MattR

Stosh, I think there is opportunity for a young scout to lead in a group of older scouts, assuming the older scouts understand that they are also responsible for developing younger scout leadership. Let the younger scouts be in charge of something simple but have them lead the patrol. Unfortunately, when I tried that the older scouts just took over because that's what they saw. I don't think the adults are doing anything worse than the older scouts. The same training that we're talking about here also needs to be presented to the scouts. I agree that friendships are hugely important. By the time a scout is 13 he better have great friendships. Those that do tend to stick around and put up with anything just to go camp with their friends. The ones that formed friendships as cubs do even better. We'll see. There's a new scout in my troop that's 14. I know his cousin, who was a fantastic scout and had enough confidence that nothing bothered him. He really was a friend to all. I hope the new scout has the same personality.

There's a saying, no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. So it really depends on what gear your scouts are used to. But the cabin changes all that. As CalicoPenn says, bring board games. This is really an opportunity. If they get cold they can fail gracefully and go in the cabin.

This is more than just the parents at fault at the scout events. The same people that are helicopters have not let their children make any decisions their entire life. Teaching them how is really hard. A road map for that would really help. To be honest, waiting until they're 13 seems to be too late. It is so ingrained that the oldest person around, whether adult or SPL or PL, makes all the decisions that just saying let the scouts do it isn't enough to get them to do it. So the new scouts still don't make significant decisions until they're 13 and suddenly PL, at which point they're completely new at it and struggle. As much people don't like the NSP idea I've found a use for it. Namely teaching the younger scouts to make decisions. Hopefully they'll get it and next year I can mix them with the next new group of scouts. By the time these scouts are 13 and ready to be PLs mixing the scouts together will work and the NSP will be less needed in the future.

In a way it's all out there but you have to know what you're looking for. So, no, it doesn't exist and is needed. A wiki would be good. I think a lot of parents confuse methods with aims. The aim is not advancement. Learning how to make decisions requires a) the scouts make decisions and b) the parents, wait for it, not making decisions. Hence, burnt sandwiches are okay. However, that's not to say there's nothing for adults to do. Scouts need help learning how to make decisions, how to solve problems, how to fix things they've messed up, how to listen. None of that happens by telling them what to do. Clearly delineating what the scouts and adults are responsible for would help. I like qwasze's idea of a one hour parent meeting with nothing but some notes and maybe a one page synopsis to hand out. Some stories might help to explain things but you want them engaged. If you can get all the parents on the same page it will make things much easier.

interesting comment about dumbing down the competition. I can see that setting up a tent blind folded when you're 17 is not going to be very cool. Maybe a couple of levels so each patrol can be challenged based on its makeup. That might encourage the younger scouts to look forward to harder stuff later on. As for the next part, I'll be happy if I can get some scouts to give input as to what they'd like to do. If I can get them to have their troops organize a small part then that's a bonus. If the idea really catches on and some scouts want to form a venture crew that runs these things then ka ching! So, give the scouts a handicap.

Col. Flagg's description of scout's not wanting to rock the boat is what I saw. A lot of scouts will not talk or they'll be very vague when adults ask them. A lot of adults struggle with calmly bringing up painful interactions so there shouldn't be too much surprise that scouts have more problems. Getting down to the ugly nitty griity, with everyone staying calm, seems to be very cathartic. The fact that MM is the SM and the father of the scout receiving this grief could easily make it that much worse on his son. I think it's really hard for scouts to admit things aren't going right. Think of it, my dad really likes scouts and wants me to like it, so I can't bring up problems, not to mention the boy code. One time I had a good idea of what had happened to a scout and I just wanted to hear it from him. It took a long time for him to talk about it. I'd ask him what happened and he'd reply that other scouts were mean. "What do you mean by being mean?" "They swore at me." "What did they say?" "They cursed." "What did they say?" "Umm ..." "You can tell me, I've heard it before." "Well ... he told me to, fuck off." "Anything else?" Once he realized that I wasn't going to go and kill the other scout, or throw him out of the troop it was much easier for him to talk. So then I brought the scout that did this over and talked. "What did you say to him?" "Umm, it wasn't nice." "What words did you use?" "Well, I swore at him." "And what words did you use?" "I used the f-word." "The f-word? What's that? What did you tell him?" At this point he's really uncomfortable. "I told him to, um, well, uh, to fuck off." "So, would you say that to your mom?" "No!" "Then why do you think it's appropriate to say it to a scout?" "ummm." "how are you going to make this right?" At this point the two scouts start talking to each other. The first scout was probably just happy that this was not going anywhere beyond the few of us standing there. The second scout realized how his words came across and was happy he could be forgiven. Well, that and this was likely to be the end of it.

