Oak Tree

Ugh. That's a situation that I can easily envision. We get lots of first-time parents who behave that way, but thus far the methods that you've suggested have worked for us. In the end, I think you're right. If you've tried everything else, they need something more to know that you're serious about the way adults should behave, and probably the most effective tool would be to ban (or threaten to ban) them from camping trips. I'd want to make sure I had the committee behind me (at least the chair and some of the more influential members, depending on how your committee is structured) and then I'd lay it out for them: The program is intended to run in Style X; all parents on the trips must agree to use this style; if you cannot, then you will not be able to attend the trips. I think that unfortunately you probably have to come up with some "petty rules" for the adults, if they aren't able to get the whole philosophy. I might even write up a set of expectations, and have the parents sign off on them when they attend. "As an adult resource, I promise to be there for all the Scouts. I promise not to bring any extra food for my son. I promise not to approach my son to offer him help or correction (except for an urgent safety need), but to ask another adult to do so if he appears to need an adult." etc, etc. Something that most adults on a trip should find easy to agree with, but that these two in particular might take huge issue with.

I'd like to see a presentation on how to get involved with the council contingents that go to the high adventure bases. I know the council sends such contingents, but I've never seen any info on how to get involved with them or how to get my Scouts excited about participating with them. I suspect it's just the case that some set of people runs the programs from year to year, and they get the word out through some back channels. The best thing I got out of roundtable was one guy who gave a talk on how his troop did a 50-miler on the AT. We ended up using a ton of their information to do a very similar trip. In general, I like roundtables that either 1) give a good solid introduction to a topic like that (backpacking on the AT, or going scuba diving, or ...; something like a University of Scouting class), or 2) get the participants talking about how they handle some various topics in their troop (sort of like this forum) - my only caveat is that you have to stop that from devolving into a debate about the G2SS or what is "right" according to some BSA policy.

Our council's NYLT does not offer a "Scoutmaster orientation session", nor did they even have any idea what it was. In such a situation, I'd try to figure out how to do the equivalent of the requirement...attend the course at University of Scouting on youth training, or talk to the council about how to promote NYLT in my troop, or something. Talk to your unit commissioner (or someone along those lines) about what it would take for the district to approve the award. Or, in what may be more of a council-by-council variation, you can just decide at the troop level that the adult has completed the award and buy it for him at the council store. It's a lot simpler that trying to track down all the right people, and it seems to end up with the same result.

It seems to me that this situation is not very well dealt with in the G2SS. It presumes that you can create dividers that create a youth area and an adult area. This is not always possible. What we've done in practice is to make sure that there is some private way to change clothes. The rules in the G2SS are impractical for dealing with sleeping on aircraft carrier, or overnight in some large room (e.g. aquarium). Packs do it all the time, though. The rule about keeping the sleeping areas separate seems to me to be particularly targeted at troops, and not at pack family camping. The idea of walling off one large room and putting forty Cub Scouts on one side with the forty parents on the other side of the sheet wall seems highly amusing to me. Between the energy level and the separation anxiety, no one would ever get to sleep, I'd think.

Yeah, I'm a fan of this. In practice most churches seem to be able to make junior high and senior high youth programs work, and they don't have a problem with senior highs all dropping out. I think it's a natural cut over. LDS does this already. And pretty much any group that wants to do it can do it this way with either a Varsity troop or a Venturing crew as the senior high program, with the troop being the junior high program. I'm sure Beavah is right that there are troops that make the age range work well. But it's obviously not the easiest thing to do, or there wouldn't be so many issues with it.

Why make a problem of it? Just say that for Wood Badge purposes, all members over 18 will be considered adults. That would seem to be the intent of letting them take the course anyway - because we recognize that they are in fact adults. I must say I'm not a fan of moving the Venturing induction up. Seems like that's trying to force Venturing on what are, by and large, Boy Scout troop leaders. But c'est la vie.

