When the recording on the shuttle bus warned about deadly flash floods, I smiled at my children decked in their waterproof Gore-Tex bodysuits and repeated the message.

“Flash floods can kill. Don’t let it happen to you!”

We laughed, in that nervous way when you wonder what you’ve gotten yourself into.

I had convinced my husband and our two young teenagers to hike The Narrows, renowned as one of the most scenic slot canyon hikes in the world. Hikers must wade through the Virgin River, which runs from wall to wall, as it cuts through the canyon in Utah’s Zion National Park. We were visiting in the early spring, when the snow melt can frequently cause the water level to rise too high, shutting it down for hikers. The temperature was in the 30s the morning we headed out. We had rented canyoneering shoes, neoprene socks and walking sticks in addition to our wetsuits to keep us relatively dry and warm.

I had deliberately chosen a family activity in which I knew neither child would be able to look at their phone for eight solid hours. The river demands your full attention. As a parent of teens, you relish the phone-free hours on a vacation.

Before we left, there was a heated debate about whose phone would be carried as tribute in the waterproof bag, along with our snacks and water bottles. The youngest child, with the oldest phone, finally agreed to let us stow his after we promised to replace it with an upgraded version if his phone became an unintended casualty of the adventure.

I also wanted to take us out of our comfort zones. I knew the hike would become physically uncomfortable at times and would require some persistence to reach the point we wanted before turning back around. We would have to slog through the river together.

A paved path ends at the bank of the river where we entered the water. Around 9 a.m., the cold water was flowing fast -- around 126 cubic feet per second (cfs) -- which meant it would be a challenging hike upstream. When the water flow is above 150 cfs, the river becomes impassable. In the summer, the flow is around 50 to 60 cfs. Today, the water was cloudy with silt. It had been closed to hikers due to flash flooding the day before, and the chocolate-brown water churned around our legs. Water seeped into our shoes and squished between the layers of socks.

The river bottom is uneven and covered in large rocks. I had read some descriptions beforehand that said it’s like walking on wet bowling balls. Not all the rocks are that smooth, however. It took us a while to get our footing, especially since we were laboring against a strong current.

The river’s depth is also unpredictable. The water can shift from mid-calf to chest-high within a few feet. We relied on our five-foot tall walking sticks to keep our balance, and even then, our youngest fell a few times. The entire way we were surrounded by vermilion sandstone mountains, their summits towering more than a thousand feet high. We passed waterfalls and patches of vegetation on either side. It takes about an hour to hike one mile.

We had 2.5 miles to go before we got to the part where the 2,000-foot-high walls narrow to a passage about 20 feet across. Along the way, we crossed the rushing river several times. At one point, I realized what an apt metaphor this struggle through the water was to the journey of raising teens. We were trying to keep a watchful eye on our kids to bail them out if they fell, but we had to let them find their own footing. It was hard to stay balanced. It felt a bit dangerous, and we were all unsteady and fighting against a stronger force at times. Yet when we stopped to look around, it was glorious. The heights and depths, the colors and the light interplayed to create an intensity and serenity.

And we were in it together.

Now, of course, we did not last the entire time without a flare-up between mother and teenage daughter. It’s not a river of miracles, after all. I know there was a period of cross words and angry sloshing, although for the life of me, I cannot remember what triggered it.

That’s an advantage of being in a space of otherworldly splendor. Families get distracted and tend to lose track their personal grievances with one another.

The disagreement sorted itself out as we moved downstream.

On the shuttle ride back, we were all exhausted. There was a quiet closeness, that bond that develops when you’ve struggled alongside someone to experience something special together.

The flash floods didn’t get us.

But the river did.

The director who runs a camp for underprivileged children learned an important lesson about poverty when she attended the camp as a child.

“I realized I may not have very much money, but I could make a contribution that could help in some small way,” said Mary Rogers, executive director of Sherwood Forest camp in Lesterville, Missouri. She attended this camp, which serves children from low-income families and underserved communities in Missouri and Illinois, as a child from an impoverished family. Campers get involved in community service, regardless of their means.

“Think about the fact that most kids who grow up in low-income families, most of them get help. It puts kids and families on the receiving end,” Rogers said. “It’s a powerful game-changer in these kids’ lives to recognize that, ‘I have something I can do to help somebody else.’”

It made a big impression on Rogers. She says today’s campers continue this tradition of service, albeit in different ways from when she was a student many years ago.

More camp directors are realizing the benefit of service-learning experiences for young people during their summer programs. In a 2011 report, the American Camp Association found that nearly half of camps surveyed had incorporated community service or “good deed” programs into their curricula. The top projects conducted at camps are community clean-ups, food drives, recycling programs and volunteering with senior citizens and hospital patients.

Amy Barnett of Ladue, Missouri, founded an entire camp on this premise. She’s the director of K.A.R.E. Camp, which stands for Kindness Action Responsibility Education. Campers enroll for one week at a time, and it runs for eight weeks over the summer. Each day, they participate with a different nonprofit partner. For example, campers work the assembly line for the St. Louis Area Foodbank, creating boxes of food that will be shipped out to soup kitchens and food pantries. They also bring donations from home, and on the last day of the week, they organize a small fundraiser to help the organization or charity they’ve selected.

In the past, campers have put together a community cupcake war, a science fair, a slime sale and a carnival to raise funds.

