"The Top 5 Zombie Apocalypse Survival Skills Kids Don't Have" Topic

Reading a Map.
Catching, prepping, and eating a fish.
Fixing a car.
Making booze (antiseptic, fuel, weapon, recreation).
Building a Shelter (lashing/pioneering).

Define "kids" however. Define "skills" however. Give details if you feel your definitions merit them.

(If "kids" offends you because of your age, know that my generation was considered equally unprepared for the coming Nuclear Winter after WWIII by our elders. Cro-Magnon kids were likely as unready for the resurgence of Neandrathal. It's not just you … it's all of humanity through all time.)

BTW … I want a good answer to make some survivor camps for a project.

I think the number one skill they lack is:

Having an attention span longer than 15 seconds.

Also:

Situational awareness outside of the hand-held communication device in their hand.

All the others come into play only after they survive the intial zombie onslaught.

Tim
Tim

Killing. "Kids" don't know how to kill; they'll reach for a hand control, like Chauncey Gardiner.

Running. Are you "kidding"? Who among this overfed, under-exercised generation even walks anywhere, much less runs.

Communicating. In a zombie apocalypse there will be NO texting. "Kids" wont' be able to communicate worth a damn.

Fixing food. Fast food will no longer be on offer; many "kids" will starve, and when they do eat something out of desperation it will probably be life-threatening, because of ignorance of basic food preparation and preservation….

Basic survival skills- After power has topped,refrigeration and air conditioning gone. Food spoils very fast.
Plant and animal Identification- what is edible or poisonous
Reading a map
Reading a compass
Building a fire
Cover and concealment

All things I learned in the Boy Scouts eons ago!

Maybe we need to have new Zombie Scouts…learning for the Zombie apocolypse?

was common sense mentioned?, seems we as a species bred that out of our offspring…lol

On the car repair, to be fair, new cars are harder to fix than old cars. Guys in the 50's and 60's (IMHO) had an easier time learning to work on cars, than now.

Foraging
Hunting and/or fishing
Fire making
Water purification
Shelter building

I'd say, long term survival, farming and animal husbandry…. it isn't as easy at it seems, and you have to plan for the long haul. Reduce the human population enough, if the factors don't affect animals, at some point bands could return to hunter/gatherer status and may not need farming.

But, they do it all the time in computer games, and have seen a lot of movies… how hard can it actually be?

:) Turn off the power for 30 days every 6 months for 2 years. That will weed out the week and dumb, Who needs zombies? :)

no power means no new gas, no new food in stores, no new meds, no phones or internet, no TV, for most no heat or running water, no power tools, no banking, no credit cards. But sadly lots of people killing each other.

"Running. Are you "kidding"? Who among this overfed, under-exercised generation even walks anywhere, much less runs."

Seriously? Complaining about "kids" not running and being overfed? On a wargames website?

I cant fix a car
I can fish and I love cooking ok i just like watching Rachel Ray and drooling.
I can read
a Map but some one keeps mixing up the terrain features.
I can read a compass
I have been in combat…and can run my fat behind off or trip you or shoot you in the leg to slow down the Zeds while I get away.
"Kids it's what's for dinner"
I am too poor to afford a smart phone or banking.
I live on Fort Hood and I know where they keep the MREs.
Who is afraid of Zombies anyway at least once a day stuck in traffic I scream at the top of my lungs and tell poeple to "EAT ME" so far no takers …Mikey

My 10 (going on 11) year old niece cooks some of the best biscuits I've ever eaten. She has won prizes in youth cooking competitions and helped frying the bacon for breakfast since she was 5.

Last fall she bagged her first rabbit while along with her father and uncles on their elk hunt. She later that month bagged two pheasants at the department of wildlife pheasant hunt for new hunters safety graduates. She and her younger sister (70 and brother (5) enjoy fishing. She really enjoys shooting (as does her brother, sister not so much after she got her nose bloodied by a recoiling slide on my HD Military).

She and her siblings really enjoy tamping around in the hills.

She used to be pretty good at taking mechanical items apart, don't see that as much now.

Has a bit of inertia in getting chores completed – might become more motivated in zombie apocalypse.

Situational awareness and attention span my need work. Of course I know a lot of adults that I can say the same about.

The ability to stay quiet for 30 seconds without tweeting the fact.

Cardio

Spotting (knowing how to look)

Using a libarary to find the book to learn how to do all of the other stuff

Did somebody say Zombie Scouts?

