Eagledad

What is a bible thumper? Barry

>>Scouting is about independence and trust. If you know he won't be able to contain himself fairly regularly (once a camp out or even every other camp out), then you don't TRUST him and scouting is probably not the right answer for him.<< The worst moment of my scouting experience was telling two very good parents that their mentally retarded son was not safe on campouts. They knew we tried and that we were thinking for his best interest. We’ve told the parents of several scouts that they were required to attend troop activities closely with their son to help control his behavior, and strangely their son’s behavior suddenly changes most of the time without the parents having attend. Parents just needed a wakeup call. While we have had families quit our troop when parents were asked to help with their son’s behavior, we’ve never asked any scout to quit. The parents always made that choice. When behavior gets to the point of pulling the parents in for help, change usually follows one way or the other. Barry

>>Scouting is about independence and trust. If you know he won't be able to contain himself fairly regularly (once a camp out or even every other camp out), then you don't TRUST him and scouting is probably not the right answer for him.

>>The sad thing is.........The guilty I feel hoping he never comes back.<< Yes, I’m sorry that I have no consoling words to help, but I think guilt is a reflection of a good person trying hard to do the right thing in a hopeless situation. Some years later I still reflect on the scouts that didn’t come back. Most were very troubled and I pray they are doing OK as adults. But I have far more success memories to keep my sanity balanced. What you are doing is hard and it pulls on all our emotions. There were many nights I couldn’t sleep. Some nights I smiled and laughed myself to sleep, some nights I cried. It’s a hard world out there and the SM sees more than his fair share because the title alone assumes them to be more trusted than the average person. Some parents expect us to perform miracles, some just want us to babysit. But what you are doing is noble and it requires courage to stand up against the constant waves of strife we see in these kids. Our own families suffer and our sole takes a beating. Sometimes we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and we become an outlet for the single mom who feels hopelessness in how to raise their son into a man. But in the end, the rewards make it worth it and even motivate us to hurry to the next activity hoping for another day as good as yesterday. For every step backward, we go two steps forward. It’s hard to get it right every time, but I promise the skills you learn from this situation will be needed again. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>A lot of what you're talking about is problem solving. ILST mentions communication, planning, and EDGE, but not problem solving. The PL and SPL handbook talk about conflict resolution and problem solving, why not ILST? << I don't know, we didn't have ILST when I was SM, we had something much more basic. We learned most of our wisdom through the humility of doing it wrong. I'm trying to save you from that kind of growth because scouting is hard enough. Barry

>>After all that I wonder if that hour of sitting with the scout and mom was worth it.<< I think so, its not a scout problem anymore, it’s the parents problem. You made her responsible for the future of her son in your troop. >>I wonder if we just should have dismissed him from the troop.<< For every one parent I dealt with in your situation who didn’t care, five did care. You are giving the family and yourself another chance. >>I wonder if the suspension is going to make a difference in his behavior or life.<< No it will not, but this is about the parents, not the scout. I personally don’t care for suspensions because all they really do delay the inevitable. Either the family will agree to terms, or not. I usually knew within a week. >>I wonder if he will return or not.<< I wonder if mom will come around. I think you did good. Barry

