MattR

I'd certainly like to get away from the scouts needing these week long MB mills. Barry, how does your troop do merit badges all year long and still let the scout do merit badges on his own? As in, call the counselor, do the work, .... Or is it just that you set up your own MB colleges? We used to organize merit badges troop wide and few scouts would finish, so we bagged it. I've tried with little success to get the scouts to just pick the fun bits of merit badges as activities to entice the scouts to do the rest on their own. Anyway, it sounds like the worst case scenario is still better than camp, as you have control and likely plenty of time. Our local camps wll not block time for us. We've asked.

I think the real problem is money. Camps make money. 16 year old counselors are cheaper than 18 year old counselors. The programs that require certification (shooting, climbing, water, ...) tend to have the best counselors and the scouts get more out of them. How much are you as parents willing to spend? The 700% figure is an eye opener to me. So back in the good old days nobody cared about Eagle, they just had fun? I'm jealous. We just did a review of summer camp with the scouts and it's evenly split between those that want to have more fun and those that want more merit badges. I'd chuck the lousy one's if I could.

Calico, of course he's insane, just like all the rest of us that volunteer. The scouts in my troop with any POR volunteer to temporarily put their POR on hold if they know they can't fulfill their responsibility. They will usually find another scout to take their responsibility during this time. These are good kids. There seems to be a few issues with the boy. First, the troop has not given him an opportunity to succeed. Bad on the troop. Second, the boy hasn't shown up. Well, if he had an opportunity to succeed, would he have shown up? Nobody knows. That's water under the bridge. Third, dad's a butt, there's no loss if you ignore him. Fourth, the boy doesn't show up. One question is was this boy given very clear expectations when he started? If not, there's no way he can succeed. My guess is not, just because he can't get access to the trailer. I might be wrong, but I'll go with my assumptions. The problems that you have any control over are 1) clear expectations and training for his POR, 2) support for his POR, and 3) his participation. Time to talk to the boy and the ASPL, or whoever is supposed to be training and supporting the POR. Something I'd do in this case is just tell the boy the new credit doesn't start until he starts doing it at a campout. I'd also look at his old participation and if he hasn't been doing much I'd set clear expectations of what has to go forward.

Some civic lesson. A scouter knocks over a rock in a state park and it goes viral, yet when a Federal Agent pulls a gun on a scout it goes ... nowhere? There might be two sides to this story, but still, I get this feeling if it didn't involve scouts this would be getting more coverage.

Nature is timeless and so are parents' desire to raise kids that can be responsible for themselves. Nature is a good play ground that's a lot of fun and also presents a consistent set of problems to help develop responsibility. So the nature/boy match is still a good fit. I agree with Eagledad that the adults don't understand how to use that. I'm not sure they ever did, or at least the BSA never gave them many ideas on how to do it. I think it's more a case that there were a lot of vets that could figure out how to translate what they learned in the military to scouts. And there were plenty that did a bad job of that. While I remember the fun I also remember having to march in formation before dinner at summer camp. I did not like that but that song they played while we marched still brings back memories of summer camp. Rather than vets we now have parents that have more industry experience. Current parents are also very involved with their kids. That can be a good thing but it's a double edged sword. A scout from a nearby troop is looking to join ours and when I asked why I got an ear full. The boys have never run that troop and it bounces between no leadership and now it's adult crazy to the point of telling boys which meetings and campouts they must go on. They are on a tight shipping schedule. Eagledad mentions that adults are reluctant to let their kids go camping alone. Way back when the definition of scarry was fighting for your life while people shot back. So sure, go camping on your own where nobody is shooting back, you'll be fine. Now, scarry is not real, it's imaginary. It's what might happen if the TSA guys don't do their job or some idiot in the Ukraine shoots down an airliner). Some people do see it up close but most don't. The BSA needs to understand what it is a good scouter does and then figure out how to teach it. They have to quit assuming that it's easy to figure it out based on vague lists of phrases. It's not high tech. If someone has never swung an axe before then give them an hour and a big pile of wood to split. Realize you can't teach all first class skills in 6 hours. Have scouter ranks. Have a Scouter MB for what a good eagle project is, or how to work with a PL. Some adults won't advance very far but some will eat it all up.

Jo, I don't think it would be beneficial to "force the pastor" to do anything. It would likely be better to create a good relationship with him or her. Once a quarter the CC and I go have lunch with our COR. We chew the fat, talk about similar problems, talk about things coming up that might be a problem, and bring up silly little issues like the key. Yes, we have the same issue. Once there was trust developed between us the key became a 1 minute problem. "Oh, sure, why don't we just make you an extra key?"

