An article from Shooting Illustrated on getting your kids involved in preparedness. The article discusses talking and planning with your kids, and then offers the following advice on a kid-appropriate bug-out-bag:
I modified the food a bit based on my children’s likes and dislikes, and altered some quantities and volumes for convenience. For instance, instead of each of them having one small peanut butter, we put one large peanut butter in one bag. Instead of individual packs of trail mix, we put a big one in one bag. It saves space.
The next step is to make three packages of one day’s worth of rations. Explain to your children that it is a one day supply. If I let my son eat whatever he wanted, he’d eat nothing but the cereal bars for the first day.
In addition to the food, you’ll need utensils to eat. We opted for the CRKT Eat’n Tool, since it doubles for other uses. Don’t forget, if you take canned goods, a can opener is essential. Load the individual bags into the bug-out bag with water and other supplies.
After you make the food portion of your bug-out bag, rotate it out every six months. Just put the food in your pantry to eat, and refresh the stock in the bag.
Other items to include in the bag:
- Flashlight
- Pen and paper, in case we need to leave notes
- An old, unused smart phone. In addition to being able to dial 911, it has games and other entertainment for the kids. Make sure you charge it periodically.
- Lip balm
- Money, in small bills and coins only, in case of vending machines
- Folded paper towels kept in a zip bag. These serve many purposes, such as cleaning and emergency toilet paper.
- Hand sanitizer
We also have a few stacks of games and toys that are easily grabbed for the trip, since bugging out would likely be boring for kids.
There are a few things we don’t keep in the kids’ bags, such as guns, knives, medicines and items used to start fires. Those are kept in the adult bags for obvious reasons.
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