>>There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for.<< I kind of thought that was really your question. The site is very difficult and it’s taken me several attempts to get this far, so wish me luck. First off, you are struggling with a very common situation that most all of us have confronted. It’s just part of growing into a mature unit. Adult leaders need to grow as much if not more than the scouts for the program to mature. And you need to understand that these aren’t scout problems, they are adult growing pains in learning how to be good mentors and coaches. You said leadership is about gaining respect, but that is not quite right. Leadership is about guiding the team to accomplish successful goals. Respect just makes the job easier. I do agree with you that servant leadership is the best way to led. But where inexperienced adult leaders go wrong is they try to force the value of respect on all the scouts through the leaders. Respect is developed through helping all the members of the group feel they are equal and treated fairly. The Oath and Law only guide scouts to serving others, they do not define who and where to serve because we are expect to serve everyone all the time. In short, you really want to encourage a servant lifestyle and a servant heart in every part of your Troop program. Servant leadership is just one opportunity for a scout to practice serving. I’m sure you want your scouts to act as servants to each other even when they are in not Positions of Responsibility. Back to your problem. Like most of us from time to time, you are seeking new ideas for helping the adults teach skills that help the scouts motivates actions from other scouts in a non confrontational way. That is a difficult skill for adults to learn because have it easy since they only need to pull their adult card to intimidate a scout into action. But the scout’s peers don’t have that leverage, nor should they. Adults need to learn not to pull the adult card, which is a very difficult habit to break. You are going to have to learn how to think like a scout to better understand how to get him to change his way of thinking. You want a scout to independently make the right choices because it is the right choice, not because he feels intimidated or forced to do it. 1st principle: a scout follows the pack, he rarely leads it. I encourage our scouts to think and work as a team, especially with behavior. We had a scout cut his foot pretty bad while running through came one year. This happened right in front of the SPL and 20 other scouts. The SPL admitted he knew the rules and should have told the scout to put shoes and not run in camp. Great SPL, but I realize then that his bad decision was only 1/20th of the problem. The bigger problem was that none of the other scouts felt obligated to stop the scout’s wrong choices either. I found a troop problem that was caused by the adults because we tried to handle responsibility only through the leaders. So we attacked the problem by starting to hold everyone accountable for everyone. The scouts started to see that if they were capable of stopping bad behavior and didn’t, no matter how many scouts were there, they would be held equally accountable. Believe it or not, scouts actually like that because it gave them permission to stop their friends from making bad decisions. Why is your PL the only scout in the patrol holding the problem scout responsible for doing his job? I work with every new PLC to understand how to work as a team. If one scout causes problems, the member of the PLC (or a senior scout) closest to that problem should immediately deal with it. I explain that a PL farther away shouldn’t have to yell at the scout because he is too far away to deal with the problem quietly. Also, if the problem requires help, another member of the PLC (or senior scout) should walk over and help. Don’t leave a fellow scout stranded with the problem. Work as a team and deal with the problem quickly and quietly. 2nd principle: Scouts don’t change habits until their heart wants to change. What I mean is that just saying a person should respect leadership, or a leader should have respect doesn’t change the heart. You have the choice of either forcing a person to make the right choice or changing their will so that they voluntarily make the right choice without outside pressure. Your adults need to learn and practice (a lot) the art of finding a scouts heart, or motivation. I once had a mentor tell me that motivation follows the path of least resistance. So he made sure scouts always had clear choices. A scout should never be forced to against his will, he should have clear choices. Let’s look at the scout who refused to help out at KP. If he were given a choice before the campout that he was expected to help out at KP, or not go on the