Eagledad

Don't forget the nails. Barry

This is exactly me. When I was scoutmastering, I totally focused on all the scouts equally. And yes, my sons burned out once in a while, so I let them have breaks. We also didn’t discuss scouts much at home. Both my sons aged out even after I took a break from the troop. They could have taken a break with me, but they enjoyed scouting. My best memory of being with my sons was a philmont trek. My older son went as an adult leader. Scouts lead the treks, so I got to take off my leader hat. I was just a member of the crew, and we had a blast. Barry

I finally realized you were saying about a forth of new scouts dropped out. That is probably about right, but I found first year drop outs almost impossible to track. As someone mentioned in a earlier post, many scouts sign up, but never show up. I like to place them in the catagory of scouts who quit after cubs. That is important for watching the performance of cub packs. The obstacle of tracking scouts is the independence of districts re-signing their membership. And units add more confusion by their own independent definition of active scouts. I found the only accurate way to track scouts after leaving cubs was to contact them personally. And few districts have that manpower. So, it’s a hard number to track. But we do know around 50% of graduating Webelos actively joins a troop. And we do know about 1/4 to 1/3 of those scouts drop out in the first year. I’ve known these numbers for over 25 years. The pack drop out numbers used to make me mad. Think about how many boys in that 50% drop out range would be in troops if we could raise that number by just 25%. And we are just talking about 2nd year Webelos. Tigers has a huge dropout rate of over 50%. Bears and 1st year Webelos is significant as well. Except for Tigers, I attribute most of those drop outs to adult leader burn out. Barry

Im not sure what you mean by cohort attrition, but I agree with the rest of your post. The parents have to be on board to get the scouts pasts the first year, so we have an ASM team up with a TG or PL to work with and educate the parents. The ASM is there to give the scout and parents comfort that an adult is around for support. But, all communication goes through the TG or PL to show the family that the scouts manage and run the program. The ASMs main responsibility is to show outward trust of the youth leadership. All decisions go through the TG or PL. And yes, if a scout stays in the troop a year (really after summer camp), than they are likely to stay several years. Barry

Yes, that is just me. What I mean is the ability for the average parent to manage the program as intended or expected. There are several complicated reasons why the program is so heavy now, but the biggest issue is that five years is too long for the average adult to volunteer their time. Most experience leaders will say 3 years is about all we can expect before burnout. That is at all levels of scouting. In fact, we found that new Venturing Crews started to fade in their 4th year just for that reason. Before Tigers, the Cub program was 4 years long, but it was an easy 4 years. Tigers added 5, and it is not an easy program. Burned out Bear leaders is a very significant issue, and there is still 2 more years of Cub Scouting left for their son. Lots of ways to discuss that problem, but we found that when a parent burns out or leaves, the son, one way or another, is dragged out with them. If the Scout makes it to cross over, there is still only a 50/50 chance they will join a troop. And if the adult makes it through the cub program, they are too burned out for the troop. I watched several adults I pegged to be good Scoutmasters burnout in cubs. I know we were discussing interviewing dropout scouts, but up at least until their 2nd year of the troop program, parents are usually the drivers of their sons dropping out. If you keep the parents, you keep the sons. I even taught pack leaders how to shape their program so that it was more attractive to the parents. Packs that take care of the parents and leaders have low burnout rates. Barry

Ah, my apologies, I misunderstood (very embarrassed). Yes, you are correct. That was the program before National started dumping more on the program. Barry

I don't think it is a organization problem as you put it. I think it is good advice for units. I wonder if your SM already knew why the scout left without adding an exit meeting. I generally knew why most of our scouts dropped out before they left because of my discussions with them and their parents. More often than not, it was the parents. I have often suggested on this forum that parents should get a meeting with the BOR committee when their son has one so that the committee can get to sides to the story. Scouts generally don't like to tell adults something the think adults don't want to hear. But, the parents are usually more giving with the information if they think it will make a difference. But, that is adding another bureaucratic layer to an already busy advancement process. As to this specific discussion, in general the parents were supportive of their son dropping out for the various reasons. Our fix was to work with the parents along side the scouts. But, that , as I said, is a different topic.

Yes, but adding the Tigers program tipped the balance of managing the program. So, it is significant. Barry

Not Tigers.

Are you suggesting the organization prevented YOU from calling the scout? Shesh. Let's keep the discussion balanced, shall we.

I don't think this is a good question. Webelos are told over and over that Boy Scouts is more fun because they get to make all the decisions. So, yes, they are excited to join. The problem occurs when they find that not only do the scouts tell each other what to do in the patrols, they are also responsible for their safety in the cold dark scary woods. "It's going to be OK" is not a sufficient answer to their real fear. There are ways to help this problem, but this isn't the right thread for that discussion. Barry

This is the list I sent to National back in 2000. Especially drop Lions and Tigers.

