Taking your kids hiking is one of the best ways to get them into nature (and the many benefits associated with that exposure). And, if the hike is a bit strenuous, it offers them one of the few opportunities in modern life to get comfortable being uncomfortable.
But, kids aren’t always excited about hiking. Especially younger ones who have a shorter attention span and haven’t yet caught the vision that walking down a trail can be a good time.
To get your kids more interested in hiking and help them enjoy the experience more, avail yourself of these 7 tips:
1. Prepare to take it loose and slow. Young children get less satisfaction from simply moving from point A to point B than adults. The “point” of the hike for them is less about getting to the end than just enjoying themselves. So adjust your expectations accordingly, and forget the idea of a hike as continual movement. Be prepared to move pretty slowly and take breaks to sit, play in the dirt, balance on a log, throw rocks, pick honeysuckle, etc.
2. Hike to a body of water. Young kids also tend to be less excited about stunning views than older folks. So your hike doesn’t necessarily need to include a dramatic lookout. But kids do love bodies of water. Streams, ponds, lakes, waterfalls — whatever it is, it makes them 10X more interested in the hike. Our kids stay more motivated to keep hiking when they know a pond is ahead. Because once there, they like to look in the water at what’s swimming around and skip stones. There’s just some kind of magnetic attraction between kids (and adults!) and water; use it to increase your children’s compliance.
3. Pair a hike with a picnic. This is another tactic that significantly ups the interest/compliance factor for our kids. Make some special picnic foods at home, or let the kids pick out some special stuff at the store, and the outing magically feels more special. When the days are longer, we’ll have our picnic dinner first at the trailhead, and then take a hike. When the days are shorter (but not yet freezing cold), we’ll go for a hike at sunset, and then come back to the park to eat our picnic dinner by lantern light.
4. Have a nature scavenger hunt. To heighten your children’s powers of observation and keep them more engaged in the hike, consider doing a scavenger hunt in conjunction with it. Give them a checklist of things to look for; these can be general things you know to expect along the way or centered on a theme like “Signs of Fall.” In Ultimate Wilderness Gear, Craig Caudill offers this list of ideas of things your kids can hunt for as they hike:
- A leaf that is rounded on the end
- A leaf that is pointed on the end
- A nut
- A hole in the ground (ask them what they think lives there)
- A smooth rock
- A rough rock
- A piece of bark that has fallen from a tree
- A dead branch that looks like something else (let them use their imagination here; they will find a branch that looks like a dog, a pencil, or something they are familiar with)
5. Try to identify flora/fauna/rocks. Studies show that children today can identify more corporate logos than native species where they live. Knowing/learning the names of plants, animals, and even rocks can help children engage more deeply with nature. Of course, it’s probable that your own identification skills are pretty faulty; luckily, there are apps that can help you figure out what it is you’re looking at, whether that’s a plant on the ground or a constellation in the sky.
6. Try to identify animal tracks. It’s fun not only to identify things that are actually present, but the clues that indicate something was once there. See if your kids can figure out what animal left a particular set of tracks. (There are apps for this, too.)
7. Activate your kids’ senses and ask them questions. As you hike along, point out things for your children to touch, see, smell, hear, and even taste (as appropriate!). Then ask them questions, especially along a line in which they’ve already shown interest: “What kind of animal do you think left that track?” “What kind of bird do you think that is?” “Why do you think it’s shaped that way?” They’ll of course ask you questions too, and while it’s easy to just spout off the answer (if you know it!), try turning the question back to them first: “What do you think it is?” As Scott D. Sampson observes in How to Raise a Wild Child, “Counterintuitively, children are often looking for our engagement more than our answers, hoping that the focus of their attention will become ours too. By turning the question back on them, we crack open a learning opportunity, a chance for them to actively participate in solving a mystery.”
As you strive to make hiking a bigger part of your family’s culture and go more regularly, don’t feel you have to look far afield to find trails to trek. While you might associate hiking only with state and national parks, almost every city has smaller wilderness areas, nature preserves, and municipal parks that include plenty of trails and are easily accessible by those who live in cities and suburbs. You very likely don’t have to drive more than a half hour to get a good dose of nature, and you’ll find exploring your hometown’s little nooks and crannies strangely satisfying — even more satisfying in some ways than visiting a well-known wilderness area. To find these urban trails, use an app like AllTrails and peruse lists of “things to do” in your town on travel websites and blogs.
Don’t feel like the setting has to be “perfect” for your hikes, remembering that kids, especially little ones, will be less interested in a big scenic payoff than the “ordinary” flora and fauna they encounter along the way. The most important thing is to just get out there!