campout out, what would he chose? Either he is all in or all out. Our troop had a real problem with scouts just taking their time breaking camp, some scouts simply refused to help without the help of an overbearing adult leaning on them. Parents were upset because they had to wait in their cars for quite awhile. We were dealing with your same problem and wanted to find a better way. So the SM and the PLC worked together and came up with an idea. Our troop has a tradition that the scouts really enjoy of stopping for junk food on the way home from campouts. The PLC explained that getting the troop home on time was their first priority, if they take too long to break camp, they would skip the junk food stop. We never had another problem after that in the following 10 years while I was a leader in the troop. The scouts had clear simple choice of which path to take. Find the heart of the scout and use it to develop good habits. These principles aren’t just for problem behavior, but for all behavior. If scouts aren’t enjoying a part of the program, they need to learn to take action and change it. That is kind of the bases of my part in this TLT discussion. We had good trainings, but they got repetitive and old and the scouts started dreading them, so the change them to be fun again. Every part of the scouting experience should be fun. Personally I don’t see that you have a leadership problem, you have a bigger problem of bad team work in the patrols. This tells me your program isn’t pushing the patrols to work as a team. If the patrols had a choice of cooking, eating and cleaning in 45 minutes, or miss out on the fun activities, would their motivation change? Scouts need a reason to have to work as a team. I think “time†is a Scoutmasters best tool for encouraging motivation, but so few use it. Hey, whatever happened to patrol inspections? Also you need to simple message for your simple servant lifestyle vision. The Scout Law is a pretty darn simple guideline of servant habits. The scouts need to start practicing to make decisions (all decisions) based from the Scout Laws. Make it easy on yourself and start encouraging decisions based from the scout laws instead of MattR’s laws. Even the simple act of making a menu should force the scouts to consider other scouts allergies, likes and dislikes. So what can you add or change in your TLT right now to help youth leaders deal with unmotivated scouts or bad behavior? Understanding of course your other problem is patrol team work, but here are a couple suggestions. First teach the scouts how to handle difficult behavior in a nonconfrontation manner by always approaching talking quietly and never yelling or losing patience. Teach them to just do their best to explain to their expectations and why. Second, if the scout still refuses to change his behavior, then simply remove him or the problem from the group or activity and deal with them later. This is a great habit for adults too, but we guide the scouts to just ask the problem scout to leave the area and go visit the SPL to explain him the situation. If the SPL can’t change things, he can ask the scout to visit the SM to give him an opportunity to help the scout grow in his decision making skills. If the scout still chooses incorrectly, then he can hang out with the SM and miss the activities while the SM performs his responsibilities like washing dishes. LOL. I once got two new scouts up an hour early because they kept the PL and SPL up all night talking. We just quietly collected fire wood and started a fire. There was some mention of the scout law and general respect of others, but really not much talking or lecturing. The very tired scouts got the point. Another thing is encourage scouts to explain the expectations so they understand what is expected of them. One suggestion is for the PL to show the scouts the roster at the meeting before the campout and have them approve it, meaning agreeing to follow it as written. If the scout has an issue, they can deal with it there instead of the campout. If the scout chooses to break the agreement on the campout, then the SM has another opportunity to help the scout grow, and we like that. Finally you can get three or four other adults and perform a skit to the scouts showing them how to deal with difficult behavior. Add a little humor and the scouts will lock into it. I remember a scout reacting to a skit at our TLT by saying loudly, “Oh I get it nowâ€. Sometimes we adults get lucky. Honestly I think I learned more that day than the scout. I’ve gone way long here and I apologize. I love this scouting stuff and sometimes I just can’t stop. I hope something, at least one little thing I’ve written can help make your job a little easier. The time you are giving to help our sons is noble and we should do what we can help. Barry