“The kids came up with amazing ideas,” Barnett said. Last year they raised $6,000 selling stickers, baked goods and cups of lemonade. The funds were donated to charities chosen by the campers.

“For the kids, it’s really about learning that they can use their hands to do something now. They don’t have to wait,” she said. Barnett started the camp four years ago, when her own kids were getting older, but were still too young to be official volunteers for local nonprofits.

“It was hard to find opportunities for them to get involved in,” she said.

K.A.R.E. Camp is designed for boys and girls between 7 to 14 years old.

“My girls love the diverse project-oriented days,” said parent Maia Brodie. She said they come home understanding and knowing the world outside of their “bubble” as one where people and animals need their help.

“They learn that they have resources to give,” Brodie said. Her two daughters started attending when they were 8 years old, and this will be their third summer participating. Similarly, Sherwood Forest has a leadership training program that brings children back year after year and keeps them involved during the school year.

When the older campers brainstormed about the types of service projects they wanted to do, they thought about ways they could help younger campers, according to Jeff Wilson, program coordinator.

They wrote birthday cards for the campers who don’t get mail from home while they are at the sleep-away program. They also put together care packages for younger campers who might get homesick.

Others come early to get the campgrounds ready by deep-cleaning the kitchen, putting the garden together and wood chipping. Some stay after camp ends to help clean up and close for the season.

The community service component of the camp experience has become much more thought-out and intentional, Rogers said.

“It’s one thing if you grow up in a middle-income or privileged family, you obviously have something to share,” she said. The realization she had as a camper -- the one she wants to pass on to today’s kids -- is that she had something to offer, too. And so do they.

AJ Buckalew took two bites of his pepperoni pizza and immediately knew something was wrong. He touched his mom’s arm to get her attention.

“Mom, something’s not right,” he said. Irene Buckalew glanced down at his plate in the restaurant.

“Oh my God, it’s regular cheese,” she said. She injected his leg with an EpiPen to try to stop the life-threatening allergic reaction her son has to dairy.

It didn’t take.

The Chesterfield, Missouri, family has been in this situation before, but never at Mellow Mushroom, a pizzeria chain they first tried on vacation after reading positive reviews about it on allergy-friendly restaurant guide Allergy Eats. That was the first time in his life he’d tried pizza at a restaurant. In fact, they’d celebrated AJ’s 13th birthday there a few weeks before, and this was their third visit in two weeks.

“We rarely eat out,” Irene said. “I make everything from scratch all the time.” It’s too risky, given how severe her son’s food allergies are.

Those first pizza outings had gone well.

“I thought it was pretty good,” AJ said of his first slices.

This time was different. AJ got scared when the first shot from the EpiPen didn’t help. He felt his chest tighten. It was getting harder to breathe. He felt flushed. Some hives appeared. He asked his father to call 911, and an ambulance came to take him to the hospital.

The chef told Irene that he had made the pizza with vegan cheese himself. She and AJ left on the ambulance.

“We let our guard down a little bit,” said Irene, who disputes the restaurant’s account.

“We take allergy issues very seriously,” said Chris Deatherage, general manager at the restaurant. They offer gluten-free and vegan pizzas, clean the pizza cutters and use gloves when making them, he said. He spoke to the manager working that night, and says all the proper protocol they have was followed. “We’ve never had an issue like this before,” he said.

Meanwhile, AJ received three more EpiPen injections at the hospital and eventually needed an intravenous epinephrine drip to stop the allergic reaction.

Even when the teen, the parents and the restaurant try to be vigilant and careful, life-threatening mistakes can happen for those navigating the world with severe food allergies. Between 2007 and 2016, treatment of severe food allergy reactions increased by nearly 400 percent, according to data from Food Allergy Research and Education (FARE), a nonprofit that advocates for a more inclusive world for those living with food allergies.

While many people think it’s toddlers and young children who are most at risk when it comes to food allergies, that’s not actually the case, according to Gina Clowes, FARE’s national director of training and outreach. Research shows that teenagers and young adults with food allergies are at the highest risk of fatal food-induced anaphylaxis, she said.

Adolescence is a time of wanting to fit in with peers, and some degree of breaking away from parental rules and testing boundaries. Clowes, who is also raising a teenager with a severe food allergy, says she has learned to prioritize the most important rules, such as never leaving the house without an EpiPen and making sure any friend’s parent has her contact information.

Mistakes can easily happen. There might be recalls on food products, human error or things a teenager might not even think about, such as kissing someone who has eaten something to which they are severely allergic or sharing a vaping product that could trigger an attack.

Irene knows firsthand the stakes attached to the smallest mistakes. When AJ was 10 years old, he ate half of a cupcake that he thought was safe. It turned out to have dairy and egg in it. His mom rushed him to a hospital, where they pumped his stomach, gave him medicines and eventually had to put him on a ventilator for seven or eight hours. He spent two days in the pediatric intensive care unit to recover.

But the newly minted teen rarely complains and says he doesn’t think about his allergies much.

“I try to keep it as not such a big deal,” AJ said. He brings his own food when he goes to sleepovers and parties. He’s learned to trust his own body. Certain parts of childhood that many of us take for granted -- going for ice cream with friends, trick-or-treating on Halloween -- have never been part of his life.

“We’re trying to have him live in this normal world,” his mom said.

But it’s doubtful he’ll try pizza again anytime soon.