… oh, not like that …

1. Shooting a Firearm, Accurately
2. Finding, Obtaining, and/or Making Fresh Water
3. Building a Fire
4. Fishing
5. Hunting and Trapping (yes, that is six, but they go together well)

Lots of other good ones too, e.g.

6. Foraging for Food in the Wild
7. Growing Food
8. Building a Shelter
9. Stalking and/or Moving Quietly in the Wild
10. Cooking and Storing Food

The Foxfire book series is STILL available, folks…

All that and much more.

I was a scout leader assistant, and nothing on here I can't do… Except the still. I'd have a lot of trial and error there…

Basic carry and PDM training, Boy Scout survival 101, other than that you can not teach Common Sense.
VR
James Mattes

Raynman, I learned to use a compass as a cub scout but then I tried it again in high school and found it didn't work.

Alcohol, I don't even know what you have to do to make it fuel-grade, but presumably you will have issues of all kinds just making it in a still.

I usually have to work out how to fix things (I often manage it) and cars are too individual to say "I can fix it", plus if I don't have one it is a non issue, I'm not going to put myself out of pocket buying a car for an event that will make auto maintenance far more problematic across the board, as well as cutting off the fuel supply. Though my bike still has the problem of tyres and brake shoes… and chain oil…

Herr von Schwartzwolfe, you do realise the "weak and dumb" will be killing everyone else first? Plus there are no allotments around here (I live in an inner suburban quad unit) and NOONE is going to grow everything they need in their backyard, (last time I vote Greens! Ever.) And there won't be much point turning the power back on because I work in the field of commercial electronic technology. Six months? Out of business. Copiers don't work too well off steam tractors' takeoffs.

Why would you cripple civilisation forcibly instead of waiting for a cataclysm? You may as well just start a war.

There's a skill someone could teach kids. No fuel for IC generation? Not willing to let kids manage a steam plant? How about stirling-cycle power? Not so good for movement and there is still the risk of bushfire from an unattended firebox but for the most part you could keep the fridge on without anything exploding.
Many children will also show interest in renewable energy at some point in their lives; get serious about teaching them.

In Australia we also have a culture of taking kids fishing. This is why certain former rail bridges with the track lifted were easier to cross before the council decided to turn them into shared footpaths.

Parents seem to be big on camping with kids too.

Said kids now stay in the back of the car playing with those thrice-cursed machines.

I really don't see how you're supposed to teach children to hunt and kill. In some Aboriginal communities they can but normally such things are strictly controlled. We have a department to regulate where you can fish (ignorance is not considered an excuse). Guns are totally out of the question. I know I live less than 120 seconds walk from a gun shop but I would need a licence and the police need a reason to give you one. "In case of zombacalypse" is, I guarantee you, not acceptable. I know I could just join a gun club but I think there is only one here and it's so far out of town, I have no way to get there, and if they ask how often I show up…..

Bows, maybe…

I'm sorry, but topics like this (not specifically framed with the Zombie Apocalypse) really get my dander up. If you made the sort of blanket generalisations about any other social group you'd rightly be laughed out of town.

"What is happening to our young people? They disrespect their elders, they disobey their parents. They ignore the law. They riot in the streets inflamed with wild notions. Their morals are decaying. What is to become of them?" -- Plato

I'm a big advocate of knowing how to care for live stock, really just the basics can get you so far. Canning food, Basic sanitation, basic firearm mantainence and usage, and first-aid. My old FM21-76 is a bible in regards to self preservation…

Button the Lip when on patrol.
FallingSkies scouts should all be dead many times over given the penchant of script writers to have them gabbing as well as all bunched up on patrol. That entire 2nd Mass cast ought to be toast given their screaming need to make noise, be restricted to the road net, and glare all kinds of light and heat signature at night. Food and gas are never a problem. It's looney. Kill off the incompetents, then work on writing that humorous version of Gilligan's Island.

A skill Well practiced is text while driving. Woo-boy. Practice makes perfect.

I'm sorry, but topics like this (not specifically framed with the Zombie Apocalypse) really get my dander up. If you made the sort of blanket generalisations about any other social group you'd rightly be laughed out of town.

I did point out the inherent flaw in the OP. I didn't use the Plato quote; while it is often used to make your point (people have been saying this about younger generations for a long time), the generation Plato was talking about's inability to work together in the way their fathers and grandfathers did (their disrespect for their authority, laws, customs, and agreements) allowed Macedon to conquor the Athenian Democracies and Hellenic Oligarchies of Plato's day soon after his death. Basically, Plato was right.