Sorry, but no. Perhaps they would have included it if they'd thought about it, but maybe not. The trainings are pretty different. University of Scouting is very much about tools to do the particular job, while Wood Badge doesn't really do much specific to den leadership. I do think that Wood Badge is more similar to roundtables, but with that requirement I think they're really trying to get people into the habit of going...so attending Wood Badge doesn't really accomplish that.

Yes, you're right. I got it from http://www.boyscouttrail.com/square-knots.asp and they have it wrong there. Thanks for catching that.

Very good. I like it. I also like your suggestion that all the time he spends planning his appeal can count as time he's working on his project :-) Just so long as it all works out in the end...

The Hornaday Award is complicated. There are different levels to it, but AlFansome is correct, that appears to be one that I'd left out. I was thinking that the knot could only be earned by an adult Scouter (with at least 20 years conservation leadership!), and that Scouts earned the Hornaday badge. But Scouts can also earn the Bronze medal and/or Silver Medal, and those come with the knot. You can check out the seven-level award matrix for yourself at http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awards/HornadayAwards/Awards.aspx

There are a lot of complicated incentives in play throughout the health care system. When you start to adjust them, you need to be ready for all kinds of unintended consequences. Right now doctors have incentives to have lots of office visits. (so Beavah says, and it sounds right). If we switched to a government run system with doctors on salary, would they have any incentive to do more than the minimum? Doctors have an incentive not to get sued, so they run too many tests. If the program is govt-run, do they get more immunity? Do they then have incentive to run too few tests? Patients right now have little incentive to choose the "cheaper" option since they pay the same for lots of different options. How do we get them to care? Hospitals do care about waste, fraud, etc. That comes out of their income, which is based on whatever rates they can negotiate with insurance companies and medicare. I'm generally libertarian on most issues...I think that maximizing freedom is a pretty moral and pretty effective approach. But I'm not really sure what to do about health care - there does need to be some system for covering everyone and the current system of having them visit the emergency room seems way less than ideal. In order for a system to work, there would have to be mandatory participation. Today's big companies have health care plans like this now...you could imagine that the company is giving each employee $10K or whatever and having them use it to pay for the insurance. If you work for the company and you don't want their health plan, you don't have to use it, but you don't get your $10K back. But regardless of your health, you do get insurance (and Lisabob, this aspect, at least does seem to encourage employee loyalty). So what to do? Maybe we give everyone in the country a $10K health insurance voucher and tell them that they have to buy one of six different health plans (maybe the plans range from $10K to $15K, so some extra contribution from the individual might be needed.) And insurance companies have to sell those plans to everyone, so that no one is excluded. That way each insurance company ends up with a large diverse population. And you say, where do we get all the money to give away these vouchers? Well, where do we get all the money right now to treat all the uninsured in emergency rooms? How can it really cost much more to give them preventative care? Just a few rambling thoughts...

Didn't forget them...they were listed in my first post (the third one on this thread). But since you have me posting again...what else could a Scout earn that he could wear on his adult uniform? There are the devices for the knots. The youth religious knot could have four devices. The Eagle knot could have a bunch of palms. The medal of honor could have palms. And I suppose it's theoretically possible that a youth could earn the Founder's Circle and/or 1910 Society devices that can be worn on the James E. West knot. Service stars with gold backing, green backing, brown backing and red backing can only be earned as youth but can continue to worn as an adult. The Emergency Preparedness pin could be worn. Sea Scouts/Scouters have a long cruise badge and arc. The Insignia Guide addresses this overall issue: "Scouters should neither seek awards designed for youth members nor wear them on the Scouter uniform except for square knots representing the Arrow of Light Award, Eagle Scout Award, Venturing Silver Award, Quartermaster Award, or religious emblems earned as a youth member." Most all of the other awards I've listed (all but the service stars) can be earned by both youth and adults, so they are not strictly speaking just "designed for youth", and there is no real conflict. There are lots of other awards that can be earned by both youth and adults, but they don't have their own spot on the uniform (BSA Physical Fitness, Conservation Good Turn, Good Turn for America, Leave No Trace, BSA Family, BSA Lifeguard, etc.) I'm including any medals with the knots. The only things I've left off, so far as I know, are the retired knots (Explorer, Air Explorers, ...). And I didn't mention things worn only on the jacket or swim trunks. But other than these 51 items, I can't think of any items that can be earned as a youth and worn on the adult uniform :-)

Oddly enough, they don't. They are listed on the unit's charter as a member, so it would seem like they must have filled out an application, but they haven't in my experience done so.