I'd show him what he did and what is required and then ask him what the right thing to do is. He'll most likely tell you the right thing. Then I'd bring up the fact that grandpa would sure love to do the extra work with him. He might even suggest getting the other scouts to join him with your dad.

There are a couple of details I should add about this boy. My troop has more than it's share of kids with issues. Aspergers, ADHD, PTSD, a kid whose parents are in jail, and who knows what caused by medications (why does it take you a half hour to make a bowl of cereal?). The boy of the OP is probably one of the best kids in the troop at getting these other kids to participate. He has plenty of good to work with. That's not a pass for the bad, but it's enough for me to try. There are other scouts that, if they did this, I'd just show them the door and say that's it. This kid doesn't fit that. Secondly, I have since found out his offering to another boy was entirely caused by another scout walking in on the boy and asking him if he was smoking mj. i.e., he was busted and the first, stupid, thing that came to mind was "don't tell anyone and you can have some." This kid is not trying to deal.

I agree with the rant. This is why I'd like a camp that has few merit badges and more summer camp. Something that would help would be an instructor manual for each merit badge so the 16 year old kid that teaches the merit badge can learn how to teach the material. Another would be to tell the scouts to do all of the explain, describe, and discuss requirements at home, and just do the Do requirements at camp (except for important safety reqs). It would make more time for the scouts to do something besides sit in a classroom and be a lot more fun. Something else would be to do fewer MBs and do them right. If a scout spent three hours every day at camp working on just one MB it would be memorable. Wilderness Survival could be an awesome MB rather than just a boring classroom experience. I'd enjoy taking that MB. What National can do is cut the classroom-ish parts of every MB to be much less than it is. Safety is really important for shotgun MB but is just plain stupid for programming MB. ​Hmm, starting to rant here.

And the underlying question is How do we motivate someone to do the Right thing? Isn't that question as old as religion? Or at least as old as there have been parents with teenagers? Or maybe the question is How do we teach scout spirit? The problem with setting a minimum is it can become the maximum and that's the problem we have with it. Rather, what if we ask each scout at his SMC what he should do for his next rank? Then make him justify it and hold him to it. Just getting him to think about it would be worth more than making a flat requirement.

A guy by the name of Maimonides wrote a list of charity types in order of importance (circa 12th century) . At the bottom of the list is when one gives unwillingly and at the top is when one spends considerable effort and teaches someone how to fish. This is in the context of give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime, which, by the way, is a quote I've seen attributed to Maimonides. Anyway, below the top level is when both the receiver and giver of charity don't know who they are receiving from or giving to. In such a case the giver receives nothing except for what he finds in his heart and the receiver can't be embarrassed. The levels below that have the giver and receiver knowing different things and whether the giver needs to be asked. It seems the higher you go on the list the harder it is. And that list forms a type of challenge. The mountain is there, so climb it. Maybe that's what we're supposed to do with scouts. Start them off grudgingly and see how far up the ladder we can get them. I've had some, my son included, that have come back years later and tell me they now understand what the service is all about. ​Sometimes I wonder if I shouldn't spend more of my time working with kids that really need to learn how to fish, as opposed to the kids in my troop that will mostly figure it out on their own. My weakness is I enjoy the real fishing.

I spent an hour talking to this boy last night. I spent the first 5 minutes telling him I'd like help him to get through this in a positive way. Then I told him if he ever lies to me again he will be out of the troop that day. Then I asked him some hard questions. He gave me honest answers, some of which surprised the parents. He even told me I scare him but that he respects me. Fair enough. ​It's really easy to talk about character in the abstract. When it's put in the context of real people with real issues, it's much harder. The hard part won't be for him to understand that what he did was wrong, or even repairing what he broke, the hard part will be changing his life so this doesn't happen again. I don't remember seeing anything about this in the SM handbook. I'm making this up as I go and talking to lots of people. I hope some of this rubs off on him.

KDD, I won't be setting specific challenges for him, that will be up to him. My tribe puts a big emphasis on atoning for one's mistakes and I'm going to start with that. If this boy's religious beliefs pull him in a different direction I can go with that as well. But I'm thinking something along the lines of admitting he screwed up - remorse and humility - understanding the impact of what he's done to other people and himself, making amends to those other people, and putting in an effort to make the world a better place, just to remind him. He also needs to confront his friendship with the people that got him into this. It can't be "sorry man, my SM says I can't smoke that any more, but you can." He needs to find new friends. Underlying all of this is the implicit fact that if it happens again, he's out. Mattman, I'm no shrink. If this were software I could say I'm trained, but I just do my hour-ish a week. But your point that he might have other issues is well taken. I'm hoping that after he goes through the justice system and the council exec talks to him, he'll be ready to talk to me about anything else that's going on in his life. BD, this has only just begun. He's anything but off the hook. There are no guarantees that I won't drop him. He's as good as dropped until he comes and talks to me (no campouts, no meetings). I don't need to find him, he needs to solve this problem and that means he needs to find me. If he shows, through his actions, that he is remorseful, humbled, and willing to make things right, then he can stay. I don't know that he's not a really good liar, but anybody that good wouldn't bring a bag of weed to summer camp. So I'm going to start with the assumption that he's a good kid that made a bad decision.

