spitfidgetx

Forum mates: Any suggestions for the Citizenship in Community movie? Yours in Scouting, Landon

Gosh, I am so thankful I've found this forum. A particular shout out to Scoutldr, Mistysmere, Mike F and Twocubdad. I see the point about differentiating between 'medicated kids' and 'problem kids'. Thank all of you who gave me positive feedback to take to committee. I guess this is what this 'virtual roundtable' is supposed to be about, eh? (Oh, and to 'Scoutldr' the handle 'spitfidget' has nothing to do with scouts and all to do with a certain breed of sports cars, if you know what I am talking about!) Yours in Scouting (and please teach me the way) Spitfidgetx

This is my first post to this forum. I'm a Scouter of ten years, but five away from Scouts (dipped back down to Cubs). I've got five weeks of summer camp under my belt, and in the past four weeks (1999 to 2003), only had to give daily ADD meds to one child at one camp. This summer, as the second in command, I ended up in charge of meds for five boys, and four were ADD and of those, two took multiple meds (for depression, ADD, and I don't know what else all the pills were for). This was my worst week as a Scouter ever, in that an inordinate amount of the time of the two leaders (another and myself) went towards putting out fires caused by the two most heavily medicated boys. After the fact, reading a blog posted by the assistant camp director (an MD as I've been told), his helpful advice was "When I was a scoutmaster, if the scout had to take meds, the parents either came, or the scouts didn't". This seems harsh, given the realities of single families, families with parents who can't come the whole week, and etc., but frankly, I'd personally prefer it from a liability standpoint. Had we not been leaving that morning from camp, the two heavily medicated scouts would have been sent home given issues with knives (poking through cabin holes) and etc. Our committee is strongly divided on all this (thank goodness, I get to be 'just a parent', but was a former Committee Chair). Needless to say, the parents of all but one of the medicated scouts come to camp. The parents of the most heavily medicated do not. At all. Any words of wisdom and guidance/suggestions? I know I will not hand out meds to any more scouts (especially when I was verbally attacked by one of the med'd scout's guardians at the end of camp that the other med'd scout had 'assaulted' the first. Of course, this was the first word I'd heard of this )(1/2 hour before pulling out of a week long camp). However, as an attorney in my 'real life', I've been sued enough to know that even when I win (100% now), it is not fun to be sued. Again, any pointers, or advice? Short of telling my wife: 'Honey, I got the first Eagle through, you get the next!'? Yours in Scouting Spitfidgetx