I don't think I've ever seen our pack committee or our troop committee take a vote. And I don't think it should be necessary. But as scoutldr says, there are no official rules about that sort of thing. Yes, the CO gets to decide how you run the program and spend the money. But most give only very broad principles on this. Most leaders get that being a dictator is not the best way to build a program, but a COR could be a dictator. So could an IH. More common is the Cubmaster or Scoutmaster who is a dictator. Ideally you'd avoid all forms of dictatorship. I do like the idea of a friendly cup of coffee. You don't say what your position is...I'd want to involve the CC and/or CM in that discussion.

There is no minimum number of hours, but it has to be a sufficiently involved project that the Scout can demonstrate the necessary leadership. At some point a project would simply feel too lightweight to qualify. For example, if a Scout came forward with a project that took two hours, that wouldn't qualify, no matter how many times he said "there is no minimum number of hours required." There cannot possibly be an official minimum number. From the official workbook, "How big a project is required? There are no specific requirements, as long as the project is helpful to a religious institution, school, or community. The amount of time spent by you in planning your project and the actual working time spent in carrying out the project should be as much as is necessary for you to demonstrate your leadership of others." So they wouldn't necessarily have to say that they are enforcing an official minimum (and they would be crazy to do so, in my opinion). They could say that the amount of time spent in carrying out the project was not enough to demonstrate the leadership. I'm with the others...if he can easily add six hours of work, do so.

shortridge interpreted my "(sort of)" comment exactly the way I intended it. The Eagle rank can only be earned as a youth. The Eagle badge can only be worn by a youth. The Eagle medal can be worn by a youth or by an adult. The Eagle knot can only be worn by an adult. While I'm here, I'll point out a few other knots that a youth can earn that can still be worn by an adult: Venturing Silver, Quartermaster, OA Distinguished Service, Venturing Leadership, Medal of Merit, Medal of Honor.

Beavah, normally I'm a big fan of your posts, but here I feel like you are setting up a straw man so that you can knock it down. Anyone who posts a potential solution to your question is almost certainly not going to get the Scouts to meet your desired level of expertise. Do we do FCFY? Yes. As Lisabob suggests, the boys who are active will get it, and those who are not as active will take longer. I'll tell you what we do for the cooking and first aid requirements, although I'll admit right up front the Scouts undoubtedly do not retain the information to the extent that you might hope. But all the requirement says is "Demonstrate first aid for..." and we pretty much use that standard. We do a new Scout campout where we take them through a bunch of basic skills. We have a small group of older Scouts come along as instructors - and we go over axeyards and starting fires and tying knots, intermixed with various fun activities. We work with them prior to the campout to plan their Second Class meals and they all do them at once. Then they'll take turns rotating the position. We might have six or seven boys in a patrol, so the five active ones will all get the requirement done within six months. For first aid, we use the troop meetings more. We have some relatively skilled adults who work with the Scouts on the skills. But yes, we don't repeat it enough times for it to sink in as part of their long-term memory. They're going through the skills way faster than one per hour. But it doesn't take that long to put one bandage on. There are some opportunities on other campouts to work on advancement as well. We've had times where we'd have the guys do one hour of advancement stuff in the morning - see which patrol can knock out the most advancement items in that time (I realize that I'm setting myself up for criticism on that one - but a lot of items can be done acceptably while being done quickly). The adults going on a trip can check on which Scouts are not first calss yet and can see who needs to do what. We've done a troop drug program around the campfire. We've done swimming requirements on a patrol camping trip. Sometimes we'll do a separate night from the troop meeting and ask anyone who needs any swimming requirements to come. We worked on things at summer camp during the down time hanging around camp. I guess I'd say our key to doing it is to use camping trips to full advantage.

