elitts

It would depend on the nature of the statements and the behavior. Making serious "credible" threats is a crime, but not every threat is both serious and credible; and while bullying is bad, not every instance of someone being mean, or rude or anything else is actually bullying. The standard for making a report to police or CPS needs to be based upon what an average person might think is a problem, not simply what ANY person happens to report as bullying or inappropriate behavior. Particularly since there is so much bad information out there as to what "bullying" or "sexual harassment" actually mean. *begining anecdote * Twenty some years ago I was manager of a public pool and I had a woman come up to me absolutely livid about one of my lifeguards. She wanted me to know that she was going to be reporting one of my male guards (who was doing "in-pool duty" that day) to the parks department, police, and anyone else who would listen because "he was sexually harassing her 13-14 year old daughter by touching himself while looking at her and had done it repeatedly". Given the fact that he was unequivocally gay, that seemed pretty.unlikely so I asked if she'd like me to speak with him immediately and she agreed, so I called him out of the pool. As he climbed out he grabbed the front of his trucks again briefly; the mom gasped and said "There! You see! He just did it again! It's disgusting!" So I stifled a sigh, waved him away and then spent the next 5 minutes discussing the horrible elastic mesh inside men's swimsuits, the bad interior cut if our employer issued trunks and his complete disinterest in girls at all, let alone under-age ones. (And I later had a conversation with the guard about being a little more discreet)

You made a shiver run down my spine. "Oversight", NOT "Supervision". I've never had someone else installing supervision work out well. If our council started trying to actually supervise troop activities, I'm sure it would result in constant arguments as the different "supervisors" all had somewhat different interpretations (including a fair number of straight up errors) of what the BSA's vaguer guidelines mean.

Thank-you for the clear explanation and reasoning behind the way that stuff is handled over on Legal Street. Not to say I love the system, but I do appreciate the explanation.

It's their own team mate. So they stand right behind them and throw through the opening. Mostly it forces them to go slower and work together. But yeah, throwing from a distance would be bad. Plus the game is played with lightish balls. Wiffle balls, foam balls, inflatable balls, thin rubber balls etc.

Depending on the age range, "creating a good game" can often just be taking some existing game and adding a few unnecessarily complications. Cubs in particular tend to love that, but the younger scouts do too. I got a lot of mileage out of game I found somewhere that involves getting lots of different size and shape balls, splitting into teams on opposing sides of a field and telling them they want to throw all the balls into the other team's area. Scoring is 1 point for every ball your opponent has and -3 points if they throw a ball out of bounds on purpose. Next round, you can only throw with 2 hands at the same time, next round you can only throw through a circle your teammate makes over their head with their arms, next round you can only throw while being held above ground by a teammate. The best one was that you had to spin around 4 times before you could throw a ball.

#1: I agree generally. I'd feel differently if the uniform shirt didn't suck. When they start making it out of synthetics with 3%-5% lycra and have someone do the measurements that has a brain, I might start feeling differently. #2: I think Ranks serve a purpose of breaking up the progress to Eagle into manageable steps. But if I were in charge, I'd probably get rid of "Scout and Second Class". Make Tenderfoot requirements the basic safety components and 1st class all the basic camping, first aid and other skills. But I'd keep Star and Life and I'd probably add in more stringent "participation" type requirements so you don't get scouts getting to 1st class, then completing Star Life and Eagle without actually participating in troop activities during their last 2-3 years. 3: I agree about the Adult (over)Association. Need to get rid of NSP so we don't have scouts get used to being shepherded by an adult. AND BSA needs to be far more explicit about what the ideal camping situation is. ie: if every adult can see and hear everything going on in the youth campsite, they are too close. That "300-feet between patrols and adults" gets overlooked in a big way. I realize that that isn't always going to be possible in some camping situations, but the fact that that's the ideal needs to be far more prominent so that adults GET that they aren't supposed to be a constant presence in the scout campsite. I'm dead set against snacks during meetings, it completely disrupts everything else going on. But as the last thing before post-meeting socialization, it's a great tool. Particularly in Cubs, I used it as a gentle incentive for patrol participation, wearing the uniform correctly (keep it tucked in) and as completely as possible and as a prize for activities.

One of the reasons why I keep reminding our scouts to end every meeting with 30-40 minutes of a game. I've even been tempted to build a snack into the troop budget for the end of meetings. I know getting a treat of some kind does great things for making meetings better in the working world, no reason why it wouldn't work for kids.

Please keep in mind that this forum runs on slightly tighter rules of conduct than some other places. Low value snarky responses such are not acceptable here given the highly emotional nature of the subject-matter. Please consider this an informal warning.

This is one thing I generally agree with. I do think the numbers have and will prove that most of the steps implemented by the BSA in the last 40 years had already done much to mitigate (not eliminate) the problem; but even so, I think there was still a significant feeling of "well, that could never happen here" among active scouters that opened up dangerous holes in the protections for kids. Kosnoff was one of the most frequent and vocal advocates of the idea that the LCs were sitting on massive piles of un-tapped wealth in their camps from the early days of this bankruptcy. He's the one that was pushing the idea that the BSA could simply liquidate all the Councils, absorb their assets and include them in the bankruptcy too. So while he may not have been a direct source in this article, the core concept was one of this talking points for a LONG time (relative to this case).

