Eagledad

I don't think the pack program is the problem for the boys. It might be a problem for not preparing the adults for the troop, but not the boys. I was one of three adults who started our troop program. We each had a great scouting experience in our youth in very boy run programs. So we had very boy run expectations when we were visiting troops to cross into. But we found ourselves disappointed in the troops we visited. Eventually we decided to start our own troop. When the DE heard that, he pointed us to a dying troop of 7 scouts between the ages of 12 to 16. The SM was burned out, so the program suffered. I remember one of our first campouts was a back packing campout. Not a long hike, only a few miles because 11 of the scouts were Webelos just a few months before. But, one of the older scouts from the previous program said they had never done anything like that before. And I think that is the basic problem with the troop programs today. To much first class advancement and not enough adventure. Believe it or not, most boys don't like KP. Most don't really like cooking all that much, either. Planning isn't that much fun and shopping for groceries is boring. But, when sharing those responsibilities with your patrol mates for the purpose of doing the really fun adventure stuff, they aren't barriers of druggery that make a 12 year old think twice about going camping. Those little things are just stepping stone responsibilities for the really fun stuff. I have often said on this forum that the success of a troop program is measured best by the older scouts. If the older scouts are coming and having fun, the younger scouts' program is having fun as well. I find that the majority of troops spend way too much time running the younger scouts through the gauntlet of learning First Class skills instead of doing adventure stuff where first class skills are just part of the fun. And those troops generally start loosing their scouts around age 14. The attitude, sadly, is the fun adventure is for the older scouts. Those are also the scouts who are supposed to be leading and role modeling for the younger scouts. Adding to the problem of boring the younger scouts to death with low adventure and high advancement is boring the older scouts because they are pushed to teach the first class program to the younger scouts. Well of course, it's a boy run program, so the older scouts are supposed to be the teachers, right! But the problem is teaching the younger scouts is just repeating their first three years of the troop program. And who wants that! Generally it falls on the older scouts whose dads are the adult leaders. The rest of the older scouts left. The troop program needs to be as much adventure for the 11 year old as it is for the 15 year old. Older scouts like role modeling. They like showing their skills. They just don't like repeating the same ol same ol classes of sitting on a log learning knots. Adventure is running into the woods to gain the experience of surviving in an environment that most of their friends have never seen. Fishing, hiking, riding bikes, canoeing, swimming, and rappelling is the fun stuff. Older scouts showing the younger scouts how to do the fishing, hiking, riding bikes, canoeing, swimming, and rappelling is even funner stuff for their age and maturity. Adults sitting by the fire back at camp while the scouts are fishing, hiking, riding bikes, canoeing, swimming, and rappelling makes it even more fun for everyone. There are lots of ways to adventure and we can discuss that, but this is my answer to the problem you present to us. To many adults are leaving the out door adventure fun out of the program and as a result, the troop is closer to a Webelos III program than an out door adventure program. Barry

The professional paid scouters will tell you that the most frustrating part of the scouting program is the volunteers. 95 percent of them either don't take their responsibilities seriously, or they are just terrible at doing it. That being said, thank goodness for the FIVE percent because they carry the weight of the program. swilliams, you are the five percent. You are the parent I look for when I go recruiting for dominating unit leaders. You not only have the passion, you have the will. You don't see it yet, but you are the unit leader in the purist meaning of the word. So, how do you get your unit program on track. Well first remember it's your track that you want the unit to be riding. That can be good or bad depending on YOUR vision. Be careful not to step on any toes or burn any bridges as you push forward. Just like dripping water that changes the shape of rocks over time, gentle nudges forward eventually shape big changes in program, over time. Next, keep doing what you are doing. Volunteer to fill in where you see gaps. And don't ask for permission so much as just state that you VOLUNTEER to do this and that, and go do it. Just be that nice parent who has the time. What typically happens is you will buoy yourself into the dominating leadership position by default. Most likely the CC. That is where you can force big changes toward your vision. From there you can use your recruiting skills to fill positions to get the pack righted. I believe Wisconsonmomma can help you a lot as well and hopefully she will respond. But be patient let the gaps of the program pull to helping shape the program. If you push too hard, you can find yourself going two steps back for every one step forward. Barry

Woodbadge is another fascinating arena to observe human behavior. Barry

Up until the requirements changed (1980s?), OA Arrowmen were the most impressive Scouts in the program. I’ve said many times that they were the Special Forces of scouting. And in our troop, past SPLs took the position of troop guide because they felt it was the most challenging and rewarding position next to SPL. Of course a lot of that depends on the specific troop program. But the responsibilities of our troop guides required a great deal of maturity. I never saw a TG 14 or younger that was any good, and I was never less than impressed with TGs 15 and older. Barry