>>There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for.

>>There are better ways for the PL to solve the problem and ways to teach that is what I'm looking for.

>>The vague concepts are important but there are some common situations that a patrol leader should know how to handle.<< How do you think they should handle it? There is certainly nothing to prevent modifying your syllabus to enhance certain aspects of the training to meet your current needs. But the more difficult problem for a lot of us is just figuring out the skill that will help the scout in those situations. Motivating stubborn scouts is a difficult skill to master even for adults. Barry

>>How did the PLs leanr what to do? Using the Patrol Method, we observed the youth leaders we were responsible to, and imitated them when we be came responsible for the patrols and troop. Also a lot of mentoring in SMCs, and peer to peer mentoring too. One on one instruction I guess you could call it. << Yes, what you and Basement describe is what I expect from mature boy run troops, and should be the goal of all troops. Skills development of all skills should come from observation and practical applications, not specialized training sessions. There is no need for specialized skills training in a perfect troop because the scouts learn everything through observation and practical application in their activities. But there is no such thing as a perfect program, so troop leaders make up the shortcomings through skills training sessions like TLT and skills classes. We use training sessions like TLT to get scouts up to speed for specific skills that they haven’t had time to learn through the troop activities. But I used to teach unit leaders that using specialized trainings should be viewed as red flags in your program and to seek out changes to the program where the scout will learn that skill through observation or practical application. A question might be “What can be changed in the troop activities so that a new PL is better prepared for his responsibility?â€. Boy run programs work best for maturing toward needing less specialized training because the scouts learn how to initiate decisions based on the needs of everyone else. Very hard to do in adult run programs because the scout independently chooses to put the needs of other ahead of himself. Adults can preach it all day long, but when the scout is left to himself to initiate a decision, he usually follows learned behavior. What we find in mature boy run types of troops is the older scouts take on rolls of mentors for younger scouts who need more confidence to grow. Even the older 12 year old scout finds himself mentoring new scouts to help them gain confidence for the new activities of a troop. Typically the senior leaders are the oldest most experienced because they earned their stature of wisdom and skills that were developed over the years. Mature boy run programs have 16 and 17 year old SPLs and JASMs while the age of those scouts in adult run programs are typically 14 and 15. A lot of difference because the PL is typically two years younger. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not an anti-TLT or training person, I was the Council Youth Leadership Development Chairman for several years. It’s just that leadership development should be the goal of unit leader, not leadership development sessions. Teaching sessions are a needed crutch until the unit leaders and their program mature enough provide the same level of growth thorough observation and application. A troop that works toward that vision is more fun for the scouts because it challenges each scout to grow and gain confidence at his own maturity and level of skills. It becomes a troop where the scouts like to go because they like the person they have become there. Barry

