Eagledad

I love this idea. But, you can tell me, haven't you (me) imagined that somehow you (me) was selected as part of a boots-on-the-ground team ofscouters teaching a new class of National Leaders. I (we) would do a very good job. We scouts have great imaginations. Barry

Makes sense. But, just be aware, a new title can create a new expectation. The older scout program success is directly relational on the success of the younger scout program. Not the other way around. Don't let the new addition change the younger scout program. I've seen it many times. All of a sudden the mindset of the younger scout program sees itself as just a stepping stone to the romantic older scout program. Don't let that mindset creep in to the unit culture. Keep the younger scout program as romantic as the older scout program and all will go well. Barry

My observation is the opposite of your read. The specialized older scout components of the troops are the programs in our district that have a life expectancy of 3 to 5 years. The stand-alone units that don't rely on troops for membership remain active for much longer periods of time. Why do you feel your troop needs a separate older scout program? If your older scouts aren't leaving the program, you must be doing something right. Barry

I agree friendships definitely are the reason why scouts keep coming back. But, after training adults for several years, I feel the struggle is getting the troop adults to trust that they don't have to follow the push for an advancement type of program that they keep getting told to produce. I don't hear it as much now so much, but "First Class in the First Year" FCFY was the montra adults were hearing over and over back in the 90's. I was called an extremist for pushing back. Troops were then told by council to look at Venturing to fix their older scout membership problems. I don't blame Council, they were only pushing what they were being trained to push by National. But, Troops are pushed to turn into a First Class factory, and then suffering the consequences of a boring program that pushes both the adult leaders and older scouts to run from. Older scout programs require a passion to work and mentor with young adults, not just activities that entertain everyone for a weekend every couple of months. I counseled several troop leaders on their older scout membership problems and while they agreed that their troop FCFY program was boring and needed to change, they needed a plan to follow to do that and there really isn't one. Oh sure, I helped them some, but the truth is that district units become the program that district training pushes. And unless District has the knowledge and courage to be different, district training teaches units what council tells them to teach. So, being different is challenging in of itself. I don't have a real good answer for how to fix the older scout program at a national level because National has never shown a willingness to be open to ideas of how to approach these kinds of problem. Barry

We did fine without adding another administrative step in the scouts adventures. Barry

We've had many discussions around this subject and there are a lot of opinions to the Scoutmaster's role in the process. I personally believe that the SM should verify the MB Counselor and move on. It was a little easier for me because our council used white cards that only require one SM signature at the beginning of the scout's quest. The two signatures on the Blue Cards don't make sense to me, and set the SM's state of mind of being more involved. But, our district SM's had to be corrected in training that the signature is required at the beginning, not the end of the scout's required tasks. Personally I believe scouts learn more skills in the administrative requirements of the badge and contacting the councilor than any other part of the advancement program. Barry

I personally believe that scouts under the age 14 should not be leaders of groups. Their pre pubescents maturity isn't developed enough to process the lessons from the mistakes. As you said, they loose confidence and start wanting to stay home. I do agree that a new troop with new scouts do require some hand holding. But, not much. My recommendation for new Scoutmasters of new troops with young scouts was do only 3 month leadership stents to prevent burnout. The point the others are making here is don't loose the the foundation of developing growth through making mistakes in the program. Once a troops starts down the path, it's hard to change. Barry

This is an interesting post. My high school teacher son was just telling me how many suicidal students have approached him for help. He takes them immediately to see the councilor but sits with them while they wait. He is glad they trust him, but struggles with the number. Most of the students that approach him are in pain from loneliness. Covid certainly hasn't helped but he says that social media is crew. But, what really surprised me was how many of his students have gone to prison for murder. He said that in most cases, you would have never guessed they could do that. Which I guess is your point. Barry

I agree that developing creative habits is certainly part of the challenge. Creativity is a skill many youth don't practice before they join the troop and patrol method expects a lot from it. I also think the administrative tasks can overwhelm the adventure. I find that if the patrol meeting (patrol corners and PLC meeting) are more about planning and less about talking or learning a skill for the next adventure, they get tedious and boring. The challenge is finding the balance. And the scouts don't have to be moving to be interested. One meeting that my sons really liked was when we had a gun expert visit to talk about the parts of a gun and how to handle them safely. There was no activity for the scouts to hold the gun or discuss the safety. Just listening to the expert had their attention. I am sure they talked about that meeting a school the next day. Scouting is hard. Barry

