Camping Safety

Keywords: camping, safety

By Stacy DeBroff

• If you plan to do some hiking, teach your older child basic hiking rules, such as staying on the trail at all times, and what to do if he becomes lost.

• When camping in the wilderness or hiking, supply your child with a whistle and explain basic safety rules in case he wanders from camp. Teach him not to blow the whistle unless he needs help, and advise him to stay put once he realizes he has lost his way.

• Filter, treat, or boil water found along the way before drinking it to ensure that all harmful bacteria have been killed. The safest water you can drink is water you bring from home.

• Store matches, fishing equipment, knives, and other potential hazards in the trunk of your car or in a sack pinned to a tree branch.

• Clean cooking utensils well and store food away from your campsite, hung from a tree limb or rope if there are bears or other large animals in the area. Hang food at least twelve feet off the ground and ten feet away from a tree trunk.

• Teach your child not to run near the fire, as the ashes in a fire remain hot long after the fire goes out.

• Carefully review all fire restrictions applying to your campsite or area. Make sure you build the fire either in a rock base or sand ring. Extinguish your fire thoroughly by dousing the ashes with water or covering them completely with sand when you are done.

• Pick up all of your garbage, and be sure not to leave behind plastic that animals could choke on.

• Use biodegradable soap, sand, or pine needles to wash up plates and cookware, and do it at least 200 feet away from a stream or riverbed.

• If you stay in a place with no bathrooms, bring along a shovel to bury your waste under at least six inches of soil, and pick a spot far from a water source and other campsites.

Stacy, heralded as a “parenting guru” by the Wall Street Journal, authored four best-selling parenting books (Simon & Schuster) and launched Mom Central, Inc. (www.MomCentral.com), a company devoted to providing savvy advice to simplify and enrich the lives of busy Moms and their families. Stacy appears as a regular parenting expert on national TV show, including NBC’s Today Show, CNN, The View, Tyra Banks Show, CBS’ Early Show, The Daily Buzz, Mike And Juliet, Fox & Friends, and the Rachael Ray Show. Stacy also serves as a corporate spokesperson, trendspotting for the media on behalf of over 30 national brands.

In the 1990’s, Stacy founded and ran as an attorney the Public Interest Office at Harvard Law School. Stacy lives with her husband, Ron, and happily engages in imperfect parenting of their two teens, Kyle and Brooks, in Boston, Massachusetts.