MattR

His POR problems should have been dealt with when he wasn't doing his job. He doesn't respect the troop leadership because he knows they hold nothing over him. Machiavellian rules take precedence when everyone is selfish. When the SPL sends him home because he can't act like a scout then he'll likely start listening. As for the discussion, he won't change unless he wants to. If he wants to he'll listen to what you have to say. He'll listen if he respects you. and there is some other pressure on him to change from, say, the scouts. (BTW, If his PL and SPL gave him the bad news then you could be the good guy and he might listen to you. But that's water under the bridge.) Why is this kid so insecure? Does he like scouts? Is he there because his parents want him there? Offer to tell his parents he shouldn't be in scouts and see what he says. If he doesn't want to be there then you can help him figure out a solution. Maybe it's something at home or school or the troop. If he does want to be there then maybe it would be good to let him know how he comes across to others. Get quotes from the SPL, PL, new scout patrol, and read them to him. Don't judge him, just tell him how others see him and ask him what he'd like to do about it.

Eagledad, is there some description, anywhere, of how the program should work? Scoutgipper, we also used to be able to send scouts out for left handed, blue metallic, telescoping smoke shifters, and we can't do that anymore because it's considered hazing. Underlying allowing scouts to do something on their own is trust. I agree with Eagledad that it can still be developed with the current system. The problem isn't the rules so much as society and the change in adult perception. Maybe the methods of scouting were obvious when we were kids because kids and adults stayed away from each other. The kids were outside and the adults were inside. Kids just played on their own.

My guess is a lot of adults are doing the best they can with what they have. The training doesn't cover 10% of what we talk about here. For some it may be an ego/pride thing but for the rest of us, we've never seen it done right. My solution is to get into arguments with people on this forum to squeeze out bits of wisdom. (BTW, Stosh, now I understand your aversion to the word mentoring.)

The French might not agree with that. But all y'all do have some history with them. Don't pull me into this fight, I've had good food all over the world, even places that speak English.

Stosh, we actually probably agree with each other. If I turned my pyramid upside down then I'd be making all the decisions and the youngest scouts would be coaching the PLs. Mentoring goes down and decisions are done as low as possible. Case in point, tonight's meeting of my troop. The scouts wanted to have a scavenger hunt in our down town area. They put it together and they did a good job. I asked about the buddy system and they already had it taken care of. I did not make any decisions. At the end of the contest a bunch of scouts were hanging around listening to some guy standing on a box telling everyone they were going to hell. Then all of a sudden an angry drunk starts shouting at the soap box guy, and there are half a dozen scouts between them. I stepped in and made a decision to get my scouts out from the middle of that. It was the right thing to do even though some of the scouts wanted to stick around and watch, including some patrol leaders. That's the kind of decisions I'm talking about over ruling. I've dealt with enough drunks to know they're unpredictable and the scouts haven't.

Sounds like a high class problem. What's the cause of the change? My first guess is they don't have enough people at the main office to even fix typos, so they aren't in the way. My second guess is they don't have marching band. What's your guess, Cambridgeskip?

I wonder if there's not a better way to describe the leadership in a troop. Assume there is a pyramid then mentoring and guidance go down and decisions come up from the point closest to the problem. If the decision coming up is not what the leader above likes then he has to either just ignore it and go with it, ask the scout below some questions to make sure he's seeing the entire problem, or, in the worst case, overturn it. The last case is probably reserved for safety and extreme cases of poor scout spirit. The main idea is to develop the leadership and trust of those below. So, say a new scout is given the task of finding a patrol site. The PL mentors the young scout and as long as the scout doesn't, say, pick a campsite in a dried river bed while big, black clouds are forming overhead, the PL goes with the decision. But if the young scout is adament about the river bed then the PL can just say no. The same relationship exists between the SPL and PLs, and the SM and SPL. Part of good leadership is knowing when to step in and overturn a lower decision and when to let it be a learning experience. So, if the SPL says "let's play capture the flag on a freeway" then it's reasonable for the SM to say no. If the whole troop wants to camp in a ravine and it's not a flash flood concern, then it might be best for the adults to camp on higher ground and let it be a learning experience.

It's difficult to quantify and fairly obvious when you see it. Character can be defined as what someone does in the dark (when nobody of consequence is looking). This makes it difficult to measure. So I agree with packsaddle, you have to get to know a scout. And part of that is listening carefully to what other scouts say about him. OA election results, at least in my troop, are very informative. What I tell the scouts is spirit is knowing the right thing to do and then doing it.

