Preparing for Multiple Family

Living During SHTF

Tara Dodrill Preparedness 8 Comments

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Are you and your family or tribe (my favorite term for mutual
assistance group) truly prepared to bug in on your homesteading
survival retreat? You have stockpiled all the essential preps, have
crops growing, animals in the barnyard, and trained physically while
enhancing your survival skillset – but may not be enough to get you
and your loved ones through a long-term disaster.

Previously on Survival Sullivan, we laid out a detailed plan to prep your bug in home
location or bugout survival retreat for the arrival of your adult children, extended
family, and tribe members – whether or not they are preppers themselves.

There, we focused on the logistics and layout of the home. All highly important parts
of the survival retreat equation to be sure, but the human aspect must be considered
and prepared for well in advance of everyone hunkering down together.

Having your children (adult or young ones – or both) grandchildren, siblings and their
families, in-laws, parents, cousins and their families, etc. etc. all under one roof is a
recipe for stress and chaos during good time, like holiday gatherings.

Magnify the stress, chaos, and clashing personalities tenfold at least, and you will get
a good picture of what life will be like when bugging in with other families.

When initially getting your bugout location or live-in homesteading survival retreat
ready, you sole focus was on the brick-and-mortar aspects of the place, as well as
stockpiling enough supplies and food to last the tribe for hopefully at least a year.

All of your daunting efforts were both worthwhile and essential. Now that they are
completed, or even while they are still in progress, start developing a plan to keep
everyone fully functional, productive, safe, and sane while dwelling on the prepper
retreat.

Part of this creating the prepper retreat living plan is mental preparedness but
organizational and stability aspects are equally important…and all intertwined!

Mental Preparedness
Regardless of your professional background, the stressors of SHTF will be enormous.
An emergency room doctor, nurse, or surgeon used to dealing with blood and guts on
a daily basis will still struggle with mental clarity and emotional turmoil when the
bodily fluids being mopped up belong to loved ones, especially small children – and
he or she is the only person standing between life and sudden anguishing death for the
entire group.

A military veteran is also trained to deal with harsh living conditions, blood and guys
of people they care about, and a constant threat of armed attackers. The training and
experience makes veterans highly valued members of the survival retreat tribe, but
does not exempt them from the emotional stress of the battlefield – which has now
become their backyard and their fellow soldiers members of their own family.

No one knows better than a soldier how quickly a seemingly safe and secure place can
turn into a pure blood bath. When a soldiers goes off to battle, he kisses his wife and
children good-bye, sorrowfully leaving them safe at home. That will absolutely not be
the case when SHTF. Nowhere will ever be completely safe. Every time the soldier
walks out the door to take a shift on perimeter patrol (probably more shift than anyone
else), he is doing so to protect his family, while at the same time, know that his
absence also leaves his wife and children…less safe.

Police officers, firefighters, and paramedics are very familiar with blood, guts, and
dangerous situations. They too will be aware of the dangers lurking around every
corner, even on a secluded and bolstered prepper retreat.

These folks will be the ones trying to keep everyone calm and assured they are going
to be just fine, even when their first instincts might be screaming otherwise. They will
push themselves excruciatingly hard to keep harm as far away from the survival
retreat as possible, and perhaps cause themselves to become sleep deprived, edgy, and
fatigued.

The human body can only function under such mental and emotional stress for so
long, and then it either blows or collapses, or both.

Fear of the known and lack of ability to prevent harm, no matter how well trained
they are and how hard they try, will take its toll on not just the veterans, first
responders, and medical professionals noted above, but the entire tribe.

Fear of the unknown and their lack of ability to prevent harm, could drive every
member of the tribe, regardless of their age or professional background, to reach the
same state of exhaustion and mental dysfunction.

Keeping both the most valuable tribe members and the rest of the group as mentally
and emotionally healthy as possible will take not just planning, but alertness to
evolving stress levels while bugging in at the retreat and frequent checks on all tribe
members to ward off breakdowns.