EagleDad and Col. Flagg, you both bring up important ideas. Competition is good if it doesn't turn into a blood doping win at all cost event. the phrase honest competition is good. I can see how events that can be practiced and perfected can be a problem. I've seen knot tying competitions where you have to learn a few tricks and you suddenly blow the competition away. Rather, if the general skills needed are given out and the actual challenge is not known until you show up, I'd think that would help. There will be an orienteering course (I like the night time version. That will show up in the fall.) Stacking patrols is a problem. I would certainly like to promote patrol method but I'm talking about patrols that have been around for a year, not just the last meeting. or that morning. How do you encourage that? Check to see if the patrol all has the same patrol patch? The discussion about whether the scouts or adults should organize the camporee is the wrong discussion. It's just like organizing troop events. It's an opportunity for scouts to lead and also an opportunity to get them interested. If I find some scouts that really have some ideas then I'm going to support them. But I do need to set some boundaries and also help them out. There also needs to be some reality checks. If they say they want to go kayaking and we don't have enough for everyone then there's a problem that has to be solved.

What types of challenges did they have? My scouts always wanted balance. They liked competitions against other patrols but not against a clock. What you're calling head to head. They also liked personal challenges. They also wanted free time.

How about a disaster recovery theme? As a scout I did first aid rallies but they were in a gym

Well, I have about a month to get the ideas out so we can start pushing it and troops can have time to prepare. I just signed up for this today. I'd like to get it to the point where there's plenty of time and plenty of scouts and adults that are interested in it but I have to get this going. I'm here asking for ideas so when I start asking scouts what they'd like to do I can give them some ideas they can work from. And yes, I'll be open to suggestions. One challenge is the next campout is klondike and that means lots of snow for us. Some ideas I have so far, A few of which we've done before: Curling with frozen milk jugs. Biathlon with wrist rockets Interpretive snow dancing (bring your own music and speakers) Fire building. Make fires different ways (match, hot spark, 9v battery, match with home made starter) Mash up of the low cope centipede thing with 2x8 snow shoes, along with a snowball fight. So, several patrols at a time, bring your own snowballs, that can only be thrown while on the giant snow shoes. 1 point for hitting another patrol, 2 for hitting a bucket in the middle of the field. This would be a good teamwork event. soccer, in the snow something with Frisbees. How about a 50' wide field that each patrol has to get the frizbee across but it can't touch the snow (else you start over). You could run but running in the snow is hard, so spread your patrol out and pass the frisbee from scout to scout. If we can get the gear, find avalanche beacons. How about cardboard sleds? Kind of like cardboard canoes. Would it be improper to make a fire on the sled, drag it 10 feet, and then dump it into a fire barrel? Might have to be the last event. Get your patrol and gear over a 3' high fence without touching it. We used to call it the scout toss because the smallest scout goes first. The tallest has to jump the fence at the end or just take the penalty. We've always had a gear check but they often require silly things that the scouts would never use, or things like water bottles that are freezing cold as opposed to warm water held inside a jacket. Rather than just points for having it, maybe more points for doing it better? Like more points for having a patrol flag that's at least a year old vs 3 months vs 1 week. Or patrols that show up at flags with their patrol flags get more points, but none for their troop flag. make a survival shelter, and then eat lunch in it. A lot of these events could be scored differently based on, say, the average age in the patrol. One thing we've always done and I'll continue is have an auction (based on points they've earned) in the evening so they can stay out of the cold and out of their tents when the temps start really dropping. The scouts really enjoy it.

