How do you handle the "eww, that is gross!"?

Many kids love dirt, frogs, and creepy crawlies. What happens when they don't?

As parents, guardians, and adults who have young ones in our lives we know how to make things more appealing. We can get them to take "gross" medicine and eat new foods. It comes easy to some. (My brother and sister-in-law had my nephews hunt around for "sugar bugs" on their teeth so they would brush thoroughly.)

So in regards to the BWCA: We will be going to a lake that doesn't exactly have the 21+ feet water clarity. I noticed the water is actually ice tea in color. I'm not sure my girls will actually have an issue drinking it, but...

Adding ice tea flavor to it would be an obvious option in this case. Any other suggestions?

How about other "unpleasantries", how do you handle them with kids?

(Sorry for the short essay)

go grape! the dark purple hides everything and tastes good! My daughter loves gross, worms, bugs, fish guts :) Good luck!

My kids seemed to not mind any of that stuff. Our water was pretty clear, but we were usually mixing something in, anyway. Plus, if you have a tinted water bottle... I think, also, if they see the water is not full of debris, but just stained, it will be okay.

Bugs were not a problem for us last summer, but I do bring along a "Susie bug net" from Cooke Custom Sewing, so in case they are a problem, we'll be able to get some relief at some point (because even with bug spray, they can be annoying).

Otherwise my kids love dirt.

I like grape too! good idea, like the tinted bottle too.

For our 5 year old daughter we had a dark blue tinted water bottle and used red fruit punch mix. She never saw what it looked like. Don't know if she would have cared but not worth the chance that she would refuse to drink anything.

As far as other gross stuff........ she couldn't get enough of it. She spent endless amount of time playing with the leeches. With a leech stuck to her hand hanging straight down she said to my wife. "look mommy, this one really likes me" :) She also thinks she is soooooo cool because she can pee in the woods. She even pulled her pants down on a portage and did it right in front of someone she didn't know.

I feel I have to clarify, I am sure they will be right at home. But we all take those little steps to make sure it is fun and a great experience. So keep those tips coming.
Here is my 4yr old daughter on the left with her cousin as they are finding their "friends" (worms)in the soil for the garden. As for my 18mo old getting dirty is her hobby.

quote sinking3: "How do you handle the "eww, that is gross!"?

Many kids love dirt, frogs, and creepy crawlies. What happens when they don't?

As parents, guardians, and adults who have young ones in our lives we know how to make things more appealing. We can get them to take "gross" medicine and eat new foods. It comes easy to some. (My brother and sister-in-law had my nephews hunt around for "sugar bugs" on their teeth so they would brush thoroughly.)

So in regards to the BWCA: We will be going to a lake that doesn't exactly have the 21+ feet water clarity. I noticed the water is actually ice tea in color. I'm not sure my girls will actually have an issue drinking it, but...

Adding ice tea flavor to it would be an obvious option in this case. Any other suggestions?

How about other "unpleasantries", how do you handle them with kids?

(Sorry for the short essay)"

are you filtering the water? if so there shouldn't be much of a color to notice, if not make sure to boil it. There little thyroids can't handle the water treatment pills well and their bodies do not do well at all with the meds needed to treat Giardia

You are probably right about most of the coloring but we use Aquamira with a 5 gallon collapsible in camp so it pretty much is the same color. We do use a filter of and on. But I have never taken the kids. I had no idea. Thanks for the heads up. We will plan on doing as you recommended. I just figured that the tablets were not any different than a municipalities treatment to water. Thank you.

Our kids don't mind the water - our bottles happen to be tinted as well. They love to help filter it. Really like that job. Even like the novelty of drinking filtered water from a lake. I think it causes them drink more. :)

For variety we sometimes add gatorade or crystal light packets. Lemonade powder is good to.

Sometimes we bring small, bug/bird/plant identification guides along. Makes the encounter more interesting, like a game.

Biggest key in my experience is NOT to have the adults go "ewwwww" first! Water never an issue except if it's warm - they like it cold. Plenty of add-ins for them to be excited about if we need them (Tang!).