Appointing a “health official” to observe every member of the tribe, check in with
those who seem like they are struggling – or should be struggling but are showing no
outward signs of being stressed, and making the call on a mandatory break from
duties, is a great idea.

Presuming all members of the tribe are well acquainted with one another, the signs of
stress should not be very difficult to detect. It’s the apocalypse, so of course everyone
is going to be going through some measure of stress, but taking a time out before the
person becomes overwhelmed is a realistic goal.

During your pre-SHTF tribe training sessions and meetings, talk about duties, and
choices for the appointment, as well as a back-up appointee that can be used as a
sounding board for the official and to watch for signs of stress in the official, in great
detail.

Such a conversation and plan will not be a comfortable topic for many folks,
especially big strong men with a first responder or military background, or stubborn
strong women, like myself. There will be many sacrifices that must be made during a
long-term doomsday disaster, just count having a touchy feeling conversation about
your emotions, as one of them.

Urge the military veterans in your tribe to discuss cases of PTSD he or she have
personally witnessed, helped a friend through, or perhaps even dealt with themselves.
If a heroic patriot can bare his or her soul to talk about how much living through
traumatic events can impact the way a person feels and behaves, everyone else in your
tribe should be able to put aside any feelings of “weakness” they associate with
admitting to struggling with emotional and/or mental stress.

Once the tribe understands the importance of dealing with stress before it overwhelms
a person and the health inspectors have been selected, hammer out a plan for
monitoring the members for signs, how to help them cope, and when type of process
is involved with limiting or removing them from their duties – and what he or she will
be doing while off duty.

An immense amount of unstructured downtime may help some get back on an even
keel, but could send others deeper into a bout of anxiety or depression.

The health inspectors, along with any willing members of the tribe, should engage in
some type of learning or training, formal or otherwise, to help them learn how to
detect signs of mental and emotional struggle and how to help the person through it.

If only the health inspectors are learning more about dealing with stress, they must
share their findings and new skills with the group and include members in any
standard operating procedures (SOPs) or techniques they plan to employ as needed
during a SHTF scenario. The SOPs might need to be adapted, enhanced, or
completely rewritten several times as additional learning and tribe discussions take
place.

Stability
As much as many of us hate being tied to a schedule, having a routine helps breed
both functionality and stability. No longer having a set schedule and tasks to complete
is most often the hardest part of post-work life for a retiree to adapt too.

Sure, no longer having to get up early and go to work each day sounds AWESOME,
and I am sure that it is, but the retiree still has to find something to do with themselves
all day. A feeling of isolation and worthlessness can evolve in a short amount of time
if a person of any age doesn’t have a meaningful way to spend their time.

For all of the Walking Dead fans, think back to the scene during one of the early
seasons of the show when Lori was having a fuss in Hershel’s kitchen with Andrea.

Now, Lori was always one of my least favorite characters and I clapped when she
finally became zombie bait, but she did make an extremely valuable point when
yelling at Andrea over “providing stability” for the group by making meals, doing
laundry, and generally keeping house the best way you can during the apocalypse to
make sure everyone felt like family living in a home.

I am not saying the ladies of the survival retreat should be planning elaborate
luncheons, but keeping to as normal a routine as possible will give many of the tribe
members something to do and allow for calming and rejuvenating meal times
gatherings for everyone – giving them a chance to de-stress as much as possible.

The elderly and youngest members of the tribe won’t be pulling perimeter checks, but
they will need be – and feel, like a vital and contributing member of the group. If left
to do nothing more than twiddle their thumbs all day, mental and emotional stress can
overwhelm them as well.

Food needs to be grown, prepared, preserved, and served. These chores not only
fulfill necessary tasks, they all for the cross-training of skills and times when the
ladies and children engaging in them can chat, sharing stories and family history in an
effort to keep their minds as busy as their hands, and pass time in a positive way.