I'm splitting off from the other thread about camporees counting as campouts because this really is a different topic. It turns out I'm likely going to be the new district camping chair which means I get to come up with 3 good campouts a year - Klondike, spring, and fall camporees, so your help is appreciated. It seems there are a couple of issues. Interesting and new events. Making events a challenge that don't turn into some troop overloading patrols. Limited resources so, for example, doing shot gun at a camporee would be hard. Getting some scouts involved in helping with this. Our current camporees all tend to follow the same recipe - a dozen or so events, all of which take about 10 minutes each. The feedback I always got as SM was that the scouts preferred events that were at least an hour. This means the event should be able to handle a lot of scouts, like 8 patrols at a time. As for competitions that aren't loaded, what if there were categories, such as take the average age of everyone in the patrol? I was going to go to some troops and see if any older scouts were interested in helping at least decided on the events. It could be a way for older scouts to find something important and challenging. Anyway, ideas are welcome.

I was tired of the MB fair things and I asked the scouts if they'd rather camp at a cabin and go skiing instead. Of course they wanted to do that. Then I told them they'd have to figure out how to do the MBs on their own, but I'd help them. Now they have some motivation.

Where does humility fit into the Oath and Law?

You'd have to ask a lot of people to get a good view of that question, which by the way is a good question. Here's my answer. The patrol method, for lack of a better term, is broken. The whole point of scouts is to get scouts to make their own decisions. The youth have very little opportunity to make decisions in their life. It's worse now than it used to be. Scouting is more important than it used to be and most people have no idea what it's about. As you've implied before, many adults don't understand how it's supposed to work. Unfortunately, most scouts know less. One important aspect is that decisions need to be pushed down to the point where everyone agrees. Certainly the adults should be making fewer decisions but even the scouts have a big problem with this. You yourself said as SPL that you're trained to make decisions. Have you considered the possibility that you were preventing the PLs from making their own decisions? How about the dictatorial PL making decisions for his patrol that his patrol doesn't like? Unfortunately, I've noticed that adults that used to be SPL have the hardest time letting scouts decide. So, how do girls help this? It is only indirectly related. One problem that those that make the decisions have is they don't understand the differences between the scouts. Different scouts want to do different things. Girls would make that more visible. If the girls really want to do different things then they can make their own patrols and do their own thing. One of the things I had to learn as SM was to decide what problems were mine to solve and what were the scouts to solve. What helped was realizing that problems are really good training. I've said before to never waste a good problem by solving it myself. So let me turn your question around. What is it about girls that the boys can't deal with? Why do you have to make that decision? If the scouts are making their own decisions then what's wrong with having girls around? Why can't they sort it out? I'm not saying there aren't any. In fact I have my concerns with some moms, but it's not that much different than some dads. The only issue I can think of is that youth male brains turn to mush as soon as a girl walks in. Trust me, I was there once upon a time. Anything else?

The biggest problem I see with incoming webelos is a lack of understanding teamwork. They each have a different job to do and they need to do it for the patrol to function on its own. The result is everyone trying to do the same thing at the same time. That results in scouts arguing over who gets to do this, whatever this is, and nobody doing that, or the other. If if you've ever seen 6 year olds playing soccer everyone wants to kick the ball and nobody wants to spread out. Activities that have several different parts would be great. Go on a hike, for example. Someone helps figure out where to go. Someone comes up with a menu for lunch or snacks. Someone reviews the list of things to bring. Another aspect of teamwork is listening. If someone is in charge of picking a menu then he has to listen to what others want and everyone has to abide by his decision. Get all this working and boy scouts will be an easy transition.