There is a PWD formula somewhere on the internet the builds a program schedule so that each car gets to race a minimum of something like seven times. The objective of the derby is for the scouts to see their car run the track. They get to see their car race some many times that most scouts get bored. The formula tells the operators which car goes on which track. It doesn't eliminate cars, it adds up points. After the minimum number of races have been run, points are added up to find the winner. The final race is a race off with the winners of each age group. We had a large pack of 100 scouts, so we raced with two tracks to get the event done in under an hour. We would allow broken cars to get a pit fix, but that doesn't happen very often because the cars are turned in the night before and inspected for the reason that some boys bring cars that aren't quite up to competitive spec. We add a little weight to some car or balance the wheels on others. The goal is to get each car to finish all the races. It's was a big family event for our pack each year with refreshments. Barry

Maybe. I acknowledge that scouters today seem to be working with a different kind of parent generation than the parents I was working with just 15 years ago. One of the BIG differences between volunteering in a Cub Pack and a Troop use to be that scouters had to work with parents more closely in the pack because they were more hands on with their sons. I don't think that difference is as broad today as it was just 15 years ago. Troop leaders have to be better today because they have to work one on one more with the parents than past generations of scouts. I have a psychologist friend and we've had a lot of human behavior discussions over the years. Recently he said I was one of the best human behavior experts he ever knew. That was a surprise to him because I'm an engineer. I told him that nothing teaches the fundamentals of human behavior better than working with parents. My high school teacher son recently said the same thing. Barry

The troop policy is basically that tents are private safe areas so long as the scouts aren't disrupting the sleep of those around them. I didn't realize how much the scouts took that to heart until a back packing trip where I was forced to listen to some teenager discussions in a language they were more accustomed to using at school. I told them the next morning during breakfast that while the tent is a safe place to have private discussions, it's not sound proof. Barry

We found (myself included) that the first summer camp is the hardest on families because it is, for most, the first time the parents and sons are separated for more than a couple nights. So we started teaching the parents how to get through that week by advising they send a letter each day, but writing how they are excited to learn what new adventures he experienced and what stories they will tell. Don't say how they miss him, but instead how this is an experience he will remember for years to come. When I was SM, we asked the new parents to attend the first campout so that we could show them how the patrol method program works. But then we would suggest they stay home the next few campouts to give their son and themselves a chance to grow from the brief separation. After that, the new ASM parents should start camping with the troop. All and any parent was welcome to summer camp because 6 days of an intense patrol method lifestyle was the best way to build a base of support for our program. Even at summer camp, the adults typically camped in a different camp site to give the scouts the separation needed for patrol method scouting. Just telling parents that they will feel a type of depression when they are separated from their kids for a few nights is normal, but a part of life as they watch their kids grow into adults. I found that just acknowledging that parent homesickness was normal made it easier to for them to endure the separation and themselves grow from it. Barry

Freds right, if the scout has done what is required of him, anything else is adding requirements. Now I'm not preaching about the goods and evils of adding requirements, I personally think there are times and places for everything when it comes to growth. But, I have observed and experienced similar situations like this one and if push comes to shove all the way up the ladder to National, the scout wins every time. Actually this situation is very common with new scoutmasters because they tend to get emotionally tied up in old business trying to set their new standards on the troop program. And what makes it worse is the other adults have and opinion as well, which just adds complexity and confusion for the new SM. In reality this young man is not your scout because you weren't his mentor. I used to teach Scoutmasters that most problems like this scout don't just suddenly happen. The scout was allowed by his mentors to developed habits that has put him where he sits today. To some degree, I feel for scouts who have go through several scoutmasters because each scoutmaster his a different set of standards and expectations. In my mind, this scout should have had a few conferences before now. You are the new counscience of the program and you can work with scouts more actively as they grow and mature in the program to prevent this kinds of situations. But is it really fair to hold this scout to your new more rigid expectations now? Learn from this experience to better prepare you for the next, because there will be a next. And by the way, leave what you think about dad out of the equation. Yes, he might very well be the scout's main motivation. But adding that detail to your mix only makes you more frustrated and doesn't change the outcome at all. It's just a note in how to work with families of your future scouts. Barry

This is quite good. I believe God's reflections of anger in the whole First Testament are examples of using anger specifically for teaching. However, I also found that disappointment was my best tool for showing a scout how I felt about his performance. Maybe because body language is honest and sincere, but I rarely had to add words for impact. It worked well in our troop because we discouraged yelling (raised voices) as a form of motivating action. I'm not sure if this style of reflecting to scouts requires practice and maturity, but I had to grow into it. Again well said. We each have a different style for influencing scouts. Consistency is very powerful because the scouts will quickly learn your leadership style and count on it. MattR says to let everyone know before hand, but I found that when leadership actions are consistent, reputation and integrity will eventually lead the way. Words rarely trump consistent actions. For outsiders looking in, the leadership and role modeling style of the dominant leader (usually the SM) will become the obvious character of the whole troop. So put humility on the top of your list of practicing traits, because nobody gets it right the first time. Barry