The home must be kept cleaned to prevent the spread of germ and sickness. Inventory
of the stockpile preps, a log of eggs collected, the communications hub must be
monitored, seeds planted, etc. must also be conducted on a regular basis. The folks
assigned to these tasks do not need to be exceptionally mobile, below the age of 60, or
capable of lifting heavy bundles. The cousin with the broken arm, the great aunt
confined to a wheel chair, and the young mother with a baby on her hip, can all
contribute to the functionality of the survival retreat by completing these types of
chores.

Creating stability on the homestead survival retreat involves a lot more than doing
chores and sitting down at the table for meals. Children need to learn, updates from
the defense team need to be given, and comfort items and activities also must be a
part of routine life on the survival retreat.

Many preppers homeschool their children already and do so by melding hands-on

self-reliance and homesteading training into the curriculum. For these families,
making the transition and having the materials stockpiled to homeschool during a
SHTF scenario, will be far easier.

Children must continue to learn the basics: reading, writing, and math, to be fully
contributing members of the survival retreat and prepared for the post-disaster
rebuilding of society. You cannot cook or do carpentry on the retreat if you do not
possess basic math skills.

Science lesson should also continue and become even more vocational in nature:
livestock husbandry, growing food, water and soil testing, composting, weather
prediction, alternative energy production, mechanics, etc.

Learning about the history of America to ensure it will not be lost and the freedoms
guaranteed in the Constitution will always be upheld, definitely should be worked into
the prepper homeschool curriculum as well.

Set aside an area in the home specifically for homeschooling, even if it a small space.
Only teachers who do not want to foster a love of learning and approach it as the great
glorious adventure it is, would ever want their pupils to spend the bulk of their time
sitting in desks! The history lessons could be taught while peeling potatoes or canning
corn and still have the same lasting impact.

You can only stockpile as many school supplies as your budget and space allows, so
get creative – your kids will love your for it. Stockpiling papers and pencils is fine,
but not exactly necessary. Use chalkboard paint on a wall in the homeschooling area
to give the teacher a place to share her lessons and for the children to write and do
their math.

Go Little House on the Prairie old school with your survival retreat homeschool and
give each child their own little chalkboard to write on. Wipe off white boards can be
used for both homeschooling lessons and to organize chore charts for the entire tribe.

Lego blocks are great for teaching children their colors, counting, basic math
problems, how to follow a pattern, and even for spelling lessons. Write both upper
and lower case letters on small blocks and sight words on longer and larger blocks for
the children to put together to match their letters. They can also build sentence towers
using the blocks.

Copious amount of Lego learning and hordes of other free very, very low cost or free
homeschool learning activities and lessons exist on Pinterest and around the internet.
Take advantage of them now, before the power grid goes down, and print of the
worksheets, lesson plans, and how to articles for interactive teaching.

Comfort items and activities will give the tribe a brief reprieve from the stress of
SHTF survival retreat living and boost morale. Observe birthdays, holidays,
anniversaries, and weddings.

Make gifts for each other, stockpile Dollar Tree gifts now to pull out at Christmas and
birthdays, especially for the children, dance, sign, play music, burn a little fuel for a
once a week or month movie night, splash around in the pond with your significant
other and the kiddos.

Make new traditions at the holidays, Christmas and Easter were never intended to
become a commercial gift-giving occasion anyway. Paint pine cones to decorate
Christmas trees with, play a board game together by candlelight that the entire tribe
can enjoy, have a low tech karoake night and get silly, make your own Halloween
costumes and sweets from foraged material and stevia you are growing in the garden.

No matter what type of fun-loving activity or holiday tradition you plan for SHTF
living, it will provide laughter and joy for your loved ones, when they need it the
most!

Faith is an essential part of the lives of so many Americans. Create a small chapel or
space that can be used for a place of worship inside the home. Choose lay leaders and
hold regular services, Bible school classes for the kids, and sing hymns to help you all
get through the many tough times ahead.

Organization
As noted in the stability section above, routine is more important to our daily lives
than we would like to believe. When folks know what is expected of them, they are
far more likely to succeed and thrive.