I think you just did talk about your faith. We should break beer together and compare notes some time. We have a somewhat similar history. I agree with you that questioning a scouts beliefs in the context of Boy Scouts is bad if it leads to judgement. I've been close to that edge before but stopped after I asked about it on this forum. But just getting a scout to talk about their beliefs in a completely non judgmental way is something I wish someone had done for me when I was that age. Learning how to be that adult is obviously hard. Courteous discussion like we saw here could be a benefit. If a new forum isn't needed then put it under Working with kids. Just realize that anything close to social hot button issues, if they aren't under politics need the Play Nice Police to keep things smooth.

Pack18Alex, thanks for the correction. "wait it out" sounds harsher than I meant. I do the exact same coaching with the Jewish scouts in my troop. AZMike, yes, I like what you have. While I'm not sure how you jumped from an invocation to getting scouts to explore their own beliefs, I would certainly like to get better at encouraging scouts to explore and talk about beliefs. Probably another thread. Not sure if anyone wants to deal with the rules, though. SSScout and Merlyn, great joke, but I knew the punchline before it showed up. He should have pushed him off at about Northern Baptist.

That's a different thread. I'd say closer to soccer, band, and robotics, They don't decide where they go. The other activities decide. A lot of kids are over scheduled and more activities are longer and now require 100% participation. 5 years ago it wasn't nearly this bad in my town.

I quote myself: 1) There will be no mention of anything political or legal, including anything from national. Nothing about Dale or the Constitution. Nothing about polls. Nothing about anything the BSA has written about religion or the meaning of Reverent. No nuanced legalese meanings of some phrase buried in some declaration of religious principles. I made this rule up based on a long history of arguments on this forum. Merlyn, AZMike, please start a new thread. For everyone else, PackSaddle asked for feedback in a previous post. I'm curious what you think. Pack18Alex, it sounds like you're doing what I've done for many years, be polite and wait it out. Which implies, along with most of the rest of the opinions here, drop the invocation. There are a lot of good words of wisdom out there I could use in my troop.

What I meant: One, of the two, should be a PL or APL.

Merlyn, I have a question for you that is 100% respective of your position (which to be honest I'm not completely sure what it is). The original question was how to do an invocation for multiple faiths (or none) and you never answered it. I can see that it's possibly a bad question for you. So let me try and reword it so it works for you. If you were a SM for a troop with all manner of beliefs and you wanted to start or end a meeting with some sort of way for all the scouts to dig a bit deeper and be a little more selfless, what would you want to do? Not many people answered the question but I don't think anyone that defends the rights of atheists as much you do has. I'm looking for a range of opinions before I figure out what to do for my troop. Thanks. Pack, I think you did a good job, thank you. I will recuse myself from any more opinioning and am not emotionally tied to the rules I set. I just made them up as I went. All y'all did play nice and I appreciate that.

There is an issue. If scouts decide who's the next PL by drawing straws ("I don't want it, it's your turn") then nobody respects the position. That's a chicken and egg thing. Nobody respects it so nobody takes it seriously so nobody tries so nobody gets anything done so nobody respects it, and the adults always step in to save the day. Get the adults to stop saving the day, talk to the best scouts and tell them you need their help, ask lots of questions, let them fail, celebrate success. The SPL should be doing most of this but he may be learning at the same time.

Hey guys, everyone gets their toes stepped on in this. Just let it go. It's about selfless. ​SSScout, there's a joke among Jews: If there are two rabbis in a room then there will be at least three opinions. But, joking aside, the lack of clergy reminds me of a quote (Gandhi)I saw: "Prayer is not asking. It is a longing of the soul. It is daily admission of one's weakness. It is better in prayer to have a heart without words than words without a heart." Le Voyageur, I was trying to learn about Buddhist prayer and read that some Buddhists don't like the idea of prayer. This kind of brings up a knot with respect to an invocation. Please tell me if I'm wrong but it sounded like prayer as inspiration is fine but prayer for gain of any other type - winning the lottery for example - is just way out of bounds. I ask because that's exactly what my rabbi told me a few years ago. But that begs the next question, what's the difference between prayer and inspiring words? I could take the prayers that AZMike found (on page 1), remove the reference to "please bow your head" and "Lord of the Universe" and end up with great inspiration.

