MattR

I found, and bought, a 1941 edition of the Handbook for Patrol Leaders for $5. It's in great shape. What blew me away was that it's almost 600 pages long. I started reading it and it's good. Bill's writing style is infectious. Someone should republish it. I know, it's not I&P, but that's where I am today.

@naranza65, is there a reason why your son is struggling in school? I struggled in middle school. To say the least, it sucked. Is the problem your child is having because he is signed up for five activities and just doesn't have the time or is it because he's dyslexic, or ADD, or has Asperger's, or has other kids teasing him, or any of a bunch of reasons why a kid might hate school. i.e., does he need more time or does he need something else. If all he needs is time then sure, some time off from scouts might be good. If time alone isn't going to help then consider figuring out what the other issue(s) is/are. Just my two cents.

No, warp speed is just a plot device to solve the light-speed speed limit. It's been around so long that it no longer is sci-fi. When I compare real sci-fi about ships that are alive and that have biological type defenses that can remotely start messing with your thoughts and drive you crazy, I see that Star Wars is just a Western in space. Good guys, bad guys, fighting, and cute women wearing cinnamon rolls over their ears.

Everyone's leaning the same way. Finally, we agree! Let's celebrate! Besides, what's the worst that can happen (to the young PL scenario, not us celebrating)? Nobody will get hurt. Some scouts might get upset. That's a useful problem that can help them all learn. Don't take that opportunity away from them. It just means the adults should pay attention. What's the best that can happen? Stupid question, I know. I think the real question is what do the adults need to do to make her successful?

Certainly safety is the big issue. Another closely related situation is when scouts don't follow the scout law. Stosh mentioned this. As DavidCO mentions, there are scouts with very different personalities that most scouts don't have experience working with. A patrol gets frustrated with a scout that's ADD and doesn't want to help wash dishes. They might need some help navigating that. The other issue for me has always been lack of motivation. If a patrol wants to do something, anything, that's within the confines of scout appropriate, I'd have a hard time stepping in (outside of safety). What I see as a problem is when the entire patrol is just failing. Nobody is having fun. There's no teamwork. There's constant bickering. Scouts don't show up. Then it's time to step in. Adult intervention starts with talking to them so they recognize the problem. Qwazse mentions review. See if that's enough for them to find a solution. If that doesn't work after enough time then it involves giving them options to solve it. Finally, if they just aren't getting anywhere, then it can be time to step in and solve it. To be honest, I've very rarely done that. Maybe 3 times in 12 years. It's almost always enough to just give them some options they can choose from. What I have noticed is that once you get back to basics, talk about the scout law and everyone's on the same page with that they will take the high road and figure out their problems.

6 pages of jedi talk? you're all bored, have some chocolate ice cream and boost your dopamine. It's a movie. Disney paid some $4B for the franchise and they're trying to make some new money from an old plot. That's as deep as the plot gets. Based on the last film, I'd say the new one is mostly the same.

I think it's all about trust. Do you trust not only the PL but the rest of the patrol? If all the scouts in the patrol have good teamwork skills and all but the PL have gone on these campouts without adults before (I'm so jealous) then that's a big part of trust. The other part is making sure the whole patrol is prepared. What might go wrong and how will they handle it? Sit down and talk to them about it and trust your judgement. Be honest and tell them what your concern is. Then ask them what they think. If they're humble in their response they'll be humble when dealing with any problems they find. If they blow you off and tell you're just an old fool, maybe they aren't ready. Ask them how far away they'd like you to be. Five hours? One hour? Five minutes? Right there to keep Tommy from sticking his hand in the fire? One thing that has always worked for me is to let them know you trust them, even though other adults might not. That will buy you some respect and they'd like to prove you right as well.

Seen in a silo:

I wouldn't dump on FB. One thing it has that scouter.com will never have is a way to connect to new people. Start reading posts of some group on FB and suddenly your friends will see it as well. That could get more people involved. I was thinking it might be a better way to get parents of cub scout aged kids to see what it's about. Just get all the parents in a pack to like a FB group for the pack and then the friends of those parents would start seeing posts of cubs having fun. It could be worth a lot more than handing out fliers at the start of the school year.