A survival retreat organizational chart and chore chart should be drafted, discussed,
and adapted as many times as needed during tribe meetings and training sessions. If
you have not formally identified the leader or leaders of the group, that should be
done ASAP.

If the group functions with a leader and a council, or entirely by council, or some
combination of the two with all adult members of the tribe getting a vote on matters
that impact the tribe, get the hierarchy chart written in stone, along with how leaders
can be removed, how members can be removed from the retreat, how long council
terms are, how new council members are named, etc.

Do not simply go with an ad hoc arrangement because you are all family or close
friends and get along fine the way thing are now. When the SHTF and everyone is
living together, tempers will flare, people will get sick and die, and some members
will not perform as expected under pressure. Knowing all of the rules and how
leadership can evolve when necessary increases stability and decreases stress.

Next, you will need a daily duty roster and seasonal tasks chart. Some chores will
need tended to on an hourly or daily basis, but others will only occur monthly or
seasonally. Every moment of a tribe member’s life on the prepper compound should
be accounted for in one way or another.

Setting up the schedule should not occur until the group investigates not only what
tasks will need to be completed and how many people it will take to do them, but how
long each chore will take to complete.
If you are not living on the homesteading survival retreat now, get some expert advice
about tilling a garden, harvesting a garden, chopping and splitting wood, etc. so you
fully understand how strenuous each chore is and how long it is likely to take. If, the
tribe members are engaging in the chores in really hot or cold weather, they are likely
to take longer.

If the assigned members are working while sick or on low rations, the chore should
also be projected to take longer than anticipated when the work was timed during a
training session using a healthy, well-rested, and well-fed individual.

There is nothing wrong with adapting a chore length depending upon either the season
or the person assigned to the job. You will need to make multiple chore charts to
cover all of the tasks needed during a typical SHTF year on the survival compound.

Print our multiple chore charts and put them in binders. You can also cover them in
clear contact paper to preserve them and make blank forms that are covered in clear
contact paper so they can be written upon and then wiped of and reused later. Make
an overall group chart showing scheduled duties and individual daily charts, with
blocks of down time and sleeping hours for each person.

Surveillance and security needs will be scheduled 24/7, so defining sleeping times on
the chart will help to ensure spouses get time together and time with their children
does not conflict with the chores and duties of anyone in their immediate family.

Homesteading Survival Retreat Chores

Low Impact Interior Chores

1. Cooking
2. Cleaning
3. Sewing
4. Inventory
5. Laundry
6. Food Preservation
7. Homeschooling
8. Morale Booster Planning Activities
9. Nursery care for babies and toddlers
10. Library organization and tending
11. Communications hub (HAM radio monitoring, 2-way radio charging, etc.)
supervision
12. Vocational training for adults – this can occur outside as well
13. Greenhouse Tending – starting seeds, compost inspection, transplanting plants,
etc.

Skilled Interior Chores

1. Medical clinic staffing

2. Growing the apothecary and making natural medicines
3. Off grid utility function and repair – including taking care of composting toilets
4. Health Inspector duties

General Outside Chores

1. Planting and Harvesting

2. Gardening
3. Livestock husbandry
4. Chopping, splitting,and storing wood
5. Fence mending
6. Road/driveway maintenance
7. Baling hay
8. Water collection and transport
9. Fishing
10. Hunting
11. Trapping
12. Foraging
13. Fruit grove tending
14. Barn, home, and structure repairs

Skilled Outside Chores

1. Surveillance and Security Team

2. Retreat firefighters – reducing and inspecting for fire concerns in addition to being
in charge o the fire brigade
3. Mechanical equipment and maintenance repairs
4. Blacksmith
5. Carpentry
6. Welding
7. Vocational Training
8. Construction

These homesteading survival retreat chores are just an overview of the type of work it
will take to keep the SHTF compound functional on a routine basis. Each location and
group will have specific needs that must be addressed.

The prospective chores should give you a good idea of the number of not only the
number of chores and people needed to complete them, but the specific skillset that
will be unbelievably useful in the quest to survive any doomsday disaster.
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