I have had two scouts with Aspergers in my troop. I don't know the difference between "high functioning autism" and aspergers but it sounds similar. Your description of your son sounds similar to these two. One of them got Eagle and left because he was so goal oriented he didn't understand just hanging out. He still comes to service projects and always says hi to me. He was a typical teenager in that he didn't like to push himself and would participate in all the fun easy stuff. He liked things done the right way and the only way. The other boy left the troop early and really didn't enjoy scouts. I don't know what came first, but he also had trouble with some of the other scouts and got into a fight or two because he thought someone was picking on him. The first scout was social in his own way and somehow we developed a relationship. It even got to the point I could tease him and he knew it was not serious. This was a big step for him. I called him Q because he always came up to me and said "I have a question." The other boy was never really interested in talking to anyone. Just a gut feeling, but it seems like the first boy had it easier because he did find people, mostly adults, that he was comfortable with. As for kids teasing your son, I could see that from the new young scouts that are still boys and haven't started to mature yet. All of the older scouts were good with this boy. They just knew he was different. It was good for him and the other boys. My two cents is you should go for it. Junior high is a really rough time for kids that are different and the odds of finding a comfortable place for your son in a troop are better than at school. High school is easier. It would likely be easier if he had some friends go along with him. Talk to the SM. If the older scouts at all understand Scout Spirit your son should do fine. Hopefully he will find a few good friends and stick with them. Give your son the Scout Handbook and tell him he has to do this all on his own. The rules are fairly simple and he'll enjoy the structure. Once he's done with Eagle tell him about the Hornaday awards. That will keep him busy and give him goals. If you want I can ask the boy that got Eagle what made the troop work for him. I think he graduates this year.

Oh my. Nuts is right. How about starting with the interaction between the SPL and adults. The SPL made a decision which, by itself, is a good thing. Honestly, getting a scout to just make a decision is big. The adults are fighting over the decision he made. That is a sure way to crush his confidence in making decisions. What is the absolute worst thing that can happen with the way the SPL broke out the patrols? Maybe some scouts will get hungry. There will be no hurry cases so why not just let the SPL live with his decision? Does the SPL care enough about the scouts in his troop to watch out for them, to help the PLs? Do you trust the SPL? ​If I were the SM I'd talk to the SPL. I'd ask him why he made the decisions he did, about friendships, about the scouts being taken care of (not getting hungry), about the leadership (is the troop guide really ready for this, because in my troop I have 3rd and 4th year troop guides that can easily handle 6 new scouts per 2 of them). I'd ask him what his measure of success is for summer camp and whether he thinks he is ready and I'd ask him if he needs any help. Then I would tell him there are a bunch of adults that don't trust him but I'll go to bat for him, buy a bunch of ding dongs, and tell them to stuff one in their mouth every time they open it. I did something like this before and it's amazing the kind of respect you develop with the scouts this way. Some adults watched and learned (a good thing) and some adults just got mad at me (not so good) ​But you are not the SM. You may need to work with the new SM. One thing I can tell you is the last thing a new SM wants to hear is how to do his job (I got plenty of that and none of it was worth beans). The only words he wants to hear are"how can I help?" You may need to be creative in how to help him and encourage boys to lead.

​Doh! Thanks for the obvious smack up side the head. I'm not sure what this has to do with playing nice but it does remind me of something. Last week I talked to a scout about a kid he has trouble with in school and we talked about how to deal with him. He mentioned ignoring the stupid stuff and I asked him if he ever spent time trying to create good times with this kid. i.e., don't just wait until something bad happens before interacting with someone but when things aren't bad try and make them better, so when the bad stuff happens it isn't so bad. ​Maybe playing nice requires more than just reacting to others in a nice way.

I'm completely missing the reference. I suspect it's not good, so please explain.

KDD, regarding how Jewish prayer is different than Christian, I'm not positive on Christian services but in Jewish services there are a fixed set of prayers to choose from. That way everyone can join together in saying them. Nearly all of them have a melody that goes with them and are often sung. I like it because it becomes a meditative thing for me. Very calming. I googled Jewish Boy Scout Invocation and found a usscouts.org page that contains a prayer called the Hiker's Prayer. It starts with "Master of the Universe, Grant me the ability to be alone; May it be my custom to go outdoors each day Among the trees and grass, among all living things. And there may I be alone, and enter into prayer, To talk with the one to whom I belong." It was written by a rabbi that lived in the 18th and 19th centuries and was a very interesting person. I have a hunch it was not originally called the Hiker's prayer Rick_in_CA mentions being "ambushed" by a prayer and I must admit I've been there. Now, an invocation is just a time to wait out. It's just my opinion, but some sort of recognition ahead of time that an explicitly, say, Christian prayer is coming would help a lot. That and some invitation for people of other faiths to bring their own would be very welcome. I agree with the sentiment that if a "prayer" is not inspiring, then what's the point? Maybe it gets down to trying hard to follow the 12th point, seek your own passion and go out of your way to respect that of others. Pack, if you can simplify the rules to one sentence and use them generally somehow, I think it would be great. Consider this version 0.1. with an open copyright. So far I'm pleased with the results. Shabbat Shalom everyone.

