaker
And I will confess to being a bag lady for a long time. Everybody would see me toting in all of my books and all of my puppets and everything. I'm a bag lady. And um yeah, I still, you know, when my sister said to me, I'm getting rid of these bags and I'm thinking, oh, bags.
00:12:04
Speaker
But, you know, realistically, everybody, if you need a bag, you might want to reach out to me because I've probably got 40 spares. So Kelly, what did you want to add? I think two things came up to what both of you are saying. One is after we've thrift stored a bag, I don't know if that's exactly how you say it, but just a few little embellishments make kids own that bag and love it. So it might be a badge they got from somewhere that you could sew on or glue on.
00:12:31
Speaker
It might be just replacing some of the rope with new cording and you can get that often at Canadian Tire. ah And a little bit of spiffing up not only models this reusing thing, which is good for the planet and keeping our budgets low, but kids are often thrilled because then it's super unique.
00:12:48
Speaker
And just on the the waterproofing piece, a really easy trick for waterproofing is a garbage bag or a grocery bag that you just line your backpack with. And that's one of my favorites because waterproofing sprays wear off.
00:13:03
Speaker
That's always cheap. It's easy. i try to convince most of my the kids I work with because I also work with Girl Guides and Scouts lots of times to just always have one plastic bag tucked in their backpack somewhere because you never know when you're about to encounter a lot of wetness.
00:13:21
Speaker
Anybody who's ever had a loaf of bread, there you've got a plastic bag. If you ever buy your milk in they the bag the bags of milk, there you've got a plastic bag.
00:13:33
Speaker
So, it's available. Right. think that's a great tip. So we've been talking, I think more about bigger adventures. I want to talk about if you, you know, you're not quite ready to go on that big adventure, even though like making your snacks could be just for a day trip or an hour or, you know, a couple of hours. But so my youngest grandson, when we would go out into the backyard,
00:13:54
Speaker
And i would I would get a bag out and i I would start putting in things that I would want to have for him. But then he would start putting in things too. So it's a whole new practice now that when we just go out to the backyard to the sandbox, he goes and gets a bag and we start putting things in.
00:14:13
Speaker
I'm always putting in the little towel because if it's rained, I know he won't sit on his his little digger because it's all wet. So I've got the towel for him. and And he's always all about food anywhere he goes. So there's an apple, there's, you know, you know maybe some cheese or something that he wants to take.
00:14:30
Speaker
Plus, he's got a favorite stuffy or a favorite toy that he wants to bring out just as an observer. So things for us to just be noticing and to include them. And then it becomes already their way of knowing how to take care of themselves, how to be ready.
00:14:46
Speaker
I know that Kelly comes from a big scouting family, scouting and guiding. And so we will hear lots of these phrases arise in on-the-ground parenting. It's what happens when we're in the dirt in our parenting role.
00:14:58
Speaker
So let's talk about day trips then. Where do you like to go on day trips? Where have you had success? Where where did you think that you would have success? And where did it all go to... I have one day trip that is always front of mind for me because i thought it was going to be amazing.
00:15:15
Speaker
It was not amazing. And then all of a sudden it was amazing. So I took my youngest to um a pumpkin patch, which is, you know, later in the fall. But I thought he would have such a great time and we'd really enjoy ourselves.
00:15:28
Speaker
And he was so grumpy. So grumpy. And then he rolled down a hill on purpose. He just rolled down a hill because he saw another kid doing it. And it was like this rolling down the hill was a complete reset for him.
00:15:41
Speaker
And then he was going in the corn maze and he was climbing on this and we were riding a train and we went and picked a pumpkin. It just totally changed the whole... um the whole outlook on the day, which I think is something to keep in mind that those moments or those experiences, even if they aren't amazing at first, they could turn into something wonderful or even just memorable. That would be the other thing because I have this amazing picture of him.
00:16:06
Speaker
it was one of those cutout things that you see at cornfields and it was a a police officer or a sheriff and he had the grumpiest look on his face. And I love that picture so much. The fact that he allowed me to take his picture when he was in that mood, but also just like the grumpiest look. It was hilarious.
00:16:24
Speaker
Oh, I like that. I like that. I want to put something as a topic for us to come back to. And because I think this is really important for families to be aware of um in the moment with their kids as well, too.
