FAMILY TIME

The demands of school, Scouts, sports, friends, and other activities might fill most of your days and evenings. Older family members often have jobs and projects of their own. Although you live in the same house, you and others in your family might be rushing past one another with hardly a word.

Make a real effort to spend time together, even if that means scheduling an hour now and then and writing it down on a calendar so everyone can plan around it. Sit down for a meal together, play a game, or go for a walk. The activity is not important – what matters is that you share time together.

“As a Scout you will learn skills that will make you even better qualified to help at home than you were before joining. If someone in the family gets sick, you know how to get a doctor. If somebody has an accident, you can give first aid. If a package needs to be tied up, you know the knot for doing it. If the family has a picnic, you can make the fire and broil the steak. There are dozens of things you can do for the family that will make life so much easier….” –Boy Scout Handbook, 6th edition, 1959