@WisconsinMomma, the fact that nobody can answer your question satisfactorily - where you can say "aha! That'll work!" - and are just giving you little things to bite off some edges, is likely proof that this whole concept of boy led is going to die. I mean, if nobody can come up with a simple explanation of why boy led should be supported then it just doesn't exist. Wouldn't it be nice to just say "here, read this book" and it would be a compelling description. It could be a story or an explanation or whatever might connect. But such a book doesn't exist. Nor does some training material nor a blurb someplace on the BSA's website. I'm not trying to be cynical. I'm just pointing out the reality of the problem. We go on and on and on about girls but girls aren't the issue. And it's not moms either. It's that nobody has a simple, easy to understand description of why we're doing what we do. A sports coach has it easy compared to us. People watch sports. They understand competition, teamwork, practice, sportsmanship and pushing yourself. It doesn't take much to convince a parent that sport is good for a kid. There's a much bigger leap between the Oath and Eagle. Honestly, how many adults get the connection between learning how to start a fire and the scout oath? There must be a connection because we say there is but the parents don't actually know what it is. All they know is get the kid to eagle and voila, he will be courteous and kind and brave and all those things we talk about. In defense of the BSA, they've bitten off a big problem. Where else in society do adults, and not kids, learn to do courteous and kind? No, not laws. There are no laws that say we should be courteous or kind. And don't say we should learn it young, from our parents. That's just a chicken and egg issue. And you can't just say it comes from common sense. The Declaration of Independence says all men are created equal, i.e., that all men have value. That idea is right out of Genesis. Before that all men didn't have value. Only those in power had value. So courteous and kind are not inherently obvious in our gene pool. 3500 years ago it was said that all men have value and yet a few months ago there were people marching for a whiter America because, well, that just makes me ill thinking about it. That's not to say those that talked about human value some 100 generations ago were wrong, only that it's a struggle to internalize courteous and kind. It's not enough to just say be courteous and kind. One has to live it. Words don't work here. Courteous and kind are ideas that sit in another part of the brain.This is about being true, and not just truth. Facts can be understood via discussion. Being true can only be understood by living with the Oath and Law. Facts can be easily assimilated. Being true takes time and struggle to assimilate. So what does this have to do with the price of fish in China? Well, scouts is about the Oath and Law and these are not just facts, they are about being true. The only way to learn this truth is to struggle with it. Hence, a boy led program. Scouts in a patrol struggle with the Oath and Law. Learning to start a fire is about struggle. The new scout wants to learn it and the old scout needs to understand that and make it happen. The adults don't need to teach the young scout how to start a fire, they need to do something much more difficult. They need to see the benefit of scouts struggling and then make that happen. Which brings us back to the original question. Unfortunately I have no answer for you.

What do I think of the process? Hmmm, that's an open question. First of all, let's not forget methods vs aims or goals. So I'm fine with scouts that that don't want to complete Eagle. Anyway, the process is long and confusing. There are thousands of lines of requirements and they have little to do with the aims. Eagle is not proof that the aims of scouting have been met. This is not understood and is the source of so much grief. This is not to say that I have no interest in scouts earning Eagle. I'm interested in helping scouts that are developing character in the process of earning Eagle. So, if a scout is torn between helping the PLC and completing Life in time to get Eagle before his 18th birthday then I will help him out. If I can use that moment to teach a scout about time management (and he's listening) then I'll ask questions and try to get his mind back on the critical path. If, on the other hand, I have a scout that never shows up, is selfish, and just never helps out anywhere ask me to sign off something that he did months ago, that I never saw, then I'll likely follow the letter of the law and tell the scout to find someone that saw him do it to sign off. So, regarding superior organizational skills, I recognize those scouts that are dealing with a really confusing eagle packet and are struggling with it. If they're honestly trying I will ask questions that will help them out. Ultimately it's always up to the scout. I'm not sure if this is fair or right but that's what I did. I stepped down as SM mostly because I was tired of dealing with the advancement as aim problem. As for your two scouts that have a month or two to finish one or two MBs, they have plenty of time. If they're having fun in scouts they'll make it work. Right now they're dealing with finals in school.

I don't understand. Why should the troops provide any opportunity? Isn't it up to the scouts to contact the counselors? When I was a scout in the 70's I remember maybe getting one or two MBs at summer camp (that lasted 2 weeks) and no MBUs. I'm okay with the idea of starting a MB, or even just finding out what the MB is about. But it should just be an introduction to the MB. Our district is doing something interesting this year. First of all, they talked to the counselors from last year and any counselor that said they had a bunch of scouts that were there only because they had to be there, and were not interested in anything other than getting a blue card signed off, they dropped that MB. The result is that the only MBs they have are ones the scouts honestly want to take, things like radio and welding. It honestly looks like fun. At roundtable one parent said there weren't many eagle required MBs offered. The guy in charge of MBU said yep.

If done right I'd think the scouts might be fascinated. To think that someone wanted to put a scout in a death camp is so far from normal. To think that Polish scouts were targeted by the Gestapo because they were involved in the resistance. Bravery. The story of escaping and conning the guards. The fact that Piechowski was close to the age of your scouts will make it more believable. History is full of fascinating stories and schools do a great job of making them boring. Besides, WWII was an important event and this might be the only chance the scouts might hear anything about it. I'd use it as a SM minute. I'm not sure what was in the article above but I found information about Piechowski on Wikipedia.

Nice mix of events.

@He-who-must-not-be-named, I noticed you can also just click on more than one quote and it will add them to the end of your reply window. Like so...

Unless you're an Olympic gymnastics coach, or college football coach, or a swimming coach.

