MattR

This weekend we had a leadership training campout that worked great. At the campfire on Saturday night, which was the only time we talked about leadership for more than a few minutes, the scouts were enthusiastic about leading and said they now understand what the PL is supposed to do and how the patrols are supposed to work. The light came on. Thanks to Eagledad and jblake47 for a couple of ideas I based everything on and everyone else that joined in on those discussions. I made the weekend fun and limited the ideas I wanted to get across to them. The main, fun activities were long sessions of shotgun and rock climbing. Around that were a bunch of challenges and competition based on scout skills that they had to complete in order to get to the fun activities (orienteering, blind folded knot relay, canoeing, fire building, and cooking over a fire. I crammed in as much as I could to force them to work as a team There were two patrols and they weren't allowed to have a patrol leader. They were given a schedule of exactly what they were going to do so they could prepare. Several times before the campout they were told to take care of their patrol, work as a team, and when they didn't know what to do, to ask their patrol mates "how can I help." I warned them that if they didn't do these things they were likely to be miserable, argue, and miss out on the fun. Since they've all been there before they believed me. They started with the orienteering course on Friday night, and got to camp after dark. The next morning they got up at 6 because they did not want to miss anything. Anyway, they went clean through until about 8:30 Saturday night except for a 2 hour free time session in the late afternoon. ​Given all that, there were some comments at the campfire (the only time for reflection) that just blew me away. The scouts said this was the best campout they'd been on, so I asked why. One scout said they were never rushed and had plenty of time to do things. Given that the point was to rush them I was wondering what I did wrong until several scouts said everything ran so smoothly. They were working as a team. They got up at 6 because they didn't want to miss out on anything but they were done by 7 and flags weren't until 8, so they had plenty of time to screw around. They also really enjoyed having more than 2 hours to do something fun. I don't think they will ever want to go to a camporee again where the standard activity is 5 minutes before they move to the next station. Another scout said it was so much fun because "we didn't do scout stuff." I responded with: shotgun, rock climbing, orienteering, knots, canoeing, fire building and cooking over a fire is not scout stuff? He said, no, that stuff is all fun, but we never sat in a classroom or had check boxes marked off. Implied in this is that I didn't stand up front and blather on about leadership acronyms. One scout said he liked the challenges, especially the implied one from me that they might not be able to work as a team. ​Now we have to work on getting the whole troop to do this. We talked a long time about that.

But the boys pick the program. And maybe they aren't interested in first aid nearly as much as rock climbing. They got signed off. Why should they know it anymore? If the adults say the scouts need more first aid competitions then who is running the troop? The only options are testing of some form, having the adults control the calendar, or dropping the requirement.

Hedgehog, his insecurity came from the fact that he wasn't sure he was allowed to do it, not that he wasn't capable. I didn't know how to convince him that since I am the SM, if I say it's OK to help his PL it's really OK to help his PL, so I dared him. Challenge is good.

The son of one of the parents that burned me a new orifice called me up after I suggested to the mom that he do so. The problem is the PL hasn't organized anything for this week, so I told the younger boy to do it. He said he couldn't do that and I responded with, that's fine, he can give up and stay home. 20 minutes later I see email that he organized something. A slightly different view that failure can be good is that letting scouts have, and solve, problems is good. I've had to explain this 3 times to different parents in the past 24 hours. The same age vs mixed age patrol idea brings up another problem I had with a parent. One of the parents, when he first joined, complained about patrols not being a 30 year fixture and that scouts move into a patrol and and not be allowed to move until eventually being a PL and aging out. But now his son is 13 and wants to start leading and dad's complaining that his son should be allowed to be PL because he'd do a better job than any of the other scouts. We currently have mixed age patrols even though I haven't had anything to do with patrol makeup for the past 2 years. We handle the older scout issue by having special events for the older scouts that help out. I'm not positive it's the best way to do it but it works. I wouldn't mind seeing patrols with a 2-3 year age range.

