Does the thought of camping with your kids stress you out? Do you find yourself dreading family trips with your kids? Wouldn't it be nice to relax and de-stress on the weekend instead of getting even more wound-up?

Camping with our kids and teens can sometimes be a struggle.

Somewhere in our minds, we have programmed ourselves to force our children to enjoy nature. We want them to appreciate all the beauty and wildlife especially when we live in urban areas and we don’t see those things everyday.

We plan our meals to be the foods that our kids will eat, not so much what we like ourselves. Only to have them put their noses into the air and say they aren't hungry. We try so hard to make the whole experience fun for our kids that we become frustrated when it fails.

The harder we try to force them to enjoy and appreciate, they fight us. They put on their pout faces and complain and mope around, determined to not have a good time. All the while, you as the parent are ready to explode. You find yourself irritated and grouchy. I think that secretly the kids are pleased with themselves for irritating you so.

Teens absolutely detest being pulled away from their friends and lifestyles. It is social death for them to be separated from their cell phone. We say to them, "this will be good for you" or "there weren’t cell phones one hundred years ago and they got along just fine, you'll live".

Even with all of that, we wonder why our teen can't just enjoy the trip and be happy. Our camping trip has turned into one of anger, frustration, disappointment and stress. Does this sound familiar to you?

Have you ever heard the saying, "pick your battles wisely"? Camping should not be a battle that you have with your kids.

Maybe all you need is some helpful tips on how to make the camping experience enjoyable for all. My number one suggestion for creating a low stress camping trip is to go with the flow and not against it.

Instead of battling with them and insisting that they leave their cell phone home, let them bring it.

Let your kids bring their electronic gadgets: Cell phones, gaming devices, CD players, mp3 players, DVD players. Cell towers are more common in the mountains these days, plus, texting is usually possible with only one bar of service where actual calls may not work so well.

Younger kids might want to bring their gaming devices along and quite honestly, it makes the drive to your camping spot easier when everyone is entertained. We like to take our DVD player with us for our younger child. The car ride to our camp site goes much quicker without having to hear, "Are we there yet?".

Plus, we can bring other DVD's to watch in case we get rained out and have to spend a lot of time in our tent.

Remember the batteries and power. Make sure you are well equipped to handle your needs. Power inverters are wonderful as are small generators when you are camping without electricity.

The whole idea of camping is to de-stress and get away from it all. It seems rather odd that I would recommend taking it all with you. However, you'll find that by allowing some freedoms for your kids, they'll actually be more relaxed and that will trickle down to you.

You also might witness an extraordinary event, Mother Nature winning out. Once the kids are actually out in the forest or down by the stream or sitting around the campfire, they seem to relax and enjoy themselves. Before too long, you'll notice that they are no longer holding their electronic devices. They will be adding firewood to the fire or collecting tadpoles down at the stream instead of claiming victory over the fourth level of some hand-held game you can't even pronounce.

But whatever you do, don't make a big deal about it. Just enjoy the fact that the kids aren't fighting and sit back and relax.