Child Tents  

Most commonly associated with adventures in the great outdoors, tents provide transient shelter for your expeditions into the wilderness, and are primarily if not exclusively practical in their function.  For children, however, who are possessed of precocious minds and fruitful imaginations, a tent is just as effective as a device that brings about the fantasy of being in a forest or on a mountain top, fending off animals and weather conditions that only exist in the child’s active mind.  Consequently, there are a lot of tents designed specifically for kids, to be used both indoors and outdoors, and some that attach to a child’s bed mattress for the feel of sleeping beneath the stars, even if a ceiling and roof actually separate the tent from the night sky. 

 

A bed tent is exactly the kind last mentioned, little more than a couple of extending tent poles that cross at the tent’s apex, and the tent fabric itself, which is usually polyester or nylon and not intended to deal with any sort of weather except the type that exists in a child’s room.  These tents have gartered bottoms that stretch around a mattress, allowing the child to crawl into his very same bed for sleeping, or all kinds of imaginary play involving a tent, which doesn’t have to be a tent at all, but the interior of a spaceship or a cave filled with treasure and magical items.  These bed tents can either be plain or decorated colorfully and elaborately with fanciful designs and images of their favorite cartoon characters and pop icons.

Play tents also exist that comfortably fit two to four kids, and these are made to be pitched either in one’s living room or in one’s yard.  They may or may not be waterproof and vary in durability, and may or may not actually have floors.  The more durable types of these tents are structurally sound to resist damage that may be caused by rough play, as children can get rather overzealous when playing outside, and more so if the tent is supposed to double as a castle, fortress or some other location that is expected to withstand some abuse.

Then, there are the tents for children that are actually meant for camping, to give a kid a sense of ownership and responsibility for his own temporary home.  These are relatively cheap and can be bought for under US$50, and feature decent weather protection and sturdiness.  Their inexpensive price is attributable to the fact that they are scaled particularly for children, who are smaller than adults, and thus, much is saved by the manufacturers on material costs.

Buying a child’s tent is largely a matter of what your intended use for the tent will be, whether the tent is intended as a plaything to augment the fantasies of the kids who shall be utilizing it, or as a regular tent that can be pitched at an actual campsite.  Afterwards, the selection of the design can be something that you and your child do together, since the imagery and colors of a tent are mainly aesthetic and do not affect the safety of your child or the tent’s effectiveness as a shelter. 

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