Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Why Parents Need Wood Badge Training

My last post entitled “Why LDS Young Women Presidents Need Wood Badge Training” was read by my co-worker and I received some great feedback from her that inspired this post.  She got a little fired up and was talking about the post with her friends and family. When she realized that I had written it, she knew she needed to talk to me about this.
 
You might be asking what fired up my co-worker?  She is a mother who loves the outdoors and has always felt that girls should get to do all the cool things that the boys do. She wants to understand the scouting program so that she can help her sons and future grandchildren in life, but also have these tools as a leader in her home. She is fired up because Wood Badge isn’t just for leaders, but parents need to be invited too!
 
This really got me thinking and I knew that I had to write another post for our Wood Badge Blog. Parents really do need Wood Badge training!
 
As a mother of 6 children ranging in age from 24-10, I basically have someone in all the scouting age groups. Understanding cub scouting has helped me a lot with my youngest son. I wish that I had known what I learned at Wood Badge for my older boys. With one who earned his Eagle early, understanding the continuing program would have helped a lot. My younger daughters are direct beneficiaries of the things that I learned at Wood Badge. They are in my Young Women’s program and help plan and carry out great adventures and activities.
 
There is a class at Wood Badge about understanding the different Generations and what is important to them. This changed my life in dealing with my adult daughter. My perspective completely altered and it has helped our relationship as adults improve tremendously. I am so grateful for that increased understanding alone.  
 
As a wife, this has blessed my marriage in many ways. One is that my husband joins us on all of our adventures with the youth.  It is wonderful to have his help and back up out in the wilderness. This has also helped me to be more adventurous myself. It has inspired me to jump in and try new things.
 
All parents can be blessed by this training in more ways than I can write here.  It is leadership training that has far reaching effects way beyond scouting.
 
So…parents? Come to Wood Badge! It will bless your family. 


 


 Here we are on a backpacking trip with some of our kiddos