lawchicky819 | The Quest for Fire and Other Practical Outdoor Skills

Not to sound like an old geezer, but.. kids today, are generally not well versed in the outdoors. Don't get me wrong, my five year old loves riding around on his tricycle, but it's nothing like 100 years ago, when kids were expected to wrangle a whole slew of outdoor chores on their own. I think less and less people are exposing their children to nature, and that's a shame.

This is why my boys are all enrolled in cub/boy scouts. During Covid, we've had to eliminate a lot of extracurricular activities (dance/theater, hockey, track and field), but scouting is something we can do outdoors and socially distanced. My brother-in-law is an eagle scout, and my baby brother is working on his eagle scout project now, so my sons have something to aspire to. My eldest has his heart set on becoming an astronaut, so we took special note of the eagle scout exhibit at the National Air and Space Museum.

Now, there are many times when my boys would rather stay home and play video games, but being the adult here, I coax them into leaving the house and they're usually glad we did it by the end. My five year old is especially excited that he is enrolled this year. He has his navy "Lions" tee shirt and hat, and he went to his first meeting last Wednesday. We were trying to teach him how to use a compass, which was.. comical. I guess he will get the idea eventually. My Weblo used a sewing machine (I've never learned how to use one myself!) and talked about what you need to bring along for a hike. My oldest son just moved up to the boy scouts program. He looks terribly small compared to the 16-17 year old boys, but they have been taking him under their wing and praised him on his soccer skills. Boy scouts learn some much more serious skills, which is actually pretty cool. My son has dipped his toes into getting merit badges in space exploration, photography and geology. We're looking forward to working on badges that involve camping and making our way through the outdoors. I'm really hopeful that in a few years, I'll have sons ready and able to pitch their tents and build a fire! Until then, I guess I'm responsible for opening up our fireplace and laying out some s'mores ingredients in the living room.

I'd love to chat some more about scouting, but we're actually scheduled to hike with the scouts this afternoon and I need to prepare some snacks and rain gear, and maybe some wool socks for myself. The things we go through to try to make our kids well rounded!