Eagledad, Absolutely agreed. Building a partnership with the parents is one of the most valuable things the Scoutmaster can do. Complete attitude makeovers are pretty rare, but I've certainly seen more than a few Scouts kick it up a notch when the right adult made the right suggestion at the right point in the Scout's career. And this is definitely more likely to happen when the parents are part of the equation.

It might be fun to bring it in and show it to the kids. It doesn't really look right for an adult to wear it as if it's a normal part of the uniform, though. It's not just because it's "youth earned" - there are lots of things you can earn as a Scout that you can continue to wear as an adult (youth religious knot, medal of heroism, translator strip, jamboree patch, James West knot, Eagle knot (sort of), Arrow of Light knot (sort of), OA flap, etc). I'd say it's more because it seems very related to youth advancement, and it doesn't seem quite adult-like to be doing youth advancement. At any rate, you would not wear a youth rank nor the merit badge sash as an adult.

I spoke to his Mother in a casual conversation and she has noticed the same lack of spirit and it concerns her... so I am optimistic that family will step in and address the issue. I wish you luck with that, but my experience is that parents are usually not either 1) in the right position or 2) possessed of the right toolset to address their sons' attitudes. I have seen some kids grudgingly do more work when their parents push them, but I don't think I've yet seen one where the parent had a talk with them and they came to the next meeting a changed teenager. "My mom had a talk with me and I realized that I was showing a bad attitude so I decided to change things. I'm going to be happy, enthusiastic, participative, and encouraging to all the other Scouts. I'm glad she showed me the error of my ways." Just not in the cards...

Our area has moved to a lot of year-round schools for both elementary and middle school. People complained about it, but everyone adapts. I have kids in high school (traditional schedule) and elementary (year-round) so that limits the time we can take family vacations, but it's not as bad as I first thought. For Scouts, it does affect summer camp schedules. Everyone gets the fourth of July week off, so we can try to go to camp that week. Or if you can get the kids on Track 4, they get July off. Some troops will offer two different weeks of summer camp to try to deal with this. We have a real mix of kids in our troop - I don't have the stats, but I'd guess it's like 1/4 home schooled, 1/4 private school (all traditional schedule), 1/4 public school (traditional), and 1/4 public school (year-round). So the year-round schedule usually prevents a few of our Scouts from coming to summer camp. I do see it as becoming something of an issue for summer camps in general, but I predict they'll figure it out. Our situation wouldn't affect Philmont much, because our high schools aren't going year-round (and I see no movement in that direction).

No. Absolutely, positively, no.

From dictionary.com/Random House uppity 1. affecting an attitude of inflated self-esteem; haughty; snobbish. 2. rebelliously self-assertive; not inclined to be tractable or deferential. Ed's using part 1, Merlyn and Trevorum part 2. I say they're both right.

This is more of a political/interpersonal discussion than a policy one. First of all, you're in a very unusual situation if more than one person wants to be the committee chair. It's much more common to be trying to figure out who you want to convince to take the job. It seems to me that your goal in doing this would be to get the most effective person with the least hurt feelings. If both candidates appear to be good possibilities, and you don't want to hurt either one, then picking a name out of a hat might work. As a unit leader, I'd think that would be unlikely. There's probably one candidate I'd rather work with. What I'd do then is try to figure out what the other person could do that would be most helpful, and then ask them if they would take that position. Seriously, there are usually so many possible jobs that it should be easy to make a person feel useful. It also may depend on who the COR views as the person who should bring her the recommendation. Does she see you, as the SM, the person who will come to her? Or the outgoing CC? It's almost certainly one of the two of you. In practice I usually set up the transitions behind the scenes. Talk to the most promising candidate, get him to agree, and tell the COR. But I haven't been in a situation where that would have hurt anyone's feelings. I'll usually have some discussions with a few other leaders as well just to get a sense for what other people think and to make sure I'm not going down the wrong path.

And to get Arrow of Light, he has to be a Webelos II for six months after completing fourth grade (or for six months after turning ten).