The "re-up" as you call it, wasn't a significant number until after around 2000 when National added to the Webelos requirements of visiting a SM and filling out the application form before crossover. Yes, there were a few even before that, but not the significant number compared to scouts who do attend their first meetings and drop out within a year. Scouts who start going to meetings and drop out in the first year is easy to track. The problem is that the solution isn't easy. Barry

As I said, when you work with the program and membership everyday at several levels, a picture starts to form. I'll add one more statistic to the Boy Scouts membership 21% drop; more scouts drop out in the first year (really first 6 months) of the troop experience than any other single year of scouting. That is the result of the sudden shift from the scouts safe adult lead lifestyle to a more self-independent boy lead expectation. That drop has been consistent since National started tracking drop outs. The cause is a human nature reality that is hard to get around. I'm saying the 21% would be a lot less if not for the first year drop outs, which would expose the cub program problem to be even more significant. Barry

I have always felt that the very top heavy program structure of the Cub Scouts is the direct problem with the constant decline for scouting at all ages. If the scouts leave at the Cub level, they never get to the older age levels to experience the program. Most of the changes National has done to the Cubs program in the last 30 years added significant burden on pack leaders. Tigers is a killer. It's hard to measure because there weren't any exit polls for families leaving the program. But, for those of us who worked in the weeds of program and recruiting, a story developed. Cubs, more than any other BSA program, drives families away. All that being said, I think opportunity is knocking at the door with Covid. The problem will be that the issues I'm talking about in the Cub program are still there and will eventually cause the same decline. Barry

Covid is a whole new experience, but in the past scouting families don't come back. However, good marketing can do wonders if this a Covid response. I don't get the feel the public cares much about the law suit, so my gut is Covid just pulled families back from a lot of activities. My neighbor has two scout age boys and the parents pulled them from everything a year ago. We've rarely see them out. Families might be ready to jump into a scouting type program. Great marketing opportunity, but National has never shown themselves to be marketing savvy. Barry

Yes, but suggesting that both groups are equal is just as stereotypical and neglects possible advantages of single gender approaches. You're is attempting to shut down a thought process again, which is condescending to the other members on the forum. Until folks are willing to have an intellectual discussion on the subject, it will continue to be a two -sided debate. I wonder how a discussion on this discussion among intelligent minds would go. Seems pretty close minded, even hostile. Do you really believe yours's should be the only one opinion counts in the group? Forget the question, you gave your opinion. Folks are tired of being discounted and demonized for having a different opinion. Barry

This is correct. Girls on the other hand prioritize "organization". Organization applies to the other parts of the program, but the problem is the boys lack of organization tends to drive them to retreat and let the girls run the show. And let's not confuse organization with leadership. Being Organized isn't a higher drive or ability to lead, boys of that age just tend to default direction to those with better organization skills because following the direction is easier than being organized. Where girls struggle is their lower instinctive priority for adventure. They will tend to let the boys come up with the fun ideas and then organize for it. I've noticed in girls only programs that it's the adults who give the girls the ideas for adventure. Adults could certainly balance the situation if they understood it, but most adults believe the instincts of boys and girls are equal. They may say otherwise, but they don't know where they are different, so they treat them as equals. I found the natural adult reaction for girls being more organized is to brag about them with the intent of using peer pressure to drive the boys to grow. The boys instead just resent the adults and retreat even more. Boy grow is better when boys are developing within a common struggle of the group. Girls too. Yep, 70 percent of our scouts earned their Eagle age 16 and older. My inclination is Girls don't have any higher desire to advancement than boys, if they advance faster, it's because their organization skills making advancing easier. That being said, for some reason adults want the girls to prove themselves, so they drive the girls harder. The problem here is that adults get antsy is their scouts aren't close to Eagle by age 15 (mothers are the worst) and start driving the scouts to advance instead of doing adventure. There are a lot of scouters who really believe that scout loose their drive to earn the Eagle completely after age 14. As you point out, if they are having fun, their motivation generally comes at a later maturity when the earning the award actually has some personal meaning. Barry

,,

Well, yes and no. Yes, they wanted to girl membership fees without loosing the boy membership fees. No, my experience is that until puberty, the female's instinct of "organization" runs all over the male's "lack-of-organization" instinct. Once through puberty, growth is more equal and gender competition isn't such an issue. At least from a scouting perspective. Barry

I was talking to our Council Summer Camp organizer about why we were going out of council. When the subject of bikes came up, he explained that adding bikes to the program would quadruple their insurance cost. Might as well include calling the Bob Cat ceremony a hazing activity because the scouts were held up-side-down while getting their badge.. They could have used reason and said it was a safety concern and all would have been fine. But they instead tried to portray the volunteers innocent intension as something foul and self-serving. That was when I realized the professionals were not as professional as the standard the volunteers expected of them. We volunteers should have held National accountable for their emotional helicoptering mis-leadership actions. Barry

That is the extremism. I've talked to a lot of folks who are, were, and were never involves in scouting. None of them believe this is the BSA's fault as an organization. They believe we are getting a bad deal from ambulance chasing lawyers. So, whether some folks have lost faith the BSA, it certainly isn't "virtually no one". Barry

2000

Interesting. When we were about 80 scouts strong in a district of 12 troops, the majority of the scouts attended a large (3000 students) upper middleclass Highschool. Toward the end of each school year, all the students voted for the top 7 leaders of the school. I don't remember why 7 was the magic number, but one year 6 of the 7 were scouts active in my troop. And the 7th was a girl. I'm sure she would have been in our troop today. I have no guess to how that happened. Barry

Well thanks. The engineer in me wonders how they got that number. Still, you are right of course. Barry