A few weeks ago I was the recipient of a giveaway at Outdoor Blogger Network. This was the book. It is published by Fox Chapel Publishing. What a great publishing company! If you are a hobbyist or home craftsman type person you really should check out their wonderful line up of books. We are book people and we were both impressed with the catalog they sent us with the book. Great diverse selections, from wood working and carving, arts and crafts, animal husbandry, even a few on tattoo design and yes plenty of outdoor books. Fishing, canoeing, kayaking, boat maintenance and camp cooking to name a few. Definitely worth taking a look.
Now, about the book itself. I have been enjoying this book. It makes me wish my children were young and I could do it all over again. If you have young children or even intend to, I recommend you get this book. It is informative and honest about what it takes to get yourselves and your children outdoors. To make it a way of life....an outdoor lifestyle. If that is what you want for your family, this is the book to have.
The chapters are each about a particular outdoor activity. Bicycling, snowsports, camping, hiking etc... It is written in a friendly, comedic style. With an honest look at the extra work it does take to do outdoor activities with small to teenage children. It's true it does take extra effort to get out with children. We believe you will not regret the effort and will establish lasting, quality family time.
I was talking with my youngest daughter about this one day and regretting that we had not done enough. She laughed and said "mom, we lived out of doors, we were way back in the country and had all the room to roam we wanted, we hiked, rode horses, bicycled and all of that! What are you worried about?!" When I thought of that I knew she was right. We may not have gotten to do the camping part as much as we wanted, but our children certainly did not lack for outdoor play!
The last chapter of the book is on the statistics of today's children and lack of adequate exercise. I'll list a few of them for you. Here's one that has an ironic twist to it. National Public Radio recently did a survey of orthopedic surgeons and found that they are treating far fewer broken bones among kids and more repetitive motion injuries! (video games) I'm not for broken bones or against video games.....but it does show a trend. This same trend would also be showing , that 22 million of the world's children under the age of 5 are overweight! It gets worse....60% of overweight children are already at risk for heart disease and 25% show early signs of type 2 diabetes. This can be traced in a great part to the fact, that an average of 44 hours a week are spent watching TV, computers and video games by many of these same kids.
So, if ya love your kids, get them outside, doing something, anything!! It would be one of the best things you could do for them. Enjoyed this book and found it very informative and full of ideas! Worth getting!
And of course, here is the link for the book. Outdoor Parents, Outdoor Kids
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