Brewmeister, not when it comes to first aid. Scouts shouldn't have to look up what's a hurry case or symptoms of a heart attack. I had an opportunity to use my CPR skills last summer. The guy died but I did my best until the ambulance showed up. At least his organs were used. I also have to get retested every other year in order to take my scotus camping, but they get tested once and call themselves Eagle scouts. I asked some scouts yesterday about unlinking the skill check. There response was they'd rather keep it the way it is. They know that the check can be uncomfortable but they also said they need to know the skills and they wouldn't learn it any other way. My guess is the problem isn't the testing, it's the way it's done. Is the attitude let's weed out the week or is it let's do this together?

I have a similarly sized troop. Today I received two irate emails from parents because something isn't going right. My response is to explain how the scouts can solve this problem on their own and that I'd be happy to coach them. Now I have two parents pissed off at me. Not only am I not solving their problem I'm proposing to do their job. Bad day. Everyone is right, boy led is chaotic. Two steps forward and one back. Getting a dominating SPL to back off is certainly important and probably not nearly as hard as getting adults to understand. Just as hard, if not harder, is to get the PLs to step forward. They really are the crux of the program. One problem I see is they have never had responsibility for others before, not even for themselves. So this is a very new idea and, at least to start, you need some good scouts that are OK with something new and also have a good heart. Some scouts, no matter how bright, competitive, outgoing, or whatever, can't see past themselves. What I'm finding is that once the boys hit puberty they're beyond the squirmy phase and while the older scouts might have better focus, it depends more on their heart. Give me a 13 year old that cares about others over a 16 year old that is so competitive he can't see the other scouts in his patrol. We have homogenized patrols, and we have to figure out how to support the 11 and 12 year olds, but after that I'm thinking let's encourage younger, good scouts to be PLs. A good 16 year old PL could do good things with a 13 year old that wants to learn. And a good 13 year old PL will do better than a 16 year old suffering from high school drama. This is similar to what Eagledad is saying about how older scouts won't change but I'm finding that boys that honestly care about others will move towards boy led more easily than the selfish kids, irrespective of age. Another point is "boy led" is not a yes/no thing. There are different aspects of the troop and different levels of boy led.

I choose door number 4, Billy teaches Johnny. There are two things needed to make this work. The first is Billy is held accountable for how well Johnny does. The second is that every scout gets a chance to teach, often. Is it reasonable to say Johnny's PL can ask any Billy in his patrol with the correct rank to teach Johnny, Billy can't refuse, and if Johnny isn't proficient then the ASM can go back to Billy and work with him to learn the skill? Or Billy and the PL? It's another test of sorts but it has nothing to do with a scout's rank advancement.

The adults need to intrude somewhere. They either define the calendar and require knot contests, they test somehow, or it's one and done. Having the scouts teach is good, but that's only a few scouts. The least evil thing I can think of is have an adult sit down with a scout once per rank and work with him until he knows the skills. At the same time I require every campout to have some challenge or competition, their choice. Sometimes it's a First Class skill, so they slowly get covered.

You have a nice idea but think carefully about the Patrol leader is going to be in charge on the camp-out of his patrol I'm not sure what that means. Everyone needs to know what you mean, including the scouts and the parents. If the parents don't buy in then they won't back off. If the boy doesn't understand what is his responsibility vs yours then you'll either end up with a leader in name only (he backs off to the point of doing nothing) or you'll have a whinny kid that doesn't want to play your game. What decisions are his? Think of the worst decision he can make and then decide if you're ok with him making that. Their first decision will be to pick a leader. You have no choice in this so you will likely get the highest energy, and possibly least focused, kid out of the group. If he's responsible for getting everyone to cook together, and they decide they want pancakes and bacon, what happens whey they start arguing about whose turn it is to cook the bacon, with a pan full of hot grease? Also, be prepared for burnt on the outside and raw on the inside pancakes. If you're realistic with their abilities this could be a great learning opportunity.

