In part one of this two part series we talked about creating an emergency binder for the unprepared family members in your life, you can read that here. Here in part 2 we are going to go over some techniques you might be able to use to get your family interested in prepping.
As I said in the last article/podcast how you approach a situation really depends on your relationship with that person and their personality. As we said in the show, your kids are stuck with you whether they like it or not, your spouse however can leave whenever they like.
Along with getting your family members interested in prepping you also need to think about your extended family that might end up on your door step. Now before I get the comments about how “I’m not helping anyone!” hear me out.
I’m not talking about acquaintances and friends, I’m talking about family, and I’m willing to bet we all have a couple of family members that we could not turn away, even if they don’t want to hear what we have to say today.
My sister comes to mind when I think about this, there is no way I could turn her away in a SHTF scenario. If you could do this then more power to you, but meeting my maker with a clean conscience is more important to me than surviving a few extra days or months.
SPP111 Would you Turn Them Away
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First things first though, lets go over some ways to get them onboard with prepping before we talk about what to do if we can’t.
Listen and Pay Attention:
Before we can begin talking to someone about prepping we need to find out what makes them tick and what they are interested in. If someone loves the outdoors or gardening take that and use it to your advantage, if that person hates the outdoors don’t try and force it on them.
Just because someone is not interested in one area of preparedness right now doesn’t mean they won’t be in the future. If we push too hard we run the risk of turning them off to prepping altogether.
Don’t Push too Hard:
We need to make sure we understand where their boundaries are and how people react to stress. Everyone learns in different ways, and everyone reacts differently when learning something new.
When I am learning something new I like to go full steam ahead and learn everything I can from start to finish. Lisa on the other hand is more methodical and when I try to explain something that makes complete sense to me but not to her, I can push too hard and cause her to say “I’m done, you do it.”
Find out what pushes their buttons, and that means both the ON and OFF buttons. If someone feels good about doing something and understands it they are more likely to go along for the ride.
Do things they find fun or interesting:
For the most part this is a good strategy for children but it can apply to adults as well, people are more likely to do something if they enjoy doing it. The great thing about prepping is that there is such a wide variety of subjects to choose from.
Everything from gardening, camping, cooking, building, security to hundreds of DIY projects are all part of prepping that don’t involve nuclear bombs or Martial Law. While these larger events are important, don’t jump from point A to point D, plant the seed in their head first.
Stand Strong:
Just like training a pet of getting the kids to do chores be consistent and make sure they know what to expect from you. If they think this is just a “fad” or a “phase you are going through” they are less likely to take you seriously.
If you tell your child that dishes need to be done every day without question, they know how important it is to you. If you let them slide and aren’t consistent they know they can get out of it, and believe me they will try anything they can to do so.
How Lisa got me hooked:
It’s a little funny when I think back to when Lisa got me into prepping because I never saw it coming. She didn’t make me eat freeze dried meals for dinner, and we didn’t wear bug out bag in our wedding, but she did do things that I would find necessary or convenient to have.
A couple of times I remember saying “OK, you’re right, I’m glad we had this” and slowly I began to get more interested and see why it was all valuable. Then one day I was not able to get home because of a blizzard, and although I knew my family was safe I was still a nervous wreck. From that point forward I was a prepper.
Put the gas mask away:
The reason most people want nothing to do with prepping and preparedness is because it scares the crap out of them to think about the reality of their lives being turned upside down. It’s OK to watch a war or military action on TV because it’s happening overseas, but something like this happening to them is out of the question.
The same hold true for our family, start small and work your way up. Put the long term food away, put the gas masks away and talk about what they like and use. Cover topics like natural disasters, accidents and emergencies that are more likely to happen in their day to day lives.
Would You Turn Them Away?
In part 2 of the podcast we talked about whether or not you could turn close family members away during a crisis.
You can read that article here.
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