This is *the* top contender for the Grumpy Old Man thread of the year. "Kids these days! Why, back in my day…"

The best answers have already been covered but heres my 2 cents (original topic btw!, well done).

Starting a fire,
Basic Firearm skills,
Basic edged/ blunt weapon skills,
Learning not to trust anyone you meet (this could be lumped in with "basic survival" skills),
Learning to kill another human being (the difficulty of this should not be underestimated. It takes months of training/indoctrination to teach this to adults and some still cant do it).

Personally I'm quite glad kids don't have the skill of being able kill another human. That said the pedant in me asks if Zombies are 'Human'.

Obviously kids in Liberia would have one up on fat American video game obsessed kids.

In a discussion with a colleague (who doesn't post here, but OK'd posting his opinion), it was mentioned that agriculture takes planning, lead time, and patience (I grew up in farm country, so I "knew" that, even if I didn't "realize" it.), qualities you don't have to be a kid to have in short supply.

I wonder if we wouldn't retrograde to hunter-gatherer rather than agriculture? Could such societies support raiders, or do you need farming to have enough to be worth stealing? Hmmmmm …

I'm not into zombies, so maybe i'm missing something here. From what I can gather from this thread, the zombies would *far* outnumber us, but they have no use for food, medicine or weapons.

Assuming that the zombies far outnumber us, we'd be too busy avoiding being killed to develop an agricultural system, but since the zombies wouldn't use weapons there would be plenty of guns and ammunition around to use. There are well stocked military bases all over the country, so there would be access to all kinds of weaponry. Why bother making crude weapons? Or learning to hunt or grow food. The super markets would be full of canned and bottled goods, and military bases have plenty of MRE's. The zombies would have no use for pharmaceuticals, so medicine of all kinds would still be in drug stores. I don't understand why we would have to learn any survival skills at all. Just walk around and take whatever you want. The only real skill that you would need is marksmanship. Right?

Because all that stuff decays and everyone else has the same idea.

>>Because all that stuff decays and everyone else has the same idea.<<

Who is "everyone else"? My impression is that there are only very small groups of humans and zillions of zombies during a "zombie apocalypse". Otherwise it wouldn't be much of an "apocalypse", would it? If the sides were even roughly equal the humans would wipe out the zombies. If there are only a few humans they wouldn't be able to kill all of the zombies, but they *would* have enough food, medicine and weapons to last a lifetime. Canned and bottled food can last a *very* long time, and guns will last indefinitely. Ammunition in sealed "spam" cans can last a very long time too. The NRA sells military surplus 30.06 ammo for my WW II vintage M1 Garand and my Springfield 03A3. I have several hundred rounds and it shoots fine. All of those head shots that you'd have to make would sharpen up your shooting skills as well.

"everyone else" means all the people who first began looting and rioting as soon as it became clear that there was such a thing as a zombie. Why would there be ANYONE left if there was a 96% conversion of humans into zombies before anyone realised?
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The longevity of ammo can be random, if you are using "corrosive" ammo, so it may well fire as well now as when it was made but it may go off tomorrow.
Guns are metal objects and subject to oxidation,and need parts/consumables and maintenance. It doesn't help to find yourself in need of a fresh barrel and all the replacements you can find have rusted in storage.
Medication even worse. That stuff I KNOW has use by dates.
Cans corrode and "believe it or not, Twinkies DO have an expiration date!" Also you might find you need to cook that stuff in the cans.
When you're expecting any other kind of disaster, do you really just stock up on guns and assume you're going to take whatever you need after the event?
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What I don't get is all the abandoned military vehicles all over the road. Didn't someone send any more supplies for them? Why would you send tanks unsupported and then just leave them there? Why wouldn't they just crush all the zeds? Why not just clear the streets, seal heavy vehicles shut so no zombies can get in and go for it?
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At any rate all zombie scenarios are fatally flawed to make them gameable or keep the movie going for more than 5 minutes. This means they don't make sense.
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"everyone else" means all the people who first began looting and rioting as soon as it became clear that there was such a thing as a zombie. Why would there be ANYONE left if there was a 96% conversion of humans into zombies before anyone realised"?

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I like this link that you provided. He pretty much agrees with everything that I said. here are a couple of quotes:

"In a world where only a tiny fraction of the population remains, there'd have to be enough food and clothes in the supply chain to feed you and your friends for the rest of your zombie-killing lives".

