Scoutx2mom

See posts 4, 14 and 16. He had wanted to do JASM and help support the current SPL. No longer desires it. He had several meetings with the SM which have proven more about what the SM wants him to do without much consideration of what my son is willing to offer.

The giving credit for "non-performance of duty" of POR is an item which is currently being debated. The question then becomes how do you judge it---if they did one or teachings during the time frame did they meet the requirements? Or if no one asks the Chaplin's Aide to do anything, should they be penalized? How about the Historian, if the pictures are taken by the parents, and the boy doesn't appear to take any of the work, should he get credit?

Lucky him, his mom is retired military and Dad is a reservist. His ARC time is spent serving the military population. So he's been given plenty of military exposure. Based on experience I know that not all military personnel can deal with people in other than a military manner, even when its no longer appropriate. In this case there needs to be a separation of Scout and military. It seems to be forgotten that there is supposed to be some fun involved in Scouts. He's got enough badges to earn the three palms twice over. He served as Troop Guide early on.

Sadder than you know. The current leadership came in when my son was in the final year of his quest for Eagle. By that time my son was also indicating that he wanted to go to West Point. The new leaderships assumption is that my son wanted Eagle as a block for the application. Since many of them are either retired military or active duty, they took it upon themselves to start "training" him for the academy. This is when they started making comments about his maturity and taking him to task whenever he didn't agree with their opinions. Granted, he is occasionally argumentative and he does get carried away in his enthusasim(sp)and does stupid things. So far though I haven't seen him do anything which would endanger himself or others. In fact I usually have people who come up to me and praise him for "what a good kid he is." As for the SM and a few of the ASMs, they do have a bit more hands on approach than the previous leadership. That's being worked on. There are several active and good Venture crews in the area. Now it's just a case of him figuring out what suits him best. The saddest part is his statement, "Maybe the 17 years and 364 day wonders had it right afterall." As for my son, he's got enough challenges and excitement coming up for the summer. There Jamboree, summer camp, band camp, academy camp, volunteer at the library and for the ARC. He'll be okay.

My son attends Scouts because he likes to hang out with the guys in the troop and doing Scout things. What I was trying to communicate is the fact that he's 16, soon to be 17, and still regularly attends the meeting and outings. Something which is less common boys his age with all of the other things that they've got going on in their lives. He worked to become an Eagle, because of the challenge. He continues to seek out challenges which is why I think he wanted the Jr ASM position. However, with the current SM, my son has since decided he would not take the position for anything. He is now looking to join a Venturing Crew where he'll get a chance to being treated like everyone else instead of being held to a special standard.

Our troop also had that problem of monotonous menus, or ones where the cooking skills weren't exactly growing. My favorite, eating the oatmeal dry out of the packet and begging for a spoon from the adults so they wouldn't have to clean up. One of the things we did is arrange a weekend where some of our ASMs demonstrated cooking all sorts of things using DOs, foil etc. They did everything from Hot Pockets to stews. The ASMs explained it was okay to make mistakes, just try it again. Since then, the guys have been trying different things. There sure have been a lot of mistakes, but that was okay, they just try again. Sometimes you just have to remind them about the basics.

Can we get back to the original question? How does your troop utilize Eagle Scouts?

Anger issues---my son was really irritated by the other Scouts in the troop after he finished his term as SPL, completed in October. He was getting caught between the troop leaders and the Scouts. The troop leaders (both SM and SPL)would tell him to get something done, and the Scouts would say they didn't have to listen to him because he didn't hold a position. My son does have a type A personality, and there was a lot going on at the time for him. He was stressed out. It doesn't help that he has deep voice which can be heard everywhere when he yelled. He's calmed down quite a bit since then.

It's not so much about the position as the use of the Eagle Scout. He's being held accountable for the actions of all the other scouts because of the Eagle.

It's been a long since our troop had an Eagle who wasn't "17 year 364 wonder." We've actually had the older boys attempt to set up a Venture patrol, but there hasn't been a great deal of success with that. A whole other forum could be done with that one. To be honest, my son was offered an instructor position, but he turned it down because the troop already had two others assigned to that position. Plus he felt it was going backwards. He did inquire about the Jr ASM position, but was told he needed to deal with his anger issues before he could do that. I had him talk with an ASM,who my son highly respects, who told my son that having a position wasn't important, and that he should just wait. So my son waited until after his second palm board. Now he's been told that he has a position with the OA, (he's the program coordinator) and that should be enough. Needless to say, my son is frustrated.

My son made Eagle in Nov 2004. Since he's still of an age to remain with the troop, he continues to attend meetings and outings on a regular basis. My question is how does your troop utilize Eagle Scouts with over a year to go before they age out? His troop seems to be unsure about what to do with him. He's senior in rank, but holds no position, except to make him fill in whenever someone else doesn't do their job.