Founded in 1920, Lincoln Trails Council is the most proven and successful youth program in America. It serves 3,600 youth in central Illinois and it provides the necessary support service to ensure the success of districts and the units that they support. Council provides year-round camping programs for youth and adult training opportunities within the council service center.

[wpgmza id=”1″]

Why apply your child to a scouting program? First of all, it will have a lot of fun while being challenged to develop leadership skills in a healthy environment, and it will help your child to develop their moral and ethical behavior. Your child will have an amazing adventure, meet new friends, learn new skills, and learn the importance of environment protection. Before we dive into formalities, let’s talk a little about camping, spending time in nature, and especially the importance of introducing nature to the children.

CAMPING

Camping is a popular type of outdoor activity, also a form of tourism, with the use of tents or vehicles that are adapted for accommodation. It is a great form of recreation for young people and children because it is spent in the fresh air, with a beautiful view of nature, where you can have some fun and relaxing time, hanging with your family or friends, making food together; you can even call it a picnic! It is also a great choice of recreation because it can be enjoyed through all the seasons, camping directly on the beach, or in the immediate vicinity of the beach, or in the woods, in the wild, depends on what your personal preferences are.

Camping is also often associated with other activities such as canoeing, hiking, backpacking, climbing, fishing, and hunting, which are plenty of choices, especially that one with an adventurous spirit! Camping is actually a great type of recreation for those who come from large, stressful environments and wants to experience how it is like to sleep under a sky full of stars, with the loud voice of bugs, and just enjoy the moment. It is allowed to bring your pet with you, and have some fun time together; it’s unquestionable that your dog is going to love all the new smells he is going to sniff for the very first time! Make sure you bring all the necessary equipment with you, so you can be relaxed and peaceful.

So the essentials you will need are a tent, sleeping bag, and a pillow, sleeping mat, flashlight, campfire supplies, kitchenware, food, and bottled water, and maybe a small drone for hiking to scout the area.

THE IMPORTANCE OF SPENDING TIME IN NATURE

We all know how important it is to spend a lot of time in nature, but how often do we really do that? It is an undeniable fact that people nowadays live an accelerated pace of life, eat fast food, work a lot of hours, spend too much time with their cell phones or laptops, and so on day by day, but have we thought how much it affects our mental and physical health, ur sleep, our inner satisfaction?

All of that is very stressful for the human body, which over time begins to fail, and seek what it misses: peace, rest, a break from daily usurpation, and a return to nature, a source that “feeds” us and makes us feel fresh and healthy. It is enough to spend half an hour in nature, breathing fresh air, enjoying the sun, absorbing vitamin D, which is great for our body and skin, and just to commit to yourself that short period of time. If you are that lucky and have more free time, or free weekend, you can even plan a trip or a picnic with your family, take your kids that will also enjoy playing outdoors and have a good and quality time together. You can stir a blanket and take some healthy and fresh food, like fruit or a salad, or just enjoy a yummy taste of mini sandwiches. At the end of the day, you will feel much better, and spending time outdoors will become a healthy habit that you are going to cherish, well, let’s hope for a long time! Let’s not miss the fact that you will get better and more quality sleep, so your whole body will be well balanced and healthy! Yes, it really doesn’t take much to feel better.

HOW CHILDREN BENEFIT FROM SPENDING TIME IN NATURE

Today’s generation of children live, learn and spend most of their free time sitting on their cell phones, televisions or laptops. This is undoubtedly very bad for their mental, emotional and physical development, but luckily we can influence it somewhat because the consequences can be worse than we imagined. Such children are usually uninterested in the world and the people around them and live in their own imaginary world. Some children, while living that lifestyle, often gain extra pounds and lose interest in sports and outdoor activities. That is why it is very important to have a healthy and quality relationship with children from the beginning and to teach them from a natural age that spending time in nature is healthy for them and their development.

Instead of spending all day playing useless games on a computer, I take the time off and take your child to the outdoors, bring a ball to play with, food and bottled water and organize a picnic. If you have a pet, even better; let the child take part in playing and catching the ball with a dog. You can do so many activities, from playing different kinds of sports like football, handball, or some of the popular games that kids like such as hide and seek, jump rope, freeze dance or maybe even go cycling. If your child really loves technology but still wants to spend some time in nature, let him pilot a $500 drone a do some amazing footage from the above, it will have a toy to play but it’s still an outdoor activity.

You can teach your kid to enjoy nature by showing and teaching him about different types of trees, plants, flowers, bugs, and animals in nature. That way, the child will have more interest and motivation for going for a walk with you, enjoying the sun, fresh air, and activities you can do together. If you don’t have enough free time to spend with your child one of the things you can do is to let it participate in the worldwide Scouting movement. That way your child can participate in different sort of programmers, events, activities, projects that will contribute to its personal growth,

It’s great for developing good and healthy relationships with other children, and acquiring some new skills, and learns about values. It’s also a great opportunity for kids to meet other kids and learn about mutual respect, understanding, and leadership. They can feel more independent in life which is good for their personal growth.