Spending afternoons and weekends with your family

Ed Begley Jr., Actor & Environmentalist, shares advice for parents on the importance and benefits of spending quality time outdoors with your family
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Spending afternoons and weekends with your family

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The biggest challenge for most parents, and it’s certainly been a challenge for me, is valuing your time and remembering what’s important. There’s certainly a tendency for all of us to go, “Kids, I know I said I’ll take you this weekend to the beach, but daddy’s got a really important meeting and he’s got to go.” And sometimes, perhaps, you must. If it’s a matter of losing your home or your job, occasionally you must. But I would offer my opinion that you don’t always have to do that stuff on the weekends or in that family time, after school with the kids where you got to do something that’s so “important.” I now, as I've gotten older, have gotten much better at that saying, “No, I can’t make this meeting. You guys will have to get by without me. Here’s the way I feel about the question you’re about to ask me, here’s my vote on that matter but I promised my kids I’d take them for a hike up in the mountains and I can’t be with you tomorrow. Sorry.” I do that. You have to be in a position to be able to afford to do that. In many ways, you have to have an understanding, work place or something. You can’t lose your job over it. But I would say, most of the time, people think things are so important that they must do, they’re not. The important time is with your family. To do those things where you’re down on the ground, working with them in the garden, where you’re down on the ground playing with them and their action figures, where you’re up in the tree with them, route in a hike with them – that’s what they value more than anything. You have to put in the time with your kids, and if you do that, you’re going to do the biggest piece of parenting that you could ever accomplish, just putting in that time.

Ed Begley Jr., Actor & Environmentalist, shares advice for parents on the importance and benefits of spending quality time outdoors with your family

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Ed Begley, Jr.

Actor & Environmentalist

Inspired by the works of his Academy Award-winning father, Ed Begley Jr. became an actor. He first came to audiences’ attention for his portrayal of Dr. Victor Ehrlich on the long-running hit television series St. Elsewhere, for which he received six Emmy nominations. Since then, Ed has moved easily among feature, television and theatre projects.

Ed co-starred in the Woody Allen movie Whatever Works with Larry David, as well as the Seth Rogan/Judd Apatow film Pineapple Express, and a number of Christopher Guest films, including A Mighty WindBest In Show and For Your Consideration.

Other feature film credits include Batman ForeverThe Accidental Tourist and The In-Laws.

On television, Ed just completed Muhammad Ali’s Greatest Fight, an HBO movie with Christopher Plummer, Danny Glover and Frank Langella. He also starred in the HBO movie Recount with Kevin Spacey, Tom Wilkinson and Laura Dern, and appeared in recurring roles on Six Feet UnderArrested Development and Boston Legal.

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