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@CynicalScouter, I believe that no BSA official will tell you why scouts-tenting-with-scouts-only is under “barriers to abuse” because the liability of giving an answer is costly beyond belief. Simply consider that someone would consider a child to have been groomed if they received kindness from a person who later sexually abused other children. Now consider the vast number of abusers who are parents. More than one or two of them might have tented with their children. Those children, even if they weren’t abused, may claim that whoever permitted that tenting scenario to occur allowed them to be victims of grooming — taking the loose interpretation of the term. I could be completely wrong, about that, and nobody has ever attempted to make such a claim. But the mere act of someone going on record to deny it would compromise the organization’s position.

Well, let's come back to equity. That has a long tradition in jurisprudence. As a scout, we got to talking with judges and one of the key lessons one taught was that his responsibility was to meet out justice with equity. The requirement would be far more interesting if it asked scouts to talk to a judge or magistrate about equity.

We have our current SM because back when his first two boys aged out and his third was in cubs, Son #3 begged to quit the pack. I encouraged the dad, "Let him. Go have fun with him. He wants to play all of those massive board games you've built!" (The figures on the guy's game pieces are astounding.) A few years later, a 12-ish year-old boy shows up at a troop meeting, and his interest in scouting has grown and grown. It's been a couple years and he's still working on 1st class and having fun ... in spite of his dad being the big cheese! There are new opportunities to recruit teens who haven't been cubs. It just take a little code-cracking.

I would add to #4: "and leadership demands for the sake of YP." The increase in cost to run a unit is not merely monetary. The demand of time from adults is higher. This includes need to commit more hours for training, and the need to have two adults (of a minimum age ... and specific sex depending on the type of unit) for every meeting/activity. This is squarely impacting venturing, and indirectly impacting troops depending on how many older youth in the community are thriving in their exploits independent of adults. It probably also impacts potential female cub scouts where only two dads would be available on a regular basis.

They allow boys and girls to work the same program, but they are largely sex-segregated. Think "linked-troops" and you pretty much get the idea. Moreover, in many countries, their boy- girl- scouts organizations play nice. At Jambo, it was quite interesting watching the opposite sexes from certain countries work together for the first time. They are definitely not all Swedes. Most don't have a king mandate that they fully integrate. Pakistan. Why does everybody forget Pakistan?

The stats about membership are far more solid than this "denying males leadership" mumbo-jumbo. The largest scouting programs worldwide deploy sex-segregated programs. BSA simply did not have the stones to drop the marketing doublespeak, retain Boy Scouts of America, and roll-out a parallel BSA4G program for American girls who wanted to work the same Advancement, Outdoors, and Patrol method. They didn't have the stones to admit that they found the Asian programs more appealing than the European ones.

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2020/12/18/you-can-see-all-65-norman-rockwell-scouting-paintings-at-this-museum-in-ohio/

Groomed by him? But I wasn't groomed by all of the Syrian men in my family who lavished physical affection (read sloppy kisses) on little boys, or the driver who I rode around with on deliveries at Dad's beer distributor, or a host of other would-be 'ner-do-wells? I will put forward that most of us were not groomed by this man. He was genuinely kind and concerned for the well-being most kids, and put forward the effort that most teachers would to provide an orderly world for them. But, for reasons known only to him, he didn't see all kids as worthy of that dignity. Some were seen as tools for his using, and getting a play-book from God-knows-where* he treated those kids accordingly. *Actually, upon reflection, I can guess where. He joked to the entire class about abusing stray cats as a child. Knowing what I know now about conduct disorder, I suspect that story betrayed a more tumultuous childhood where he was inculcated with categories of "users" and "used".

I would encourage everyone to not ask @ThenNow to rehash particular circumstances. They can be found by patiently browsing his posts. From what I read, they were far from legal. His claim would have been actionable had he been granted the resilience to act on it.

I think we're talking two sides of the same coin: The first two components are not specific. All humans are about "befriending and establishing an emotional connection", and sometimes that's "with a child". So, let's rephrase those to say: deploying normal human behavior so as "to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse." That definition remains problematic, because unless the perpetrator makes some declaration as to his/her intent, there is no way to use it without being Time Cop. The few pedophiles who I wish I had never met did not have objectives of sexual abuse ... at least not the first time around. Failed? Maybe not. Some recipients are "simply" receiving kindness while others are being preyed upon. One person can be doing both. The most successful predators did just that. My seventh grade reading teacher was very kind to many of us. On the weekends, to particular boys, he was also a pedophile. Were we being groomed? Or was he deluded by his double-life -- maybe offsetting his evil to some by attempting kindness to others? So, until people know the outcomes of every social interaction each of us has with every person in our lives, they will not know if any of us were grooming. I would prefer a definition that is not dependent on the outcome. The closest I can get are strategies by an individual that: encourage the recipient to engage in an exclusive relationship, withdraw the recipient from the public view, ask the recipient to witness or engage in culturally unacceptable activities, form contracts with the recipient to shun known means of social accountability. As you can see, I don't mention "child" or "sexual abuse" because some sources don't apply grooming to just those situations. I'm still not entirely comfortable with these definitions. They are far from universal. But, youth need something to help them to be resilient against abuse.

It’s one thing to take a principled stance and not let your kids do an activity that concerns your family. It’s another thing to try to deny other families those opportunities.

@AMRC18, sorry for your negative experience. Hopefully R4LA will be a better opportunity.

Don’t stop at high school, or in education. An unwillingness to file incident reports pervades every field. Soon, when you need a urologist to examine you, a chaperon will be in the room as well.