We've never had a scout that wouldn't camp without a parent. Not that I knew about anyways. I think the Patrol Leaders know how to deal with something like that. I like to move the adults far enough away to where we can't hear them at night. That's about 100 yards, give or take. The only time I ever regretted that spacing was when I had to visit a sick scout at 3:00 AM on a moonless night in a heavy woods with an outside temperature of Zero degrees. Barry

I'm not sure what gblotter is agreeing or disagreeing to. Why would the adults be more trained for safety than the scouts? Why would one scout be more likely to get lost than one adult? I have personally been lost on three of our treks (twice at Philmont, and once in Boundary Waters), but the whole group was lost, not just me. And the group figured out how to get back to the trail. Is a trained scout less likely to get the group back on the trail? When I work with unit adults in training who are reluctant to give scouts independence because they fear the worst, I guide them to train the scouts to be prepared for that fear. All adults have some kind of fear. For me it was lightning and severe burns. So to ease the stress of my fears, we worked a lot on lightning and fire safety, as well as first-aid for those situations. There was no reason for me to restrict our scouts program if they are prepared for those situations. Scouting does a good job preparing all it's members (both scouts and adults) for the common emergencies out in the woods. While I admit the responsibility of safety for all the scouts weighs more heavily on the Scoutmaster, a SM should never feel they have better judgement for the scouts' safety. If they do, then training should be in order. Barry

Good article. Kind of on the same basis of other discussions on this forum. It won't sit well for those here who believe that both men and women are Venus. Masculinity for them is a four letter word that implies unfair power. When I look at the list and ponder what I gained in my youth that carried me over as a self-confident husband, father and grandfather, I must say it's the code. The moral code I learn as a youth kept me balanced over my life kept when all those around me were running around flailing their arms in the wind. The moral code is the legacy a boy will carry the rest of his life. As scout leaders, we start with the moral code so that the scouts learn to ground themselves as they practice the rest of the list. Barry

Our best SPL was the same. He LOVED everything about scouting except advancement. Barry

Leaders need to be taught to not be afraid of just going outside and letting the boys burn energy. My son has told me many times that those were some of his most memorable fun meetings. I ran two 1.5 hour den meetings a month and at least 30 minutes were given to high energy game time. Barry

Kill things! Is that like saying knives are designed to kill things? Or the SUV that kills drivers of other cars. Go visit a shooting range and count how many things are killed. I don't know, but I feel safe in saying that 99.999 percent of the bullets shot from these guns were not intended to kill anything. And it's probably just as safe to say that 99.9999 of gun owners have never killed anything either. That includes hunters. Guns are tools for sport, just like the killer baseball bat. In fact, there is actually a number of golfers killed each years by impelling themselves with a club that somehow struck a tree. I imagine they just need better training for hitting trees with their clubs. Guns are just tools like chainsaws, power saws, drills and even the evil nail "gun". I don't know how it is now, but the tree/limb saw was the most common reported woods tools accident by scouts and scouters. I know for a fact that schools have far more injuries in the shop classes than the number of gun incidents at schools. Is the band saw designed to kill? While I'm open to practical ideas on this subject, lets keeps things in perspective. Barry

The Latin Scot, you nailed it. How much would discussions change here if we all read your post before starting new threads. The tone of your post should be the tone of the SM Specific course. The contents of the syllabus wouldn’t need to change, just the adults frame of mind for how to apply the course subjects as they are presented. Barry

It’s more, but I don’t like showing my cards. Barry

Good point. It’s a whole new ball game. But, until experience shows us different, we work with what we know. Barry

Throwing out my 20 years Experience Card again. Boys don’t care if the program is a transition program or not. As long as they are having fun, they will stick around and cross over. I have watched Webelos dens that were nothing more than an advanced Bear programs cross over 100% because they were fun. I have seen Districts cross over 90% of their Webelos because they worked with each Webelos leader to make sure they had the support needed to run fun meetings. Burned out leaders were assigned troops to help them. While a transition program can certainly be fun, a fun program doesn’t have to be a transition program. Barry

Age card? Stating our experiences is a card? How does someone with a “anti-OA” card know what’s best for a dreamer? Scouters should spend less effort telling what Scouts can and cannot do, and instead a build a program that encourages more dreams and let’s the Scouts choose their path. Barry

Lol, I have too much actual experience to know better. And I have no problem with glass half empty people so long as they don’t keep trying to pour that half empty glass on dreamers.

Then you are doing it wrong. Barry

If the boys are having fun now, they will want to continue the fun next year. Barry

Well that is not typical of national, or wasn’t. I haven’t been involved for the last 10 years. Is that District or Council wide a far as you know? I would enjoy coming down to abserve the program in your area. Maybe you guys are doing something right that would benefit the rest of us. Barry