To the OP, there's clearly a problem of expectations. The boy doesn't know what they are. I'd have a problem with a troop that fails a kid that's not wearing green socks. That there are also 3 different adults working with him is also a problem. The idea of whether to test is also not very clear. Yes, the SMC is not supposed to be a test, but rank implies a set of skills the scout knows, not just once knew. It's the SM that needs to ensure that happens. One approach is to do some sort of skill check and the other is to have enough activities that the scouts will constantly re learn the skills, or better yet, teach the skills. But that runs into the problem of the scouts picking their own activities. There aren't many opportunities to tie a bowline unless it's something contrived (like a knot relay), and the scouts aren't so keen on those. So we trade off between the check and having activities that use the skills. I strongly urge my PLC to come up with some skill challenges for every campout, their choice, to use for activities, competition and what not. At the same time, we also check skills around rank advancement, but not nearly as harsh as the OP describes. It's a rare case where a scout has to come back more than once. Before a scout can have his SM conference he sits down with an ASM, and they review the skills from Tenderfoot up to the rank he's completing. If the boy doesn't know them they figure out what to do about it. The ASM can reteach it or the boy can decide he just needs to go home and review it. The boy always goes back to the same ASM. BTW, they need a scout shirt, green pants and a neckerchief, all of which can be borrowed. After that they have the SMC with me, and I do nearly all of the SMCs with a larger troop than the OP mentions. It's a low pressure thing to talk about how they live the oath and law, what else they do outside of scouts, how things are going, and what they want to do in the future in scouts. I really enjoy the talk and the scouts seem to as well.

I think it's a good idea but projects for an individual are on the border. Here's a paragraph from the advancement guide: Normally “your community†would not refer to individuals, although a council or district advancement committee may consider scenarios where an individual in need can affect a community. An example might involve elderly persons able to live at home but unable to maintain their property, with the result being an “attractive nuisance†or related dangerous situations, or even an eyesore something that raises concern to more than that of just an individual. If it can be determined the community benefits, then it is a matter of identifying who will provide approvals. They must come from a source representing the “community,†such as a neighborhood association, watch group, homeowners association, or perhaps a division of a town or county. One question would be can this lady pay for it herself, or through medicare, or what not. If so, not an eagle project.

Not many scouts can hike rim to rim in a day. That's 22 miles, 10,000' elevation (5 up, 5 down), plus the heat. This is a non issue. I know some people that have done it (and even rim to rim to rim in 20 hours) and they're athletes in another class. Did you notice the $300k insurance policy? Having hiked the Canyon and seen some of the people (that are not prepared) trying to go rim to rim in a day, I bet the insurance is the biggest issue. Prove that you can pay for the helicopter ride out before you start hiking.

We used to have this problem. Our criteria now is the scout has to solve the bulk of the problems and have the vision of what it's about. There also needs to be enough problems to solve. Repeats are not allowed. Tie the new set of problems with working with a bunch of people and there's leadership. ​There's almost always a way to take an idea and make it challenging with a new set of problems. If a scout wants to do a food drive and we usually collect X pounds, have him collect 2X. More people, more stuff, more sorting. It's not just a matter of send out the usual email to get the usual scouts to do the usual thing. One scout wanted to make another set of planter boxes for a non-profit that a previous scout had built something for. We told the scout he had to do something different and suggested asking the non-profit if there was anything different they could use the planter for, like a cold frame for example. He came up with a raised planter that is wheel chair accessible. So he had to figure out heights and ledges and a bunch of stuff. We did have a scout do a book drive for the cancer wing of the hospital he spent a long time in as a kid. Yes, it was a drive, but we knew it meant a lot to this scout. He collected close to a thousand books. That's not to say this is easy. There are projects that get simplified and still signed off, adults that get over involved, scouts that need too much hand holding. There is a big grey area. However, I always ask the scout if they've ever done anything like it before where they've had to make the decisions and the answer is always no. Even the high end robotics scouts will say no because they're the ones that will work on something more intricate requiring more coordination.

Have them check the color of their urine. We do something like KDD's toast, at morning flags we tell everyone to bring a full litre of water and we see who can drink it the quickest. Only the bigger kids can drink that much and it's uncomfortable for awhile. We also tell them the symptoms and for kids they get nauseous. But it doesn't matter what we say or do because most 11 year olds are much wiser than us old fools. So I don't nag, someone invariably gets sick and spends a day in the medic's tent sipping water and puking, and soon everyone figures out that water is indeed important. Also, make sure they're getting enough salt. I had a kid that was so afraid that he drank too much water and was not getting enough salt. Same symptoms, except he was peeing clear.