This thread and the "too young to be an eagle" thread are similar in a way. Both are partially about whether a scout deserves Eagle. Both scouts have done the check boxes. One is "too young" to gain the experience and one made a huge mistake. One thing that’s not mentioned is how to motivate scouts, especially when it comes to making good decisions. The best thing I can do to motivate a scout is to praise him in front of his peers for doing something well that a man is expected to do. The other end of that is denying that praise when he does something poorly that a man is expected to do. The best praise I have to work with is the Eagle award. If there were something else that’s recognized across the country as well as the Eagle award I’d be happy to use it. So, it doesn’t matter to me that the check boxes are all one and done. What matters is the scouts in my troop see Eagle as something adults confer on young men for doing well what a man should do. You could say it’s underhanded or devious and you may be right. (BTW, I don’t play with any of the check boxes other than Scout Spirit.) Someone said that adults that don’t tell the scouts the real rules are doing things wrong. It may be, but I do tell the scouts the rules and most choose to stay. I had a scout that I told I’d help him find another troop to get Eagle because I knew he wanted Eagle and I figured he didn’t want the headaches I was creating for him. He said no thanks, he’d stay, and he’s turned things around and is a fantastic leader. I wish he would have done this a few years ago so he could become the SPL. I just got a phone call from the dad of the scout in the OP. This is the first time this scout has done anything like this. He is also terrified. He’s not terrified that he’s got a court date, that he’s going to be taking urine tests until he’s 18, or that he’ll likely lose his license. He’s terrified that I’m going to throw him out of the troop. I have his attention like I’ve never had before and honestly this is much better than I hoped. Not only that, but hopefully if he listens to me he’ll stop listening to the “friends†that sold him the grass. I asked the dad to pass on the message that his son would be forgiven after he makes up for his mistakes, which includes proving this won’t happen again, and that 16 months should be enough time if he works at it. He's going to learn in much detail about righting a wrong. I also told the dad his son needs to call me for now on, rather than dad. It's not that I'm choosing between giving him a second chance or expulsion from the troop. It's that I'm going to give him a first chance, along with some guidance, on how to make up for the mistake he made. It's his choice what he does with it.

He has a little over a year before he turns 18. He still has a few merit badges to do, so I was wrong on that. He now has a summons. I've been digging and it's a mess. I don't think he's been doing this for long. He seems to have some new "friends" and doesn't do much outside of scouts. I'm not distressed so much as collecting ideas. I'm certainly not going to yell at anyone. I don't see a difference between any illegal substance, and since he's a minor it's all illegal. I don't trust him and until I do he won't go camping with the troop. I would like for him to earn back my trust but it's up to him. I want to do this because correcting one's own wrong is a lot harder than helping someone else. This is an opportunity for a good lesson. Since he has a summons someone else can be the bad cop and hopefully he'll listen to me. It seems he has to make a choice between the Scout Oath and Law, and what his friends tell him.

My troop is at summer camp and I'm not. Got a phone call this morning about a scout with marijuana. It was found. He offered some to a younger scout and lied about the whole thing when the adults confronted him. Some of the adults wanted to handle it internally and some wanted to call the sheriff directly. I said go to the camp director and follow whatever process they have. My only rule is he's going home today. The scout is going home, sometime after the sheriff talks to him (camp policy). He's a life scout that has completed everything but, you guessed it, the scoutmaster conference. The question is what to do with him after this. Should he be thrown out of the troop? Should I sign off on Eagle? Right now I won't. I believe in giving a kid a chance to repent for his mistake but just saying sorry won't cut it. I don't want to give him an explicit list of things to do as I want him to figure it out, but at the same time, he needs some guidance. Humility, understanding what he did and why it was wrong, confessing, and making up for it are things I'd look for. I'm not sure he'd figure it out but I would like to give him a chance. Thoughts?