Me thinks Ian was being a bit cheeky (and that would be the British definition, not the French definition).

And a rough back of the envelope calculation of the error bounds on a sample size of 60,000 in a population of 75 million children will give you an accuracy within one percent. i.e., there's a 99% probability that the answer is within 1%. A survey sample size of 60,000 people is really large. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program....

You might not want to do the French "kissy thing" in Sweden. Do the French kissy thing in France, the Belgian kissy thing in Belgium, .... BTW, a handshake between men in France is fine. Oh, and don't use your lips when doing the kissy thing. It's more cheeky than kissy. All in all, how to say hello is different everywhere and there are subtle rules. I took Japanese in college and we spent an entire class talking about how far to bow. It depends on the people in the room and their relationships, and even the Japanese don't always know. All in all, a great source of fun stories to tell your friends.

What about those that prefer to kiss or hug?

Just tell them that cute Spanish, Italian, and French speaking girls prefer to kiss. Some kids also think punctuation, writing, and reading is hopelessly out of date as well. But getting back to the OP, I'm wondering if this issue of touching has an element of trust that isn't being brought up. I have no problem hanging a scout upside down, if I know the scout and know he'd likely enjoy the experience. I'd never just walk into some unit's ceremony and grab a kid that I didn't know and turn him upside down. Yes, a few of them would freak out and I'm not interested in that. It takes time to know whether a kid is open to that sort of thing. Is that the issue? The time it takes to develop trust between an adult and a scout?

I went on most of the campouts my son was on and all of the high adventures. In hindsight I was really glad I went with him because three months after he received his Eagle he took off to Argentina for a year long youth exchange program and we weren't allowed to even talk to him for the first month other than him telling us he made it. He did fine. Taking off for a weekend of independence is nothing compared to taking off for a year to a country where you don't even speak the language. He got into the program because of his scouting experience. The fact that I camped with him didn't hurt his experience. I do know that another scout that had done an exchange a year before my son convinced my son it would be fun. I'm not sure why some kids stay at home but dad going on campouts with them likely isn't it.

Oh man, I'm in trouble. 16 years as ASM & SM that included such things as wrestling, white washing, the "what's that on your neckerchief?" gag, arm wrestling, high fives, the entire troop hugging me for my birthday, the older scouts saying "let's get Mr R!" and the ensuing moshpit with me at the bottom, throwing kids in the pool, water fights on rafts that included throwing scouts off the raft .... Watch how the scouts play with each other. They do touch each other. They wrestle. They pig pile. They jam 6 kids into a 2 man tent and play cards. If you suggest to any of them that what they're doing is sexual or inappropriate then you'll ruin something innocent that they can't do anywhere else. While I would never enter a tent I did wrestle and a bunch of other things. It was fun but it was more than that. It was also gaining their trust so when I had to tell them they were being self centered and didn't reflect the ideals of scouting, they'd listen and respect me. I wanted the scouts to understand that there's a time to play and a time to be serious. If they didn't see me do that then I was just another bloviating adult they could tune out.

I think fun should be an official method. Let's face it, not fun is not motivating to a scout. But think a bit more about what is fun. Different strokes for different folks. This is a really important idea. Trying to treat every kid the same is a mistake. There are a lot of really outgoing and really quiet kids. Treating the quiet kids like they're outgoing could easily put them in an uncomfortable position. At the same time, treating the outgoing kids like they're quiet could put them to sleep. I've seen studies on how quiet kids are the way they are because everything stimulates them. The other side of this is that the really outgoing kids need more stimulation. Maybe the outgoing kids really benefit from being held upside down, just as the quiet kids might be over stimulated. So what should the adults do? Ask the kid! They'll give you an honest answer.

@WisconsinMomma, while there are plenty of opportunities for conflict resolution, why waste this one? I mean, learning how to do a practical joke when you're 13 and among people that understand how to do practical jokes is a lot better than waiting until you're in a frat and people are forcing you to drink shots. This may sound extreme but a lot of kids do not have any opportunity to screw up before they're sent off to college where they suddenly have much more freedom and no experience on how to deal with it. This is the whole point. The adults telling the scouts not to do something because it might go bad is not at all the same as the scouts figuring it out on their own. Yes, snow shoeing in an avalanche zone is not the place to let them learn the hard way. But practical jokes are fine. The scouts will eventually forget what the adults said. They will not forget the time they messed up and had to deal with the consequences. When I was a scout we were sent off looking for smoke shifters and sky hooks. That is now called hazing or bullying. It is neither. Sure, it could go bad but if done right It is an opportunity for the younger scouts to learn how to take some discomfort with a smile, the older scouts to learn how to watch for where the line is on each scout, the adults to bite their tongues, and everyone to have some fun. I'm sorry if I seem to be going on about this, but it seems that some of the best lessons that scouts could learn about dealing with other people are being taken off the table. They can also be fun.