We start by asking why we want Venturing. Patrol Method scouting survives because the ultimate goal is to build mature person of character. Oh, there are several ways to say that, but the BSA Mission is building ethical and moral decisions makers. That is a foundation worth building. And, it's not just a noble goal, scouting has a tool for getting there called patrol method. The struggle with Venturing is that 90% of it's members are motivated by the romance of adventure. Which, is silly to me because our troop did most of the adventure that local Venturing Crews do around here. Adventure is just a type of temporary adrenalin high. What is left when the scouts come off the adrenalin high? What next? The thing that keeps older scouts in scouting is the community of where they can challenge to one self. Adventure is just the arena where the young adults go to find the challenge. The challenge is making one self better so as to feel good about being that person. The troop does that through the challenges of making decisions about other people in the patrols and troop. The community of the patrol and troop is constant that keeps scouts coming back for the challenge. I find that most Venturing Crews are less about challenging one self to make better decisions and more about the boring actions of planning the next adventure. There needs to be more about meeting to plan the next adventure. Several years back the DE approached me about starting a Venturing Crew in our troop because our one troop had more scouts 14 and older than any other unit (troop or crew) in the Council. Our council is almost half the state of Oklahoma. What he didn't understand was that the attraction to our troop as an older scout was that our culture treated them as adults. When you think about where a 15 year old can go to be treated equally to a 30 or 40 year old, you start to understand the attraction. Our troop challenge each scout to grow into a more mature person through the actions and decisions of their responsibilities during the activities. I once polled all our scouts 14 and older as to why they stayed in our troop. I got all sorts of answers, but less than 50% said it was for the adventure part of the program. And their attendance to higher level adventure treks supported that data. Many young adults want adventure, but most just want to be around other people who respect them to be adults. Venturing is coming up short in scouting because it doesn't provide a community for scouts to be adults. It needs more than adventure. I understand this perception because I was in a Scuba Diving Explorer Post for 3 years. I rarely dove much because most of their trips were more expensive than I could afford. But, there was an expectation of me by the group to act like and adult, and I thrived on that expectation. We had a lot of other activities besides Diving in other parts of the world to keep us busy. I was also the president of the Oklahoma State flying Club in college. I would guess that 50% of those members were not pilots. We were a busy club and many, if not most, of the activities didn't require all the members to be pilots. I can't say that the club had a noble goal of building character, But, it must have been a fun group to hang around. Our troop was successful with older scouts because it was a fun place to hang out. Venturing needs to be a place to hang out for the age group it wants to attract. Ironically, I don't think adventure is the hang out part of the program. Barry

I struggle with responses like this because they don't invite a discussion unless it is one sided. Kind of a type of censorship to me. If anyone thinks this is just a guns issue, then I believe they are coming from a political agenda perspective and don't really care about the children. Mental health should certainly be part of the discussion because who would consider the state of mind of this killer to be normal. I once listened to a psychologist on NPR. He was hired by an east coast state after the Columbine school shooting to travel and organize community meetings with parents to discuss how family dynamics can effect the mental health of youth in school. The conclusion of experts and political elites at the time was that the shooters were loners and their parents were part of the problem because they never realized their sons planning the shooting. The psychologist said he was very concerned after leading these community discussions because the parents didn't seem to want to understand their roles in a healthy family dynamics. He said the parents were so fixated on their personal lives that they were instead trying to fit their kids in the parents busy lives instead of developing a life around the whole family. That was very frightening because that was a professional who was politically liberal speaking on a NPR. Let's have a real discussion. Barry

It only works with adults who understand the big picture of how the different groups work together in the one program. Most (vast majority) of adults don’t have that big picture vision, which is why Venture Patrols and Troops Venturing Crews don’t have a good success rate. That The majority of new adult leaders don’t have a youth scouting experience adds to the challenge. I would question if the council professionals would have a working understanding of making this idea successful. Barry

Yep, there is a fine line of setting scouts up to succeed and setting them up to fail. But, there is a difference in learning from failure or becoming disillusioned from failure. Scouts have to feel the adults are their best cheer leaders, especially when they make bad decisions. I told the story about the SPL that was frustrated because he couldn't get the troop of about 30 scouts under control. He walked over to the SM watching from the other side of the room and asked what could he do. The SM asked what was the one thing in his hand that gets a scouts attention. The SPL put his sign up and the he had a new confidence in controlling the group. But, the key isn't the SM giving him a little help. The key is the SPL reached a point where he needed to learn and took the intuitive to get it. AS you said, new scouts need a lot more wisdom to start out than experienced scouts. And that will likely come from adults. But, the adults have to let the scouts push the line of annoyance (frustration) so that the scout is motivated to learn how to change the annoyance, without letting the scout go so annoyed that he just gives up. Where is that line? It changes constantly and the adults have to feel it out so that they can keep pushing the line out, but not too far out, as the scouts grows in knowledge and independence. That adults will fail as much as they succeed. But, if the scouts observe that the adults are trying to give them their independence so that the program is more fun and more rewarding, they won't mind the humble adult screw ups. Adults' have to learn and grow faster and more often than the scouts just to keep up with the scouts growth. If the adults quit pushing the line, the scouts will quit growing and the program will get boring. It's hard and frustrating, but when you watch the maturity of the troop jump forward, you will so excited that you won't sleep that night and you will be forced to sleep on the couch. The more that happens, the more you want and the more you push that line. The adults want to program where the scouts like to learn from the mistakes because they the growth makes them like themselves. That comes from them listening to their best teacher, which is their last mistake. The adults have to insure the scouts that they are in a safe to make mistakes because that is what the program is all about. And that is very hard for new adult leaders who have spent their adult life teaching their kids not to make mistakes. I learned to caution new adult visitors to speak up in a PLC meeting because they just can't help themselves. Kind of funny to watch. Stating a new troop with new scouts is the most difficult time of the troop program. So, it is important to understand the goals of the program like Vision and Aims so that they learn how the Methods get them there. I wish training taught that better. Barry