This is an experiment to see if we can have a civil discussion about things pertaining to religion. The experiment will consist of a normal question that we've probably seen on this forum but there will be standards for what is an acceptable posting that are much more stringent than what is usually tolerated. The moderators will enforce this (and I'm not a moderator). It is my hypothesis that A) The purpose of the 12th point of the Scout Law is to encourage selfless behavior in our youth at a much deeper level than just following the first 11 points, B) that religion and politics don't mix well, and C) we have to start from a common place if we are to be Courteous. These items suggest some ground rules the moderators will enforce: 1) There will be no mention of anything political or legal, including anything from national. Nothing about Dale or the Constitution. Nothing about polls. Nothing about anything the BSA has written about religion or the meaning of Reverent. No nuanced legalese meanings of some phrase buried in some declaration of religious principles. 2) You must accept the fact that different people are moved to be selfless in different ways. What works for you might not work for others and what works for others is to be respected. 3) Do not belittle the religious beliefs of anyone. If someone says they're Catholic and are fine with abortion then accept it. 4) People get easily offended about these things. Rather than strike back when you're offended, explain what happened, accept any apology, and move on. 5) No complaining about the rules. If you don't like the rules, start another thread and suggest your own common framework. So, what's left to talk about? You can talk about what moves your heart. You can talk about your faith tradition. You can try and talk about that of others but don't cross the line defined in 3) above. You can ask questions. The point is not to win an argument, the point is to come to an agreement. If you can't accept these rules then at least accept my apologies. I'm not trying to keep anyone out of the discussion. I'm just trying to find some common ground. I like the term fishing for souls. We won't catch anything if we aren't Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, towards those we wish to “catch.†There are lots of scouts that could be caught and those are the ones I'm thinking about. So, the subject is: How do I have an invocation at a troop meeting that isn't painfully generic on the one hand and completely exclusionary of minorities on the other? This is compounded by the fact that the prayers I do see at scouting events, even those that are “non denominational,†tend to be completely foreign to me. That's because they are usually ad-hoc and I can't join in. Is there a Philmont Grace style of prayers? Dcsimmons suggested taking turns doing it right among the different faiths. Has anyone gotten that to work?

OK pack, you sound just like me when a parent complains: "Great, how you gonna help with that!". The only problem is I'm getting up at 4:30am tomorrow and driving till my butt breaks. I will get to this eventually. Any specific problem you'd like people to talk about? dcsimmons, thanks for your ideas. Having different invocations rather than a generic one would be nice in many ways. As far as the boy feeling sorry, it lasted less than a second before I said "don't be sorry, I'm glad you took this on." We then talked for a few minutes. You'll have to trust me on this, but by the time we were done, everything was good and he'll likely do it again next time. If anything, he has more confidence, because we talked, to do this next time. Actually, I think I have the subject. Thanks dcsimmons.

Pack, with Moderator status it could be controlled. To remove the fighting there needs to be some common ground and some ground rules. The real problem is that mixing Reverent with politics or law is a sure recipe for disaster. With the current format, there will always be a fight. While politics and religion do have an ugly intersection there is something quite beautiful that can be found where the politics is removed. Some people get there by praying daily and some get there by quietly sitting on a rock in the woods. My job as SM is to encourage each boy to find his own path. What would help me would be a discussion about the 12th point with no mention of law or politics. I know, we can't even decide what the 12th point means, but let's keep it vague and just say it has to do with training the right side of our brains to be selfless. For some that means God, or Buddha, or just hiking up the North side of the Grand Canyon at sunrise. As long as someone accepts that there are different ways to get there, we can have a great discussion.

I just came back from our COH and the scouts decided to do an opening prayer on their own rather than have a minister from the church. The scout asked everyone to bow their heads and he gave a muddled prayer that he didn't think about and then ended with something about Jesus. After the meeting I came up to him and congratulated him on the rest of the COH and then I talked to him about the prayer and how not everyone bows or follows Christianity. He was extremely sorry and I told him no, this was a learning opportunity and I told him how I do things differently. I also told him about practicing before hand. He learned something. I got to teach him something new. We still respect each other. Everyone wins. Wouldn't it be nice if the adults could handle these things the same way? I agree with SSScout, a forum to help each of us learn what Reverent means to others, in a friendly, cooperative way, would be a 100 times more productive than what we have now. Maybe that's a thread; how to talk about these issues in a cooperative way.