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Taking your kids hiking is one of the best ways to get them into nature<\/a> (and the many benefits associated with that exposure). And, if the hike is a bit strenuous, it offers them one of the few opportunities in modern life to get comfortable being uncomfortable.<\/p>\n But, kids aren\u2019t always excited about hiking. Especially younger ones who have a shorter attention span and haven\u2019t yet caught the vision that walking down a trail can be a good time.<\/p>\n To get your kids more interested in hiking and help them enjoy the experience more, avail yourself of these 7 tips:<\/p>\n 1. Prepare to take it loose and slow. <\/strong>Young children get less satisfaction from simply moving from point A to point B than adults. The \u201cpoint\u201d of the hike for them is less about getting to the end than just enjoying themselves. So adjust your expectations accordingly, and forget the idea of a hike as continual movement. Be prepared to move pretty slowly and take breaks to sit, play in the dirt, balance on a log, throw rocks, pick honeysuckle, etc.<\/p>\n 2. Hike to a body of water.<\/strong> Young kids also tend to be less excited about stunning views than older folks. So your hike doesn\u2019t necessarily need to include a dramatic lookout. But kids do love bodies of water. Streams, ponds, lakes, waterfalls \u2014 whatever it is, it makes them 10X more interested in the hike. Our kids stay more motivated to keep hiking when they know a pond is ahead. Because once there, they like to look in the water at what\u2019s swimming around and skip stones<\/a>. There\u2019s just some kind of magnetic attraction between kids (and adults!) and water; use it to increase your children\u2019s compliance.<\/p>\n 3. Pair a hike with a picnic. <\/strong>This is another tactic that significantly ups the interest\/compliance factor for our kids. Make some special picnic foods at home, or let the kids pick out some special stuff at the store, and the outing magically feels more special. When the days are longer, we\u2019ll have our picnic dinner first at the trailhead, and then take a hike. When the days are shorter (but not yet freezing cold), we\u2019ll go for a hike at sunset, and then come back to the park to eat our picnic dinner by lantern light.<\/p>\n 4. Have a nature scavenger hunt. <\/strong>To heighten your children\u2019s powers of observation and keep them more engaged in the hike, consider doing a scavenger hunt in conjunction with it. Give them a checklist of things to look for; these can be general things you know to expect along the way or centered on a theme like \u201cSigns of Fall.\u201d In Ultimate Wilderness Gear<\/em><\/a>, Craig Caudill offers this list of ideas of things your kids can hunt for as they hike:<\/p>\n 5. Try to identify flora\/fauna\/rocks.<\/strong> Studies show that children today can identify more corporate logos than native species where they live. Knowing\/learning the names of plants, animals, and even rocks can help children engage more deeply with nature. Of course, it\u2019s probable that your own identification skills are pretty faulty; luckily, there are apps that can help you figure out what it is you\u2019re looking at, whether that\u2019s a plant on the ground or a constellation in the sky.<\/p>\n 6. Try to identify animal tracks<\/strong>. It\u2019s fun not only to identify things that are actually present, but the clues that indicate something was once there. See if your kids can figure out what animal left a particular set of tracks.<\/a> (There are apps for this, too.)<\/p>\n 7. Activate your kids\u2019 senses and ask them questions.<\/strong> As you hike along, point out things for your children to touch, see, smell, hear, and even taste (as appropriate!). Then ask them questions, especially along a line in which they\u2019ve already shown interest: \u201cWhat kind of animal do you think left that track?\u201d \u201cWhat kind of bird do you think that is?\u201d \u201cWhy do you think it\u2019s shaped that way?\u201d They\u2019ll of course ask you questions too, and while it\u2019s easy to just spout off the answer (if you know it!), try turning the question back to them first: \u201cWhat do you think it is?\u201d As Scott D. Sampson observes in How to Raise a Wild Child<\/a><\/em>, \u201cCounterintuitively, children are often looking for our engagement more than our answers, hoping that the focus of their attention will become ours too. By turning the question back on them, we crack open a learning opportunity, a chance for them to actively participate in solving a mystery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n