Family Life Merit Badge

Family Life is one of the Eagle-required badges, and it is not a reading badge. Almost all of it is things you do at home, over three months.

What you will do

You will pick at least five regular chores and do them for 90 days, keeping a record of how often you do each one. You will plan and carry out a project on your own that benefits your family, and a second project that your whole family takes part in. You will write an outline on what a family is. And you will prepare an agenda and run one or more family meetings covering seven topics, from the Scout Oath and Law to money to manners.

How long it takes

Ninety days, and there is no way around it. Requirement 3 is a 90-day chore record, so this badge cannot be finished faster than that no matter how quickly you work through everything else. Start the chore log on day one. The actual work is about 20 hours, spread thin across those three months.

What you get to help you

A printable 90-day chore tracker, and a spreadsheet version that adds up your totals for you. One example family followed through every lesson, so you can see what a finished chore log, project proposal, and meeting agenda look like. Quizzes that mark themselves and explain every answer. A private upload page for sending work to your counselor.

A perfect quiz score does not finish a requirement. Every one of these seven requirements says prepare, discuss, carry out, or list, and your counselor will still talk each one through with you. That conversation is the badge.