The key to efficient training is to give the scouts only what they need to grow to the next step. Just identify exactly what your scouts are not doing well and build the TLT around that. There are a 1000 ways to do training sessions and a campout is one of them. Actually a campout for the first time may work well because it is something new and different. Its your follow on TLTs that may require something different. But we found that if you train basically only what the scouts need to ease the burden of their responsibility, then you will have a successful TLT. Repetition is the killer of motivation. Also help the PLC feel special for giving their little extra for the program. Maybe give them treats that the other scouts don' t normally get. I brought a cooler of pop, chips and nuts on campouts for the PLC while they held their PLC meetings in the evening. Pizza delivered on a TLT campout? When I trained units in designing training courses, I ask the SM's to sit down with the SPL and write a list of specific problems that training could attack. A lot of leaders (most) just seem train some agenda they find on the Web without thought to if the activities were actually teaching their scouts anything. Prioritize the list and then simplify it to a few basic areas. Remember the basic rule is that young adults typically obsorb around 20 percent of everything you throw at them. The more items on the list you throw, they less specific skill they take home. Good luck, and have fun. TLT eventually became the olders scouts total responsibility that they took on with pride. Barry

Twocubdad, until we get this politico correctness thing figured out, a gentleman will insist the adult gay lesbians go first. But just for 19 seconds like everyone else. Barry

Write something here

Only one of four of my post make it in the discussion, so wish me luck. I'm glad to see folks glass have full that this will turn out to not be a big deal and will brush over quickly. However, history is different, No youth scouting program has recovered to the level of memebership and funding they had before accepting gay role models. Also, I think folks are burning out on the political corrections wars in general. Politics is in every part of our lives now and we are being bombarded by media and politicians on who to hate and who to like. Cultural wars are at the highest level ever in the US. People are tired of it and the real scouting discussions on this forum (or lack of) kind of supports that. I don't see how the BSA can make the switch to accepting gays in any form without changing youth protection policies. As much as folks say it's not about sex, it will quickly become about sex the first time a scout molest another scout. And don't say it wont happen, it has already happened many times, it just wasn't under the context of homosexuality. Then there is the logical perspective. Ever since the BSA has accepted women as leaders, the majority of new leaders have been adults without a youth scouting experience. I'm guessing no more than 25 percent of new adult leaders today where boy scouts as a youth. So I am asking you folks of wisdom, why would a parent who has nothing invested in scouting want to put up with the hassle of scouting? I think it was tough before, but now it has such a stigma to it that I'm wondering who needs it. Soccer is a lot easier. Maybe it was inevitable, but we are watching the decline of true scouting and whatever replaces the void will not be a values program and barely an outdoors program. It will take it a little while, but scouting is going to turn into a urban focused program like the YMCA and even the Girl scouts designed more as just a place for youth to gather without program intended to improve the individual. Pack gives a quote that for him is profound, "Religion was not intended to bring people together". Well scouting is the same. It is a values program intended to develop the individual just like religion. The self-serving actions of religion and scouting naturally bring people together because the motivation of individual are selfless. The YMCA was the exact same kind of program before it started getting away from its religious foundation and ideals. Now it's just a place for the youth to meet socially. It has no noble vision or mission for the youth that it serves. So I'm not a confident about the present program as many here, I think we adults are very self serving and ran scoutingt into the ground. National didn't bungle it up, we did. You don't have to read very many post to see the condesending tone and hatred of the discussions toward each other. Not scoutlike, but nobody seems to care. We want everything and were willing to tear each other down hoping we would be the one left standing after the smoke cleared. We gave up our dignity for the gold ring. We were, and many still are willing to give up our virtues hoping the new world order would favor our own way of thinking. NJ keeps saying "do the right thing". Takes a lot of pride to think our way IS the best way. Nowhere does the Scout oath or law demand that our way IS the only way. There can be no concensus of peace without humility. The actions in the Scout Oath and Law require humility to be effective. There is no humilty in demanding the right thing. That might come in the new Scouting program. As for me and my sons, we are the lucky ones. We experienced the true vision of scoutings. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>I realize I am sometimes guilty of being the pot that calls the kettle 'black' but here I note that the 'tit-for-tat' approach to interactions tends to escalate things away from 'scoutlike' while the 'turn-the-other-cheek' tends to moderate things. I guess that also depends on what 'cheek' we're talking about, lol.<< Or 'tongue-in-cheek' for that matter. Without voice or facial expressions, sometimes tongue-n-cheek post can appear tit-for-tat even when that is the furthest thing from the poster's intent. Barry