Been there done that. In fact, we tried almost 10 different approaches to getting first year scouts up to speed, and comfortable enough to want to stay. The BSA looses more scouts in their first year of a troop than any other age in the BSA. Our Troop certainly saw that problem. The quick reason for the drop out rate is that sudden culture change from being hand held through life by adults to instant independence of relying on the boy leader not much older than the new scout and themselves for surviving in the woods. It's terrifying for many new scouts. Now, you would think that the new scout patrol would make that easier, but the problem with the new scout patrol is that hand holding is still there and the independence isn't reinforced enough for the scout to trust the culture of the troop. The new scout will learn to trust the TG, but not the other older scouts. And, the only independence the scouts learn is what the TG teaches them, which really isn't the confidence that comes from experience. I do believe there is a way to mix Webelos with the troop program to get the scouts more up to speed, but not to the degree mentioned by Calion. I had great success with Webelos Dens doing their program with the troop, but independent of the troop program. The Webelos would stand in formation at opening and closing cermony. Sometimes the participated in games. We would sometimes ask the SPL to send us a scout to teach a few basic 1st class skills. But, we didn't treat the Webelos as Troop Scouts. We wanted them to look forward to change. We wanted the experience of having meetings at the same time with the troop to give them confidence of joining so that the sudden independence didn't overwhelm them. The Webelos got to learn the faces of scouts, and maybe even their names. The adults became familiar, and the scouts got somewhat close to the Scoutmaster who would visit the Webelos activities now and then. And it worked. But, Eagle94 is right. A big part of the problem is the adults who don't want to stop hand holding. They don't really see that is what they are doing, but they can't seem to let go of the idea that these young men are still children who need protection from the pain of growing up. Our troop ask all parents who think they want to take positioning the troop to go through about a year of training. In that training, the SM will personally guide them through the troop activities and explain why the adult aren't around. The SM will take them to a PLC meeting with a warning that they are only observers. Do not speak (because it happens). We explain they must attend at least 3 campouts as an observer to learn how scout run really works, and sometimes doesn't work. The trainees will earn their TotenChit, from a scout at the same time the new scouts earn theirs. Getting the adults out-of-the-way is the key to getting the new scouts up to speed. We do have an ASM for new scouts, but that person is trained to work with the Patrol Leaders and Troop Guides. We use the ASM show both the parents of the new scouts and the new scouts how the youth leaders and adults work together as a team. The ASM will always be the support and resource for the scouts to show that the adults trust the scouts to lead. If the new scout and parents need to talk to the leaders for any concerns, they will always be direct to start with the PL or TG. The ASM is support is the scouts ask. The new scouts will likely not even see the ASM after their first three months as they learn to trust the youth leader. The ASM is that adult who hand holding fades away as the confidence of youth leaders builds. It's a process, but we went from 40 first year drops to 5%. The thing about scouting is seeking ways to improve without giving up on the principles of the program. In this case, we wanted the scout to experience scout run patrol method, but we needed them to build confidence that they were safe without adults next to them. Or even 100 yards away. So, we tried different ideas until we found ones that worked. And we reaped the rewards of do that scouting stuff. Barry

Our Scuba post was manage by the scuba teacher and equipment store owner. The Police Post, was manage by volunteer police, and so on. We have a rappelling Venture crew around here that is led by the rappelling teachers at the Air Force Base. Find the adults who live and have passion for the skills that the scouts want for their adventure. Send them to training and have the DE visit them once in a while. I'm sure the effort is a lot more challenging, but it just one idea to bat around for ideas. Barry