00:16:37
Speaker
When we have those moods and we're not really um certain what's going on, but the sensory seekers and the sensory avoiders. and how that So that sensory experience of your son rolling down, that was significant for a shift in him being able to end up having an enjoyable time on other um the other activities that were there.
00:16:59
Speaker
um Kelly, how about you? What what day trips ah would you recommend or experiences that you've had that were successful or were challenging? Yeah, think it depends on you know what you're in the mood for, what kind of time you have, those sorts of things.
00:17:14
Speaker
When we have a full day with no other commitments that day, my absolute favorite is Awenda Provincial Park. It's like Huasega Beach in the sense that it's this big, long beach, but it's way more rocky So you can swim and stand on rocks and play on rocks and there's some beach.
00:17:34
Speaker
And we've had our kids like pack for the day and spend often we actually spend Canada Day there um and had a really, really great time. But that's sort of the full day adventure.
00:17:45
Speaker
And it's my favorite. But the little tiny adventures, um Hardy Lake, actually any little trail in Muskoka is great. What I find makes our adventures is trying to think a little bit about what are we trying to do here?
00:18:00
Speaker
Sometimes as my kids are older now, they're adults. um Sometimes we're just trying to make kilometers. We want to get our energy out and just go for a walk. But often with the little people, they just want to look at things.
00:18:12
Speaker
Like you've never looked at an acorn Like a three-year-old has looked at an acorn and found it and turned it upside down. And what I find funny is sometimes the other adults I'm with are like, hurry up, let's go.
00:18:25
Speaker
to what end? So just trying to think about if I can be outside with small people. There's this great book called The Book of Delights. And the author suggests that you find something that's delightful You put your finger in the air and say delightful whenever you found find it.
00:18:42
Speaker
So I challenged a group of kids in Scout Valley in just that little hiking trail not far from Costco in Aurelia. And so I had 12 girls running around being like, delightful, delightful. We laughed.
00:18:57
Speaker
Simple, simple trip. Such a great time. That's amazing. That's so much fun. And I want to tell you that I'm going to bring in a little bit of neuroscience here from my mindfulness training. And so we all have something that's called the negativity bias, which is really important. You know, it's part of our survival brain that that helps us perceive threat. So we we all have this ah proclivity to have negativity. It's always there.
00:19:30
Speaker
In order to downplay that, to override it, we need to, what um this is what Dr. Rick Hansen talks about. He talks about linger in the positive or savor the good.
00:19:41
Speaker
And so that delightful, that's exactly lingering in the positive. So that's helping us to see more what's positive in in life.
00:19:52
Speaker
um You know, the how we've evolved as human beings that That that threat perception of threat was important for survival, but we don't have that same type of threat in the society in which we live in.
00:20:05
Speaker
So to override that, delightful. So just as a quick summary here now, I think maybe we can actually talk about what rose up for you, Kelly. I love the tension between how are we going to partner with our kiddos to and but to have an experience. I just, I love the words partner with our kiddos.
00:20:29
Speaker
Sam, what took root for you? I think for me, what really took root was how important it is to include children in the planning to be able to do activities in a way that is the most comfortable for them, but still allows them to have the experience.
00:20:45
Speaker
Ah, thank you so much. And what sprouted up for me is, i guess, maybe just the the idea that we've got that opportunity, we've got the ah outdoors, take advantage of it get out there, find the support, find the resources, don't spend a lot of money.
00:21:02
Speaker
and just do it. Well, thanks for joining us today on On the Ground Parenting. I'm Sandy. I'm Sam. I'm Kelly. And we're pleased that you joined us. And if you have anything that you want to say, please click on the link below.
00:21:16
Speaker
are you in the middle of a trip where everything is going well? We want to hear about it. Not going so swell. We want to hear about that too. See you later.
00:21:35
Speaker
This episode was brought to you by Red Juice Studio. If you'd like to learn more, go to redjuicestudio.com. If you have any questions for our hosts or would like to recommend show ideas, email parented at muskocafamilyfocus.ca.
00:21:50
Speaker
This was brought to you by Muskoka Family Focus. If you'd like to learn more, donate, or become an episode sponsor, go to muskokafamilyfocus.ca. This was produced and published by Red Juice Studio.