Why does anyone care what kind of tent a scout brings if it's his own? If it falls apart the scout has a problem to solve. That provides cheap entertainment for the adults. And then we watch the adult of said scout fume because his tent got destroyed. Two for the price of one. We enforce the buddy system. When you are in bear country and you're supposed to pee a hundred yards from camp (google bearmuda triangle) then it's actually quite easy to get disoriented when backpacking and there's no moon. As for kids that don't want to tent with another boy, they all can get changed in their sleeping bags anymore. Stupid, but they figured it all out. With our tents, which technically are three man tents, we'd rather see two per tent, three is ok if the scouts are small, and we'll say no to four. If scouts damage tents then they will pay for repairs. there's no need to measure anything. As for scouts camping with parents, usually we'll let it slide the first few campouts and then gently push. There are very few scouts in special situations where I'll let it go for a few years. On our winter campouts, where it will get down to -20, we don't mind if scouts want to sleep with a parent for a year or two. It's no use writing down lots of rules, there are always exceptions. As for the real problem, you're in charge of the boy program and the CC is in charge of the adult program.

Stosh, the SPL wants the PLs to work with the other POR's. I like it because it gets the PLs closer to taking ownership of the troop. We'll see. Scoutergipper, I was in a similar situation with PLs that played "nose goes" to figure out the next PL. Nobody wanted it. But I did notice that the scouts were very good about picking the best for OA. So I instituted a nomination process to pick the scouts that were even eligible for being a PL. So you can't run for being PL until you're nominated. A scout has to be first class and the majority of all scouts in the troop have to say he could be a PL. I get no say in who is eligible. It works amazingly well. Now I go and talk to the scouts that are close and ask them why they think they weren't nominated. I get some really honest answers and some scouts grow up a bit faster. I don't have a troop where everyone cares, it's probably half, but the PLs all care. Something else that's related is some kids aren't lazy so much as they want real responsibility. The librarian will be the laziest scout because everyone knows if he doesn't do his job it has zero impact on the troop. The whole thing that got me started on getting good PLs was a scout that was fantastic working at summer camp but a complete slug in the troop. He told me the SPL had an important job and everyone knew the PLs had nothing important to do. At camp, if he screwed up, everyone knew it and a lot of people suffered, so he rose to the occasion. He liked that challenge.

Yep, NJ, you're likely right. But I also know that writing anything, whether one page or a book, is tough when people criticize it. It's very personal. If you've ever written a thesis or journal article and had someone you don't know drill you a new orifice you'd know what I was talking about. I was just asking for people to be polite. Who knows, if we were to try and help him he might rewrite it in a way we'd all like. People rarely get a paper written the first time that will be a final draft. He likely doesn't have an editor that knows anything about scouting, so this is the first draft. There might be some good nuggets in the book from which another book could come from. We don't know.

Come on guys, be Courteous. You can't tell a book by it's cover. We tell parents how they can help their sons get Eagle as few scouts do it with adults that don't care. Things like get involved, teach your son how to solve his own problems, how the program works are all parts of what we talk about. If someone put that in a book it would be hugely beneficial.

How about fear, ignorance, and a lack of confidence? That's for the scout. For the adult it's ignorance, lack of time, and lack of training material. ​I have no idea why there isn't much better training material available from BSA. The one size fits all method currently used reduces to the least common denominator. Let's face it, you can't fail SM specific training but a scout can not make it to Tenderfoot. So how good is the training? I'm not saying let's fail SMs, but let's help those that want to get beyond the very basics. My guess is this website has the same couple of dozen issues that come up over and over again. That's where the training could be improved.