Good samaritan rules? I can't imagine a day of training for that. That would create more problems than it would solve. Imagine what the helicopter parents would do with this info

Peregrinator, probably the same way you do (they're all fixed). At least in my temple there's a mix of English and Hebrew. We sing most of the Hebrew prayers. Considering I wouldn't come within a mile of a karaoke bar, I really like the singing. It gets me in the mood, so to say. What do Catholics think of ad-hoc style prayers at scout functions?

I'm guessing more poeple die from suicide than arterial bleeding. My friend's daughter committed suicide. It was/still is tragic. What they learned after the fact is shocking. Definitely mental illness. I'm not sure what would help scouters but the idea is reasonable.

I've temporarily changed my religion to Futbol. I have a different take on the Jewish scouts that mumbled through the "prayer." I have a couple of Jewish kids in my troop and they are bright, and well educated in their faith. They would do the same thing. It would be great if one of them started with the Shima in Hebrew but they're young and peer pressure is a big thing. The real issue, as in a lot of these types of things, are people with authority making assumptions. I watch out for these kids so it won't happen to them. Not every scout gets that support. I absolutely agree with encouraging scouts to learn more about their own faith. But what about the kids that aren't exposed to much more than the two days a year they have to go to church/temple? The Jewish kids mentioned are no different than a lot of Christian kids. I'm not sure prayers of any style will encourage them to do anything. As in most things scouting, I can see the adults really messing this up by saying this is the way you do it. Maybe scouting has more powerful ways to get through to kids. A service project where the boys see the result, helping another scout that has Asperger's, an awesome view, just talking about these things and getting an honest answer from an impartial friend. I don't know. My scouts listen to me a lot more when they know I'm not telling them what to do. I think it all gets back to a scoutmaster with a light touch that knows his scouts.

I'd say they aren't equal (for whatever this has to do with the thread). There's a difference between local and not allowing the refusal of some group. My understanding is that no unit can refuse a gay scout. That's not local. I don't know if locally a unit can officially refuse a woman leader.

I would be fascinated to read anything newly written by Schultz. Talk about someone with a fantastic perspective.

It's amazing how a disaster can focus things. I saw a Shakespearean tragedy of a scout meeting last night. Everything that could go wrong did. I just took notes and asked other adults to let it happen. It would be fun to tell you the details but I won't. The thing that really stuck out was that a lot of scouts, leaders or not, knew there was a problem and didn't do or say anything. The troop guides already had plans for their patrol and "had" to change them. Even at the end of the meeting when I asked how it went I got a collective shrug. Nobody said it was fun. Nobody said anything. Nobody wanted to say it was a disaster and nobody knew how to say that in a constructive way. Patrol Method, boy led, and leadership are all the same thing. My take on what needs to be defined, getting back to the original post, is what everyone's job is. The job of the scout leaders is to help the scouts below them achieve their goals. Call it support, or servant leadership, or tough love. At the same time, their job is also to move their group together, as a team. Handling the contradictions of the team vs the individual is just part of the fun. Those scouts that aren't leaders also have a responsibility to participate and speak up in a constructive way when things don't go right. They need to help their team and help solve problems. Finally, the adults need to facilitate good decisions from the scouts. It's not about making decisions when things go wrong so much as getting the scouts to make decisions and following through. The adults also have to enforce boundaries on decisions, whether it be ethical or staying within the boundaries of the methods of scouting.

Barry, thanks for the "summary." Now I understand what you've been talking about. I have never seen it written anywhere that adults own the aims and the scouts own the methods. It's not that I disagree, it's just not out there. I'm not sure what it means that the boys own the methods. If the boys "own" uniform and decide it's now optional, then what happens? If they own advancement and say first aid is nothing more than call 911, where do adults fit in? Is it that the adults say we will implement the methods but it's up to the scouts to decide how? ​Working with the scouts to deal with troublesome scouts is usually not a problem in my troop. The problem is obvious and the scouts want it solved. But what do you do when the problem isn't obvious? Dealing with a troublesome scout has ethics written all over it but what about dealing with a boring calendar? We'll do thorns and roses and the scouts will never bring up a problem that could be solved. They'll mention the weather or someone snoring, but never the fact that the PL wanted to play cards all day. They are boys, they don't talk about problems.

Unfortunately, it's not rhetorical. I think it would be really useful. It sounds easy but character and leadership are about how people interact with each other and that's about as big a topic as you can get. Maybe that's why it's so hard. Slightly off topic but there are some common problems that keep coming up on these forums. It just seems that someone should be able to write down some guidelines on how to solve them. How to work with a selfish boy with parents that enable it is a current thread. The line between adult and scout decisions. Developing trust. The two dozen most common issues a SM comes up with and how to solve them would help a lot of scouters that want to do the right thing but don't know how.