Explaining generational cycles, and what your children will face as the wheel turns. Basically, we are heading into a cycle of turmoil which will culminate in a major conflict in your middle to old age and your children's prime years. This is the "why" for this list.

The early you start with encouraging your child to exercise, the better. Here's why and how.

Physical education for children. Without being extreme, your child should get out and about and get a lot of exercise in. Increasingly difficult for city kids, but critical to their development none-the-less.

As well as teaching useful skills, learning martial arts will help your chold build confidence and self discipline. As well as get used to taking and giving a few knocks.

Every child can learn to shoot safely. And should.

Great book on family backpacking. Plenty of other books available on this subject.

Another in the same genre.

Moving on to survival in the outdoors, here's a great guide for children.

More of an outline for adults, but good as a reference of things you can or should learn. Abseiling for example.

Do you know what to do when disaster strikes. Are you prepared? For your children's sake, if not your own, you should be.

A survivor is very talented at anticipating possible problems and planning a response to them. These are the skills you want your children to develop. You don't learn this by rote - skills like this have to be coached and encouraged.

Now we get into training and the psychology of it all.

I quote "..giving the reader the opportunity to train as they do in easy-to-follow steps." How a special forces traing program can consist of easy-to-follow steps bogles the mind. But you'll get the idea. Instill your child with an ability to focus and suffer to meet goals and targets and they're already most of the way there.

There's other survival skills it's important to have. Knives for example, are becoming more and more a fact of life. Make sure your child grows up knowing how to deal with them. But reading a book is not enough, your kid is going to have to train. Pick a martial arts school that teaches edged-weapon combat. And how to avoid conflict where possible.