I agree that the adults have to be on the same page. Another important thing is developing trust between the adult leaders and the scouts. You don't trust them to organize and plan a complete campout. Do they trust you to look out for them? If you're threatening them with not getting requirements signed off then it's not a good relationship. If you've been asking them for months to get something done, then they aren't really leading. They're just doing what you ask them to do, and that's too much like going to school. In other words, your relationship with them should model how their relationship should be with their patrols. When the task list was generated of things to do, who made that list? Was it you saying this is what needs to be done or was it you asking questions and their saying this is what needs to be done? Subtle, but it shows who's making the decisions. Also, how explicit was the task list? If it's a vague list of things to do that the boys didn't generate then there's no surprise they didn't follow through, they probably don't have the experience to turn it into a concrete task list. Also, make sure the task list is age appropriate. If there's too much, have the adults take some of them. The goal is for the scout to succeed and it might take some experience before he can do the whole thing on his own. If the scout knows you really want him to succeed and are looking out for him, it will go a long way to developing trust. There is also the tough love part. One thing that should also be understood up front is what happens if they don't follow through. Right now, if they don't do something the consequences are that you'll nag them some more. Sounds like a teacher that's not in control of a class. One way to add teeth is to use peer pressure. "If you haven't done your part to make this campout happen then you get to explain to the troop why there will be no campout." You can also say they're not following through on what they said they'd do as a leader, and then it's ok to find a new leader.

You have a PL that's asking for more responsibility. You have a SPL that's burning out at every campout. And your ASMs want efficiency. I vote for the PL because the idea is to develop some leadership. Leadership is about making decisions and living with the resulting glory or pain. If all the PL is doing is filling out paperwork then he's not leading. What decisions belong to the PL and what belong to the SPL, and what belong to the SM? If the SM tells the SPL what all the decisions are and he just passes that onto the PLs, then who is leading? If the SM skips the SPL and tells the PLs directly, does that change anything for the PLs? That's not to say the SM can't decide on anything, but everyone should know who decides what. The tendency of kids is to back off as soon as an authority figure walks in, so those boundaries are a way to let the kids know they still own the authority. The PLs can decide when to get up and when to cook and what to cook. As a group they can decide when flags will be. So what's left for the SPL to decide? Well, mainly whether he needs to help a PL that's frustrated, or un organized, or not doing his job for whatever reason. The SPL's job is to develop the PLs and facilitate their meetings. In other words, your PL is going in the right direction, the SPL needs to learn he's not superman and shouldn't be, and you may need a long discussion with the adults.

We have a tradition in our troop that at Eagle COHs there's a chance to tell stories about the scout. 90% of them are about something that went wrong on a campout and everyone laughed about. So that's still happening. The better scouts tend to have more stories to tell. Adults that didn't camp or were not scouts as kids are not always bad. I gave my philmont slot to a dad that had not done any backpacking before his son joined scouts. He'll do fine. He is a fishing nut, though, so he does like the outdoors. I also have a parent that was not a scout but did a lot with the Sierra club. He's a high maintenance pain in the butt. The point is personalities are more important to me than skill. There are parents that believe in the program and are teachable. We just need to figure out how to teach them. I was looking at the Brownsea training manual that someone posted and found a very succinct guide to a successful program: 1) There's a plan, 2) there is no dead time, and 3) everyone is always participating. It took me years to figure this out. Maybe it would make a great 20 minute subject for SM training.

I would include a pie in the face. Seriously. Well, OK, you can't put that in the letter, but somewhere in the first pack meeting you should get pied. It's fun for everyone and that's good. Then pass the sign up sheet around.

At summer camp the areas are already booked. there's never enough time to get the scouts that are signed up for rifle to qualify. There are a few free shoot times but the whole camp shows up. I asked about letting patrols go to different areas in the afternoon and the answer was no. My idea of summer camp is some merit badges in the morning and all afternoon for patrols to go where ever they want. I even joined a committee to help make this happen and the answer was no way, they want more merit badge periods because that's what the parents tell them. I don't have the time to fight that one. Just yesterday I had a room full of scouts in my basement tell me the way to kill an event is to make it like school. I knew that but it's a start for them to recognize it. That said, there are summer camps my scouts like and the difference is the quality of the staff. I like the idea of encouraging counselors to just let it be known what they have. If we could get away from the MB mills we could free up time for more fun.