Hoping you can still brag the same tomorrow. BTW - waiting two weeks does not mean 12 days. A colleague of a former co-advisor was 10 days after her second dose when she brought COVID-19 home to the family. Looking at the “survival curves” of any of the vaccinated cohorts, they may start to break away from placebo after a couple weeks from the 1st dose but the marked differences aren’t evident until 30 days into the trial. After the 35th day, cases of the disease among vaccinated folks begin to become rare.

The more training your volunteers get, the smoother things run. But as others mention, there are lots of avenues through which adults can pick up the skills needed to be great scouters. There can be a point of diminishing returns. At one point we had several leaders take Powderhorn. I don't think it amounted to a single additional super-activity from that lot. The untrained leaders put in more time actually planning and providing based on their hobbies and interests.

As a practical matter, this lies on a continuum. For example, the old Italian man who gave infant Son #1 a dollar while we were walking down the street was not grooming. When I cover the cost of the coffee for the young person fiddling with his/her change, it's not grooming. I'm just trying to make both of our days a little brighter by passing that dollar from long ago along. It's a Mediterranean thing. Same act(s), different person, vile motive, hideous outcome. That's grooming. In other words in a person who has never committed abuse, one only can determine what is and isn't grooming retrospectively.

Welcome, enjoy the campfire!

Works for everyone except my friend who was exploited by her grandfather. And, honestly, if whatever dollars from all of the grandparents in the world could heal that hurt, I'd pay it.

@CynicalScouter, either counter the arguments or simply downvote them. @ThenNow, consider that very few scouters bother to correspond here at all, and make your inference accordingly. From where I sit, I see that most scouters, be they rich or poor, just what some boys to hike and camp safely. The ones who see the increasing demands on their time and money to be a drain on their ability to do that will leave BSA and will continue the to provide for the youth around them without the hassle or training, registration fees, or any contribution to any victims' fund.

@ParkMan, if two scouts work on a merit badge (or 8 who happen to be in a patrol happen to hike someplace, or 8 venturers gather for ice cream and happen to discuss crew business, etc ...) and one of them abuses the other, BSA can disavow any liability since they weren't following YPT.

I applaud your fast-and-loose interpretation of YPT: If the scout calls his buddy without two registered adults online, it is no longer a Scouting activity. If a hike does not include two registered adults, it is, by definition, no longer a Scouting activity. If they conspire with the rest of their patrol to go fishing early in the morning on opening day without two registered adults, it is no longer a Scouting activity. You mention work that would count toward advancement. If a scout does it in the presence of 0, 1, or 50 registered adults, it still counts toward advancement -- except when it explicitly must be "under the auspices of BSA" ... as opposed to that night before opening day when his buddies camped independently by that sweet bend in the stream. But that is my point precisely, the majority of scouts worldwide aren't interested in doing stuff for advancement. They are interested in fulfilling the vision of the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mates. Simply put, by YPT standards, the majority of youth scouting is no longer a Scouting activity. Therefore, American youth must leave Scouting to actually scout, and they do ... in droves. In a sense, BSA over-sells Eagle and chaperoned HA bases: because it can no longer sell the vision of the pinnacle scouting experience. That (and also that Eagle was not explicitly a youth award) is why BSA amassed membership through the 1960's. That is also why predators began to target such organizations ... it was almost easier than getting a teacher's degree or grooming one's young family member.

Quick note about “line jumpers.” The boots on the ground giving the mRNA had 5 days to dispense vaccine once thawed. Doses came in blocks (I think my guy said 947 doses per block), no were thawed one block at a time. Clinics weren’t as concerned about lower risk folks getting vaxxed as they were about shots going to waste. Younger adults, like grocery clerks, have a tremendous number of contacts. So getting them vaccinated earlier makes some sense. The reality is that there was no model in which 300 million vaccines would be produced — let alone distributed by June. When I get a chance to talk to some modelers, I’m going to ask if they considered a strategy of vaccinating entire counties with the highest mortality first and then as new vaccine became available working down the list in order of Pandemic mortality.

Evidently my guy’s center wasn’t the only one, thus the CDC’s revised recommendation. I kissed a toddler last night. Beat handing an Easter basket through a screen door.

Why market Eagle? Because its the one thing about BSA that intrinsically demands adult association. High school kids don't need an adult for outdoor fun. They don't need an adult to: Grab a ball/weights/running shoes, call up buddies, and condition for the big game. They can arrange their own time in the weight room, the QB can schedule additional film study without the coach if needed. Visit sponsors, go to the feed store, get the stuff to raise your livestock, and bring it to auction. To my knowledge, they can have one-on-one E-mail exchanges with adults who help procure materials. But they can make that club happen with a minimum of adult interference. Order their parts, get together and assemble your controller, build a bot to haul their gear to someone's grandpa's cabin, fish while the bot makes the fire. Bring the catch to the bot and run the "rainbow trout with cashews in teriyaki sauce 4.0" subroutine. That last one is a bit forward-looking, but boys will be out opening day of trout season on their own because it's a lot more efficient than finding two adult leader's to chaperon them. (Heck, I never went fishing with an adult until I was married and went out with my in-laws.) Older youth set aside scouting and venturing because it is good and right for well-trained fourteen, fifteen, sixteen and seventeen year olds to fulfill the vision of the pinnacle scouting experience of hiking and camping independently with your mate. Yes, I believe that those youth are at higher specific risks outside of the accountability to an SM or Advisor. But higher risk does not always mean "wrong."

If by functioning, you mean steadily losing membership -- especially among older youth, then indeed we've been functioning like some exquisite frog boil. More seriously, YPT was initially designed so that leaders could chaperon according to a continuum from children who needed the presence of adults to adolescents who were naturally gaining autonomy. It then became a tool for BSA to shed legal liability. At that point, it became a binary youth vs. adult policy. 21st century YPT is the result of directed litigation. Not the other way around.