And funny too.

"Killing zombies is your job now. And you won't be getting any damned memos about a dress code".

LOL!

>>The longevity of ammo can be random, if you are using "corrosive" ammo, so it may well fire as well now as when it was made but it may go off tomorrow.<<

Nobody makes corrosive rifle or pistol ammo anymore. Stored properly, all modern ammo will go bang a hundred years from now.

>>Guns are metal objects and subject to oxidation,and need parts/consumables and maintenance. It doesn't help to find yourself in need of a fresh barrel and all the replacements you can find have rusted in storage.<<

All new weapons are covered with oil or some other rust preventative and all military weapons *should* be stored with a light coating of oil. You will probably find personal weapons and replacement parts that haven't been stored correctly, but not at *my* house. (-:

>>Medication even worse. That stuff I KNOW has use by dates.<<

Most pharmaceuticals will last *way* beyond their "sell by" dates. I'm not kidding. Ask any druggist or doctor.

>>Cans corrode and "believe it or not, Twinkies DO have an expiration date!" Also you might find you need to cook that stuff in the cans.<<

Yes, it's true that many canned goods have a "sell by" date that is close to accurate, but more are over cautious. I read of a can of meat that was over 100 years old and still edible! I admit that I wouldn't want to eat it, but i'd risk eating some canned food that is twenty years old.

Anyway, why worry about it? If you don't want to eat canned goods, there will be plenty of cows roaming around to shoot and eat, and game will be plentiful. Not a good shot? Practice on zombies. I know that we're getting into skills now, but anybody who can't hit a cow with a rifle deserves to die.

I don't understand why cooking would be difficult. Build a fire…cook the food. Voila! Matches will still light after many years and the flint, steel and lighter fluid in a common lighter should last a lifetime!

>>When you're expecting any other kind of disaster, do you really just stock up on guns and assume you're going to take whatever you need after the event?<<

We're talking about a specific kind of disaster here. An atomic holocaust would be an entirely different scenario.

"I don't understand why cooking would be difficult. Build a fire…cook the food. Voila! Matches will still light after many years and the flint, steel and lighter fluid in a common lighter should last a lifetime!"

That's the point of this discussion- that kids wouldn't be able to start a useful fire. They'd happily use the lighters on each other or cigarettes or just play with them until they die screaming, but need to be taught how to make a cooking fire.

"anybody who can't hit a cow with a rifle deserves to die."

Kids try to cram records into CD players as much as old people try to play CDs on a record player. Do you really think they'd have the skills to handle guns without looking for buttons?

"Stored properly, all modern ammo will go bang a hundred years from now."
"All new weapons are covered with oil or some other rust preventative and all military weapons *should* be stored with a light coating of oil. "
Again, we're talking skills kids don't have. They won't even know when it needs changing and care of stuff is completely out of the question. When I was younger there was a comedy sketch on TV regarding a company called Spoonfed Industries, lampooning kids' desire for mechanised transport of their very own, often at their parents expense, and inability to process the concepts of "oil" and "water". They would have much more contact with cars than guns.
"Most pharmaceuticals will last *way* beyond their "sell by" dates"
Any official texts on what to use when? I toured a military museum once where they said there were WW1 field dressings which had been opened in the late 1990s and tested as being still sufficiently sterile for use, but how would you know? And how would a kid know?
"We're talking about a specific kind of disaster here"
You should prepare much the same way. After all someone may end up throwing a nuke at your city to get rid of the zombies!

>>That's the point of this discussion- that kids wouldn't be able to start a useful fire. They'd happily use the lighters on each other or cigarettes or just play with them until they die screaming, but need to be taught how to make a cooking fire.<<

Assuming that you're not pulling my leg, I can tell you that myself and two other city boys went camping when in our early teens. We had no woodcraft skills whatsoever, but using our brains we managed to figure out that a fire in a shallow hole was more manageable than a fire built flat on the ground and built a "useful" cooking fire without any instruction. It was a windy night, we had no tent, and we were too inexperienced to build a "lean to", so we were very cold the first night, but we searched for a less open area which blocked the wind the 2nd night we were more comfortable. I tried fishing with a hook and line and corn for bait. I caught a whole bunch of fish, and i was proud as hell, until a real fisherman told me that the fish were called "Crappies" and not good to eat. We also learned that raccoons would eat our food and we hoisted it up on a tree branch from then on. My friend threw a burning branch at a raccoon and it landed in a pile of dry leaves which instantly caught fire. We stomped it all out and learned never to do anything like that again. I can go on and on about what we learned without being taught, but the point is that experience is the best teacher, so I think that any kids with any intelligence at all will learn faster than you might think. I guess some will die trying, but that's just natural selection.