Back Pack, let's say the BSA was reading this forum while some magic fairy dust dropped on their heads and they said "Hey, we gotta get this young man to be the first CSB (Chief Scout Boy) so we can get back to our roots" and you implement your plan as described previously regarding allowing girls. So you have a vote and 40% of the boys don't want girls, 10% do, and 50% are too lazy to vote or don't care. If majority rules then there will be no girls allowed, end of discussion. My guess is you'd be happy with that. Just for the fun of it, let's say the vote went the other way, 26% want girls and 24% don't. Would you abide by it? Or would you quit in disgust? Based on your previous comments my guess is you'd finish eagle and split as fast as you can. If so, this is a really good example of what our founding fathers were trying to create. Look at the Constitution. Someone once said that democracy is two wolves and a lamb deciding what to eat for lunch. Hence, we're not a democracy. Giving a say to the minority is an important idea. That's what a republic does. You don't want a solution where nearly half the people leave in disgust because things didn't go the way they wanted. So, as CSB, how would you handle this? If you make the decision you're likely to get a whole lot of scouts angry. If you don't make the decision but put it up for a vote the same thing will happen. You already said you'd take it to the scouts to figure out what to do so something has to be done. It's really not much different than the SPL deciding what everyone in the troop will be doing. Should the SPL be doing that? Should the CSB get to make this decision? I hate to say it but there aren't too many options. But let's get back to your troop. You said most of the scouts do not want their sisters around. Just to make it harder, let's just say that the sisters are in the same troop. The good news is the sisters don't want their brothers around as well. The boys/girls do not want the girls/boys at their campsite. What's a solution here? As you said in a previous post, you either believe in the patrol method or you don't. How can the patrol method be used to solve this problem? How do you use the patrol method to solve any differences of opinion in what to do? You don't have the SPL decide. You let the patrols form the way they want and you let them decide. As the SPL, much less the CSB, you don't decide. You let the scouts, in each patrol, solve their own problems. Is this really much different than what the BSA's old men came up with? Each CO decides what they want.

Now that I'm no longer SM I decided to work on developing teamwork within the new scout patrol. Long story short is that even though I couldn't go on the last two campouts a parent of one of the new scouts told me that the new scout patrol was the most well run patrol they saw by far. There was nobody leading the patrol but the patrol leader. I may have found what I want to do.

Old man take a look at my life I'm a lot like you I need someone to love me the whole day through...

I would have said nearly the same thing as you did when I was your age. My guess is that's the same sentiment as most people today. Once upon a time I had family members and religious leaders judge me by that type of comment and they did a mighty good job of pushing me further from their point of view. It took me a long time to get back to something I was comfortable with. So I'm not here to judge you. More like play a game. What does God mean to you? If all you can come up with is the all powerful guy with a beard, in a robe then let's try something different. First of all, God is not a name. A god is an all powerful, immortal something or other and God is just the one god Western religions talk about. There's a point in the Bible where Moses asks God what He should be called and his response was a riddle. It might seem odd but long ago names were very important. Your name defined who you were and what you'd be. I'm not sure but maybe figuring out the riddle was to help one figure out what God means to them. If you're interested in the riddle just ask. But rather than figure out the riddle, let's play a game. In your statement above there are four ideas. Duty toward, respect of, prayer for, and practice centered around - God. Just for fun, let's replace God with different things and see what happens. First of all, how about a lump of gold (and you're welcome to shape it like a calf if, but nothing changes). Then, your comment would be: I do not have a duty to gold, I respect gold, I put my head down during a quick benediction after each meeting, but I simply don't practice a religion. Or, you have no duty towards gold, you do respect it and pray for it, but no practice of making it a religion. Praying for gold would be considered very shallow so the fact this doesn't really work is fine. Okay, let's try something a bit deeper. Religion has a lot to do with community so how about replace God with "my community." I do not have a duty to my community, I respect my community, I put my head down during a quick benediction after each meeting, but I simply don't practice a religion. You respect your community (that's good) but you don't have a duty to your community (not so good). You will pray for your community. You will not make your community part of your religion. This is a big step up from gold. Still, no duty to your community is a problem. Maybe not making a religion out of your community is a good thing. let's go bigger. Instead of community how about replacing God with mankind? I do not have a duty to mankind, I respect mankind, I put my head down during a quick benediction after each meeting, but I simply don't practice a religion. You respect mankind but you have no duty towards it? Sounds odd. You pray for mankind but see no point in making it into a religion. Another contradiction. Certainly it's a silly game but maybe it's not a bad place to start. Good luck.

Sounds like you had a good talk, MM. Glad to hear he's looking forward to sea base. Something tells me your just talking to him helped a lot. One other really important thing. Does he have friends in scouts? This makes a huge difference as scouts get older. It's the odd kid that ages out without friends near by. The comment about venturing and OA, if he doesn't have friends, is something to think about. I wouldn't suggest that route unless he really has no friends, as making friends at this age is getting harder and harder. My son didn't understand the loud kids either. I'm just guessing, but your son, if he's anything like mine, is not the natural leader. He likely has a good heart and will be great with a group that wants to be a team. However, the average group of new scouts doesn't have a clue as to what this means and asking a 13 year old to develop that really is asking a lot. I now appreciate the comments from others around here about how the troop guides should be the oldest and best leaders. They have a tough job. They can't just be web 3 leaders, they need to develop a team mentality in a bunch of boys that have only ever had to think about themselves.

