If you’re a prepper with loved ones or close friends who belong to the same community that values survival and preparedness, you can count yourself lucky. But if your own kin doesn’t understand your passion for prepping, you may have your work cut out for you.

How do you convince someone to start prepping if they think this way of life is extreme or unnecessary? (h/t to AmericanPreppersNetwork.com)

Prepping for the uninitiated

While it’s true that prepping requires discipline and hard work, others may misunderstand the passion of preppers as getting too worked up on preparing for both natural and man-made disasters.

Remember that emergency preparedness is crucial to any American’s life. It’s scary how even after events like backwoods emergencies, civil unrest, financial collapse, natural disasters, school shootings, and war, most people will turn a blind eye and think that prepping is useless.

These events are often featured on headlines, but even if mainstream media isn’t always reliable, it’s one way of keeping track of current events. However, despite countless warnings for these events, not everyone is making the necessary preparations before SHTF. Now, what can you do to convince family and friends to join you and start prepping?

There is no absolute way of addressing this question, especially since each situation is unique. But here are some answers to help you convince loved ones to start prepping.

Spend time outdoors

Because of various technological advances, the majority of Americans will spend at least a whole day indoors without venturing outside to get some fresh air. Start small by inviting a friend or family member to go on a quick walk with you so they spend some time away from brightly lit screens. Teach them about the natural world, such as how trees are a good resource no matter what the season is.

Take a class together

Taking a walk will require some time, but if you’re looking for a quicker way to help convince people to start prepping, consider joining a survival or wilderness class with them. Sign up for interesting prepping and survival classes such as:

• Bushcraft 101
• Foraging wild foods
• Land navigation
• Medicinal herbs in the wild
• Primitive blacksmithing
• Urban escape and evasion
• Urban survival skills
• Wilderness shelter building
• Wilderness tool making

There are other courses that you can take, and they might inspire a friend to start their own prepping journey.

Give them a prepping/survival kit

A thoughtful and practical gift can also help convince a family member to become a prepper. Don’t start with a gift that might scare them, like a weapon or a gas mask. Consider their interests and give them something like a prepping handbook if they are avid readers.

Introduce them to a new hobby

If your friend loves to learn, get them started on hobbies like the following:

• Drone flight – This involves learning how to use a drone for various purposes.
• Geocaching – Simply put, geocaching involves hidden “treasure,” with the goal of the game being to find as many caches as possible. A cache is any container that has various items like small toys or a visitors log, and it can be found using coordinates from the Geocaching website.
• Rock climbing – Rock climbing can teach you about the beauty of nature, and it can help you become stronger.

These activities can help your loved ones have a preview of the many fun and useful aspects of prepping. (Related: 10 good reasons to prep even if SHTF never happens.)

As a prepper, it’s up to you to teach others about the importance of this lifestyle. Show them the usefulness of various prepping skills like fishing, homesteading, and hunting so you can rest easy at night knowing that your family and friends have what it takes to survive when SHTF.

You can read more articles about prepping and survival tips that you can share with your loved ones at Disaster.news.

Sources include:

AmericanPreppersNetwork.com

WashingtonTimes.com

ThePrepperJournal.com

Geocaching.com