Gross mud and dead frogs and moose poop - usually cool. One kid won't do mud and she picks her own way around it just fine. She will however do the dead frogs and moose poop just fine - go figure.

I must say as I started the thread I was thinking of adults also in this regard. But because of the "canoeing with kids" group forum I tried to stay focused.

I will say now, though, that I had ulterior motives for some of the tips.

First, as to ice-tea-tinted water, that is generally the sign that a particular lake is high in tannins -- natural compounds that enter water systems from decaying vegetative matter. Generally, filtering will have no effect on the color of the water. But tannins pose no health risk, though to some tannin-rich water has a bad taste. But I've never noticed it. And I second the power of Gatorade, Powerade, and Kool-aid to make lake water go down without an ewwww.

Other unpleasantries can include ticks, cold dishwater, and pooping on a wooden box while mosquitoes mercilessly feed off our plump upper buttocks.

As has been suggested, some kids will handle all of the above with ease -- even with relish! -- while others will react cataclysmically. And while it depends upon the kid, it also depends upon the day, the weather, the hunger, the mood, etc. etc. I don't mean to paint a bleak picture at all. Generally I find that some of the toughest kids become easy when they are -- to use a phrase -- released into the wild. Most kids thrive in the wilderness.

But for those moments when they are failing to thrive, I have a few tactics:

- snacks and treats. I pack more than enough treats, including candy and granola bars, fruit snacks, etc. I keep a stash within reach at all times. I can get another 200 yards or 5 minutes out of the two-year-old with a pack of fruit snacks.

- games. I make up games. On the spot. They are usually really flawed games, but even so, they can take the edge off. As the rain came in last year, and we retreated to our tent, I grabbed a bunch of small rocks. Using my ridged sleeping pad, I taught the two six-year-old boys how to play mancala. It was a mess. It was hard to define the pits clearly from the ridges. Rocks moved here and there whenever anyone bumped the pad. But when I expected the boys to become really frustrated at being pinned down in the tent, they were fixated by the game. Other improvised games have included count-the-bug-bites, chase-the-daddy, and throw-the-rock. The last is a particularly broken game where you throw a rock ahead of you on the portage trail and then hike to see who will get to it first. In theory, whoever reaches the rock first gets to throw it again, but the rock never lands on the trail. And even if it did, fat chance that anyone could find it! But it can redirect meltdown energy to play.

- flexibility. This is the hardest for me. When they wake up at 5:00 am, I really want them to go back to sleep. But they aren't going to. So a wiser father taught me to go with it. If they are up at 5:00 am, then we can be on a snowshoe hike by 5:15. Eat dessert first. Skip brushing your teeth. Collect firewood when you weren't planning on building a campfire. I'm slowly learning this one...SLOWLY.

- emotional attendance. At the core of every ewwww moment or other resistance, there is some emotional need. As parents, one of our greatest duties and privileges is to attend to our children's emotional needs. That works differently for each kid. For my oldest (almost 7), he likes to have things explained. To him, I give the tannins lesson. And then we dump in the Kool-aid. For my second son (almost 5), he seems to do best when we validate his feelings above all else. "I know that pooping on that weird toilet is unusual. You really don't want to do it, do you? I know that that can be scary." More than any thing else, that helps him figure out how to solve his own problem -- FAR better than when I try to solve the problem with a bunch of futile what-ifs (What if I put toilet paper on the seat? What if I sing you a song while you are on the toilet?) or -- even worse -- if-you-don't threats.

Maybe none of this applies to the situations you are imagining or the kind of children you will be with. If that is so, I'm sorry for wasting your time! It is always helpful to me to reflect on facilitating successful outdoor experiences for my children, so this thread has been very useful for me!

But if your question is really about dealing with squeamish adults, I usually ignore the ewwww-moments whenever possible. If I really love the person, I will help him/her or do things for him/her (putting the worm on the hook, washing nasty dishes in tepid washwater). If I don't really love them all that much, I leave them to their own devices! Hopefully they have coping strategies that are not destructive or disruptive of the group. I find that the less attention I give to squeamish adults, the better!

Well said.