I've been following the UK scouting forum and it's just my impression, but they have a training program that's considerably more in depth than the BSA's. While they don't have any ridiculous rules about pioneering (to quote, it would ruin all the fun) and it doesn't seem to be a problem, everything else has training that requires considerably more than the usual take a class and get signed off. You have to not only do the activity but show people and keep logs of it. The BSA does a good job with a few things like water safety, shooting, and climbing, but everything else is just online or nothing. Some of what the UK does seems a bit over the top but if it would encourage more adventure, even if training the leaders to have some confidence doing it, it sounds like something better than what we do, which is ban anything that anyone ever got hurt doing. If enough scouts really enjoy big pioneering projects then just make a training course that's hands on. We do climbing and shotgun, why not pioneering? It would be better to be proactive and react to what the scouts want rather than defensive and react to what the lawyers want. The squirt gun and laser tag nonsense is another issue that should just be dropped. Kids play video games and do not become psychotic killers. The psychosis comes from not doing anything with other people. So I'd say playing laser tag with your friends will do more to promote community than trying to explain to kids why shooting someone with a laser is evil.

Maybe this is an opportunity for a young man to learn how to balance things out. Roses, thorns, and buds. What does he like, dislike, and look forward to in scouts, and swim team, and whatever. And really listen to him. This can be hard because you might not hear what you want to hear. Start off with an easy one: Just a hunch, but would sea base be his first high adventure trip? If so then he really doesn't know what he might be missing. If there's a good group of older scouts going then this could really help. Now a rough one: Dad's the SM, how is that going for him? Does he feel obligated to be there? I told my son he didn't have to get eagle because I was the SM. He got it because he wanted it. About school, is it possible that he just went through midterms? If so, of course he's fried, this week. You said he's really fed up with younger scouts that he doesn't know how to deal with. I've seen this before and to be honest, it's not just the PL that makes a patrol work. Maybe the whole patrol doesn't get it. How are the other patrols doing? Maybe he doesn't get it. Maybe the SM needs to learn some new ways to help the patrols. I don't know. Ask. He's also on the swim team and PL? So burning thousands of calories a day and dealing with scouts that don't understand the basics of teamwork? Makes sense to me that he's tired. Options that I can think of but ask him: Step down as PL. Get an APL that can help. Learn to delegate. Take a break from scouts until swim season is over. Get a big bag of candy, invite some friends over, and binge watch horror flicks, just to be a kid. Anything to step back from swimming? Make a calendar to know ahead of time what scouting events he will and won't do, so he can ease some pressure. Make a calendar to help manage his school work to reduce deadline panic.

We had a parent bring a younger sibling once. Although we talked ahead of time and he promised he'd keep his son away it didn't quite work out that way. The younger son kept showing up. The dad just happened to cook plenty of extra hot dogs and had a patrol come over. The good news was a few months later some of the older scouts were talking, one of which is gay, the younger scout heard that he was gay, told his parents, everything exploded, and the family left. Either way, I can imagine that just a few siblings could easily become a huge distraction. I never really had problems with parents becoming a distraction and I suspect that's because for a good 8 months a year it gets below freezing on our campouts and those that don't get it don't like camping. I was, however, frustrated with parents that wanted to jump in and solve problems for the scouts at meetings. The idea that every problem could be a learning experience for the boys just doesn't seem to be soaking in.

I'd hate to be the guy that walks up to the female athletes and says "you will now be known as the Cows." He will soon become the Steer.

I went through the same thing with my daughter over a decade ago. The gs troops thought I was a predator and my wife didn't have the energy to do it. I did but there was no program. One of my only regrets as a father was not having my daughter enjoy scouts like my son did. It was easy finding something to do with my son. Scouts was easy. It was always a struggle with my daughter. I hope it works out for you, mds3d.