Hunting with kids

"Gramps; you and I are exactly the same," my 9-year-old granddaughter, Rory, says as I glance back at her on the mountain trail in surprise. Dressed in pink camouflage on her first turkey hunt I wonder, how can the two of us be alike? She is a little girl, I am a middle-aged man. She likes Monster High dolls, Paris, fishing and math. I like football, hunting, fishing and golf. Her life is consumed with school, friends and family. My life is consumed with work, friends and family. I start to see the connection.

Prepared for an interesting response I ask, "Well tell me, sunshine, how are we exactly alike?"

"Well," she starts, "You and I have the same smile, people really like us and we both love the outdoors. We're like the same person."

Two large fawns and a doe jump from their night's bed, 8 feet in front of us and spring down the mountain, white tails flashing back and forth as they descend the hill. Rory and I stop, look at each other with large grins on our face and at the exactly same time excitedly whisper to each other, "Cool!"

We continue quietly watching the deer on this 20-degree November morning until they are gone from sight, look at each other and agree to continue our hunt. Too young to have a hunting license, Rory wonders, "What if there is a bear, and it attacks you, and you can't shoot it, and I don't have a gun; what should I do?"

"And, what should I do if a cougar attacks us?"

"What if a moose comes out of the woods and starts to charge us?"

These questions continue for the next hour as I answer each one and Rory ponders the response and formulates her next thought. Finally we return to the original statement, "Gramps, you and I are exactly alike. We both love the outdoors."

I smile, rub her pink camouflaged hat and agree, "We are exactly alike."

The next seven hours are magic! Expecting Rory to get cold, bored or frustrated, I am surprised that the questions continue. Rory's excitement for hunting gets stronger with every grouse, buck or turkey we see. She does not want to go home to a warm fire and to watch reruns of "Jessie" on television. Instead, she wants to stay in the mountains and hunt with her gramps. This is a special day.

People often ask, how do I get my child to want to do something; anything? I say, get involved. Find out what the kid likes and do it with him or her. Sports, ballet, martial arts, hunting, fishing, skiing, exploring and painting; discover what a child likes to do and do it with him or her.

Often it is not the "thing" that the child likes to do that is important, it is the human connection with whom the child is doing the event with that makes the difference. Children need human connections. Take away technology, outside interference, financial stressors and relational disputes and mentally, emotionally and physically be with the child.

I talk with 10 to 20 children a day who are struggling with relationships with other children, are getting into fights, bullying other children or are just intrinsically sad and after we get to the root of the issue, the cause of the problem is almost always that the child doesn't feel heard, important or significant in his or her family or with her or his friends.

Often these issues exacerbate with children of divorce. Changing households, financial difficulties, step-parents, step-siblings and grieving the loss of the family unit finds a child questioning her or his importance in the world. Often a parent is focused on survival while unintentionally losing focus on the child. This is when the child needs the parent the most.

Raising a child is the most important thing a parent can do. Raising the future of this world demands attention. Family squabbles, disagreements, focusing on financial attainment or the social needs of the parent take a backseat to the needs of the child. Remember, it is seldom "things" a child is searching for when he or she is lost in the world, it is usually the need of a purposeful relationship.

Send comments or other suggestions to William Rutherford at [email protected] or visit pensiveparenting.com.