This is one of the strangest things I've ever seen. I just tried to add a comment to something AZMike wrote and it ended up here in this post by Eagledad. If this just deleted something, I apologize. It was completely unintended. Eagledad, if you DID try to post something, please post it again. I have no idea what happened. Packsaddle

.>>So, what does a SM & ASM really even do? sit back and watch?..... answer questions if asked?.... take the boys to the hospital after an incident?....<< What would a new 21 year old unmarried Scoutmaster need from a 45 year old experienced Scoutmaster with three kids? Adults as well as experienced scouts are a resource of experience, wisdom and skills. Oh, and I guess drivers too. Of course adults in new young troops are a lot busier than the adults in mature older troops. But even adults need resources for growth. Barry

>>As he's rebuilding, any suggestions on how to keep the younger boys who he's grooming (excited, energetic) from turing into the older boys (unethusiastic) when they get to 14 or 15?<< Good question. The key to excited and energetic scouts of all ages is to challenge them both intellectually and physically at their maturity and experience. That is the short answer, but if it were that easy, we wouldn’t see such a drop off of scouts at age 14. Young scouts 12 and under don’t really enjoy responsibility like adults think. They like games and adventure and would much rather run around in the group than lead the group. A good program for 13 and under scouts is developing scout skills though fun adventure activities in the field. Scouts of all ages can handle some responsibility, but only enough to build confidence for larger responsibilities as they mature and gain experience. The challenge of a young troop is giving the young scouts enough leadership to run the troop without burning them out from the weight of responsibility. Very tricky. The problem for low experienced adult leaders is learning to judge just how much responsibility a scout should handle. The short answer is responsibility should stop when the fun stops. That’s why some of us say 11 year old SPL or PL’s terms may only need to be three months. Adults also need to learn not to be afraid of letting scouts go just a bit too far so that they find the scouts limits and pull back a little to keep the scout challenged. I remember one 13 year SPL who did great at summer camp for five days, adults couldn’t have done better. But he just nearly shut down from exhaustion on the end of the fifth day. He reached his limit and the fun was over. Learn your scouts limits. In young troops, Adults need to fill in for young scouts only just enough to keep the scout growth moving forward. The risk is the adults not stepping back enough and doing the scouts responsibility for them. Remember, let the scout find his limit. If the adults are doing their job correctly, they should pretty much be out of a job by the time the average age of the older scouts is 14. I measure overall program performance with scout growth. Not troop size or ages or ranks or even best uniform. My measure overall growth in character, leadership and serving others? That is how you maintain intellectual and mental challenge for all the ages. All scouts should be expected to serve the other scouts in the troop. The typical problem with adults in most troops is they don’t give the older scouts the true responsibility of all the scouts growth in character, citizenship and fitness. Older scouts should be running the whole program, not just babysitting the young scouts in skills classes. You will find that older scouts thrive on serving others and when they understand the overall goals, they are very good at creating and in managing it. That is not to say scouts do well when just throwing them to the lions without proper skills. Skills development is very important for confidence of taking the next challenge. But in general skills development should be something the scouts acquire in their fun activities and adventures. Get creative, don’t teach knots, instead think of a FUN challenging activity that forces scouts to learn knots like pioneering projects. Think of the skills scouts are forced to learn on a survival campout. I’ve gone long again. Sorry, but I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>> Regardless of what the thinking was in the 1910's, if the CURRENT basis for the religion requirement is that there can be no morality without God, it doesn't make any sense, because the BSA allows in members who do not believe that God is the source of all morality.<< Doesn't make any sense? NJ, the BSA trys to be more open minded and tolerant of other faiths, whatever they are, so as to be as inclusive as possible. Culture changes and the BSA tried to be as accepting as they can to allow as many families to participate in the scouting program as they can. Should we really expect postings from National stating opinions on the teachings of every new faith brought in and out as families join? It's hard enough just getting leaders trained. How many scouts do you know have been challenged because the BSA ideals started with God being the final authority on morality? I don't know how National would respond to your question now, I know whatwas tought to me as a scout and what is still traditional for most faiths including Judaism, or the Judaism my friends practice. Since this has somehow turned into such a discussion, I was reading a paper the other day by some expert saying that we are raising a generation of narcissistis (spelling) because we teach our kids today that they are the final authority on their behavior and morality. They are learning that if you don' t like the rules, do what you want because it's your morality. Something to that effect. I doubt you will find many teachers who would disagree with this author. Adults today seem to give youth boundaries that they make up as they go and change at the drop of a hat. The advantage of an untouched source is that we personally don't become the end all of moral behavior. We give credit or blame to an untouchable source and live with it. It never changes and the community as a whole is accepting of the same boundaries. Poor, rich, short, or tall, we follow the same expectations of society. There is a saying of trainers in the animal word, more training gives more freedom. That more guidelines we follow, the more freedom we have to living in a civil society. Now of course as the culture changes, some rules change, but on the whole if we work those changes within the ideals of an untouchable auhtority, than we know the boundaries and freedoms expected of everyone. And if we don't, we can expect a rebuke by society. A society of narcissist can't function as a whole of community because their is nobody to rebuke anybody when they cross the line. At some point the guy with the biggest stick will have to put their foot down to prevent stop the chaos, which means no freedom. So while you see individual morality as more freedom in our nation, I see it as giving the stronger having more power over the weak. Barry

>>I am working on having the scouts take over even more of the program. Unfortunately the current youth leadership, made up mostly of the oldest boys, is a bit unenthusiastic (bordering on having bad attitudes). Giving them the reins doesn’t mean they will take the reins.<< Good luck. My observation over the years working a lot of units is the older scouts don't change. What you have at age 14 or 15 is what you will have at age 17. Oh they will bend a little here and there, but my advice is apease the older scouts with the best scouting program you can offer and build your new program with the younger scouts. Young scouts are empty vessels eager to learn and willing to try anything once. It's just a slower going because they have so much to learn at their young age and can only take responsibilities small bites at a time. Take heart that your patience and hard work will be rewarded with an exciting program as the young scouts mature into self sufficient leaders and men of character. I've seen it happen over and over. If by chance you do find a formula to get the older scouts engaged, we are humbly excited to read your suggestions and take notes. I do love this scouting stuff. Barry Barry

>>do you think BSA started during the Industrial Revolution<< LOL Barry

Well said NJ, I don't think you change anything either of us said. I just can't understand how a person can believe God created the universe but isn't actively involved with man. That is the shortest way I know to say it. I admit that the bible is alive and active in my life, so your belief is a mystery. As for the other thing, you said the BSA was not founded with god as an untouchable source of morality. I simply pointed out that was because that was the normal accepted view of god during the time the BSA was created. A little history, the bible was the most common source for learning to read up into the Industrial Revolution because people couldn't afford a lot of books. So it's no mystery that the general population credited god with morals of the culture of the time. Of course the BSA has expanded it's list of acceptable gods, but that didn't change how the the oath and law are used to help scouts grow in character. Hope that helps clear things up. Barry