My own experience is that scout growth is dramatically slower without older scouts modeling the skills the new scouts need to learn. Troop Guides are OK, but they have to teach most of the skills in more of a classroom setting, while new scouts in a mixed age patrol just have to watch the skills being used in normal activities. The scouts in new scouts patrols tend to get bored because they don't stay busy enough when the troop guide isn't around. There is no resource of experience other than the troop guide. Then usually means the adults have to fill in to make sure the new scouts have a continued program. Another problem I observed is most troops put their less experienced younger scouts in the troop Guide position when the minimum age should be 15 or older. The worst Troops Guides I saw or worked with were 14 and younger. The best ones where 15 and older. In fact, our very best troop guides were past SPLs. They said that Troop Guide just seem like a natural progression for them. A totally scout run patrol is almost impossible with new scout patrols. Barry

This is the main driving problem. A successful Venture, Venturing, Sea Scout, Explorers, or whatever you want to call program must have passionate adults and sponsors. My Scuba Post was sponsored by a very passionate Scuba Outfitter that pushed the program until he died. Sea Scouts has it's own following, but I remember one member here years back saying his program struggled from lack of adults. The most successful older scout units have good sponsors or passionate adults. If it were me leading a charge to increase membership, I would start with a recruiting program to find the right adults. Scouts go where the fun is at, so find the adults and then market the fun. Barry

Determining mental and physical Maturity can be tough. My older son weighed 105 lbs at age 16. Yet, he had more backpacking experience than most of our troop. In fact, he once carried his backpack and the backpack of a member of their exhausted crewmate a couple miles on a Philmont trek. On the other hand, I had some tough athletes who fell apart mentally. And that usually happens at the beginning of the trek, so we're stuck with them the whole trek. They are a challenge because everyone, including themselves, assumes they can do the trek based from their physical ability. I was lucky on one such trip that the scout's dad was one of our adults. We let him deal with his son. The constant physical effort of paddling for miles or carrying a 40lb pack up a mountain is as much mental as it is physical. Some folks just aren't conditioned for it. Barry

The problem is that ,many adults are stuck on the imaginary age 14 restriction. Our only restriction was physical fitness maturity to make sure the scouts could physically do the adventure task safely. Except for Philmont. Could not get past that restriction. But, we usually did at least two or our own high adventure pack packing treks anyways. So, everyone that wanted to go backpacking could go. That doesn't include our backpacking weekend campout. Barry

Yes, it was a rumor by someone who knew someone. The New Scout Patrol was part of the plan, so it wasn't far fetched to me. Until the creation of the New Scout Patrol and Troop guides. Webelos joined when they reached a certain age. They didn't crossover as a whole den. Patrols stayed mixed because they only got 2 or 3 new scouts a year. The New Scout Patrol started the aged base format. Barry

The rumor, never found anyone to admit it's truth, was that National was going to change the program to aged base and the Venture Patrols was the shoehorn for it. But, I think it wasn't a popular as National expected. Nationals self interest for aged based patrols is holding on to membership. When the scouts get bored with Troop scouting, they can jump into Venture Patrols or Venturing for high adventure. The problem with that theory is if the adult leaders can't run and interesting program for 10 to 13 year olds, what make's them think they can for 14 and older scouts. Venturing crews in our district last between 3 to five years. And most of them struggle while they are active. My question to troop leaders that want a Venturing program to keep their older scouts is "why not do adventure for all ages and then maybe you older scouts won't get bored". Barry

Quite right. The leaders are only running the program National is pushing. Thanks for the correction. Barry

The leadership Corp is where the senior scouts who have done it all go to be a source for the younger leadership. But, that shouldn't take away from the patrols. In fact, if a Patrol Needed a new patrol leader for some reason, they would likely come from the leadership Corp. One of the flaws of todays leaders is they push leadership on scouts too fast and too early. True leadership requires a lot of skills to coordinate a team toward success. Developing those skills takes time and duty roster is one of the best tools for teaching coordinated team work. I found that patrols without duty rosters struggled to get all the responsibilities performed because someone the PL had to constantly ask a scout to do it, after the job should have been done. A duty roster reminds all the scouts or their responsibilities before the assume the responsibilities. A duty roster teaches discipline and work ethic. A duty roster also encourages calm leadership. I use to teach our youth leadership that if you have to yell to get something done, then you are do your job wrong. The skills that a simple duty roster teach will last the scout forever. I know because I use those skills everyday. Barry

When I taught adult leadership, I explained that the actions of others around me are motivated by my actions., or misunderstood opinions. I also must say that of the hundreds of times I have brought my opinion to this discussion, it is the first time I seen someone offended that the girls had the better skills than the boys. Most adults just smile. This is a strange discussion at some many levels. Barry

Wow, that's quite a leap from what was really stated. Girls are wired differently than boys and and difference makes growth more challenging for boys when they are mixed with girls in a patrol method environment. The question isn't whether boys and girls can mix in scouting activities, of course they can. The question is whether benefit of girls and boys scouting together is worth the less growth for the boys. Barry