Guns are fairly simple machines. Especially revolvers. I think that most people can figure out how they operate from watching TV and movies. Load the gun…point the gun…squeeze the trigger. All new guns come with an easy to follow instruction book. These books show how to load, sight, disassemble, clean, lubricate and reassemble the firearm. They also stress safety and maintenance.

As for medicines, you are right that we don't know when they will actually lose their potency, or even become dangerous to use. But the simple antibacterials and disinfectants, like plain old alchohol, and pain killers like asperin should last for a very long time. For any of the sophisticated medications you would need a doctor to tell you how to use them anyway, so for kids *or* adults they would be dangerous to use.

Yes- when YOU were a kid, you could do that. Now, experience doesn't come to kids until the body bag is zipped shut.

Manuals are all very well, but if it's only one page and you still can't work out the sequence of "install software first THEN plug in machine", or try to change the toner cartridge in a copier with pictorial instructions on a card or label inside the hatch and somehow end up removing the fuser unit in the process, something's wrong with a generation that can't even buckle their bicycle helmet before riding across six lanes of traffic without looking. And… really? Movies teach firearm use?
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Might I advise screening movies with a gun owners eye before allowing ANYONE to see them.

>>Yes- when YOU were a kid, you could do that. Now, experience doesn't come to kids until the body bag is zipped shut.<<

Well…OK. We'll let it go at that. (-:

BTW, thanks for the links to cracked.com. They have some *very* funny stuff at that site.

light a fire ?I guess there would be plenty of gas cylinders around in camping shops why not use them? The only real problem `kids ` will have is when the "adult men" start fighting & arguing amongst themselves who is the boss. Judging by the post above not long it seems

Hammerhead

I thought that our discussion was pretty civil. Do you think that we were "fighting over who is boss"?

I am by nature a light hearted chap. hmmm maybe not in particular, to answer you point, but it seems to follow a pattern where guys are in a group if there are two pushy blokes there is always friction.
We are thinking a situation where there are no rules, how would you fit into a group of survivors?
I`ve read may post on this great site & it dose get heated over small points of detail.

Hey, here's a crazy thought. How about 'running'? Have you seen the little butterballs these days?

You don't have to run faster than the zombies, just faster than your buddies.

Why run from zombies? We can probably *jog* faster than the zombies can shuffle. In fact, if you got bored you could probably start a game of "smack the zombie". The idea is to run up behind a zombie and smack him in the back of the head. When he turns around to look, one of your buddies smacks him in the back of the head to make him turn around again. You can repeat this over and over until the zombie gets dizzy and falls over. (-:

So then,running is overrated in your opinion. Gotcha.

>>So then,running is overrated in your opinion. Gotcha.<<

From zombies…yeah!

I'd vote running, jogging, swimming, walking and all other forms of locomotion.

When I was a kid there were always a few of us, bookworms, who weren't very athletic, but we were thin and sickly compared to more athletic kids. These days there are still a few bookworms, but there are a lot obese children out there.

1. Cardio
2. Ruthlessness (If your parent is bitten, you must shoot them)
3. Self-reliance
4. A helathy sense of vulnerability (yes, you CAN be hurt)
5. Knowledge of how to properly use and care for a pocket knife.

I do agree with Ivan. Today you don't fix a car. You diagnose what's wrong and replace the part.
Overall survival skills are lacking in kids and a lot of young adults. [Are they still called Yuppies?]

By the way, there is in Las Vegas a Zombie Survival Store. I don't have the address here in the local library.

Today you don't fix a car. You diagnose what's wrong and replace the part.

Which is why I drive a manual transmission car without computer controlled anything. I haven't been to a zombie apocalypse, but I have been to many places off the paved road where the signs say "Trespassers will be shot, then questioned." If it *can* be made to get me the [expletive deleted] out of Dodge, I have pretty good odds of making it get me the [expletive deleted] out of Dodge. I think people will miss that skill when the zeds proliferate.

… and, no, they're not Yuppies anymore. I could tell you they are slackers and chavs, but that would show how out of date I am.

Too young to be a Yuppie, too old to be a Slacker. We are Generation Meh. Whatever. Nevermind.