I don't actually disagree with your overall point, but in any troop bringing more than 1 leader to summer camp, the 18-20 year olds are actually really helpful. Unless your camp's sites are really far apart, Two Deep Leadership is maintained by all the other registered leaders present at Summer Camp so those 18-20 year olds do just fine since they can provide more guidance than an adult can without really breaking the concept of "scout led". Or in other words, those young adults can guide without making the scouts feel like "The adults are taking over".

I agree there's a lot to discuss in any gun control regulation, and most of the issues are complex, particularly given the fact that the cat most certainly can't be stuffed back in the bag. I'd just love there to be a reasonable conversation about what kinds of controls make sense and are reasonable without the more hardcore folks sticking their fingers in their ears, shutting their eyes and screaming "God and the 2nd amendment said I get my guns!" over and over until people give up.

At a minimal level I'm good with just establishing a system allowing family or friends to file a report to get the process started. Honestly, I'm not familiar with how the laws are set up everywhere, I'm sure it's a complete mishmash and this isn't an issue that concerns me enough to spend time researching it. I just know that they tried to pass a law along those lines here in Michigan 10-15 years ago and the local NRA came out against it like they were trying to cut the trigger fingers off of everyone under the aegis of "who knows what they'll try to take away next!!" In Michigan the only way you can be restricted is if you have been involuntarily committed for mental illness. That leaves a LOT of open ground since about the only way that happens (here at least) is if you commit a crime and plead mental defect. And when I talk about taking guns away from people, ideally I'm not talking about the government just straight up seizing them. Forcing them to give them to a relative works just fine for me. Seems like a better option than forcing kids to "steal" the weapons from parents when their judgement starts slipping. (as my dad had to do with my great grandfather when he went from sitting outside "hunting" squirrels in a lawn chair to shooting at them through the windows, to shooting at them through the windows without always remembering to open them first)

This has been my contention for as long as I can remember. I'm all good with the 2nd amendment and I have no interest in taking guns in general away from people; but for at least the last 20 years (dunno how much longer) the NRA has stood firm against ANY form of regulation under the "slippery slope" argument. I just can't see things like the option of a court taking guns away from people with diagnosed Dementia or other major psychological disorders as something any rational person should be against. I don't like the idea of someone not taking their pills resulting in weapons being in the hands of someone having a psychotic break.

I agree, that's certainly not a conversation that should involve all members of the troop. I would think Key 3 and maybe 1-3 more if there are long term committee members with positions who know all the parties involved would be sufficient and appropriate. But, it doesn't sound like the OP actually engaged in any significant dialog with the CC on the issue, so it's hard to know if the CC saying "lets discuss it with everyone" meant literally everyone or if he/she meant it the way my CC would have with just the core Committee members.

Well kind-of. Certainly the social issues had an impact on membership, but I suspect it's not the lion's share of the issue. A very significant issue has been scope creep in sports combined with the increasing rate of 2 working parents in families. Many of those sports that were once seasonal have become year round or 3-season endeavors. Tennis, Lacross, Baseball, Field Hockey, Soccer, etc.. So where once a kid might do scouts for 9 months and just stop long enough for a sport season, now their whole year is tied up so they just skip scouts entirely. And the reason BSA started moving earlier and earlier isn't purely to bump up membership numbers, it was to try and get those kids engaged with Scouting before they were getting involved in sports hoping that then they'd be more likely stick with scouting, at least on a part-time basis. With more and more families having two parents working, the amount of time they are able to spend on their children's extra-cirriculars is much more heavily limited that it was in the 60s-70s. And since scouting at any level is significantly more parent involved than sports, it tends to lose out when it comes to parent interest even if the kids are still interested. Unfortunately, there isn't much of a way to get that to change, but I suspect the suggestions I've seen to keep Cubs to just 3-3.5 years is probably a good start cause it lessens the parental burn-out.

It's amazing what billion or trillion dollar endowment funds will do for you when it comes to self-insuring.

That's exactly what the situation is, though most of those parents won't admit it. They want their children to always be completely safe and happy, obediently following the rules and doing only what they are told and not having to bear the responsibility or consequences for anything so they can just "be kids". Somehow they think their kids will magically pick up the ability to cope with life's trials after they are 18. The idea of raising children that question (politely) adults, determine what they think a solution should be on their own and who can function somewhat independently is simply anathema to some parents.

I found a 40s or 50s BSA published book of "Games to play" that included things like "Chicken Fights", and the game where you try and slap your opponent's hand before they can pull it away. I bet the BSA would disavow those too if ever asked about them. Huh. I wonder if Red Rover is still kosher? I loved that game as a kid.

The problem with "Calling National" is that they are only giving you the answer from the perspective of the "official" Youth Protection Violation report policy. So from that perspective they gave you a technically correct answer, but still didn't actually address your issue. Your CC isn't trying to conduct an official "Youth Protection Violation Investigation", they are doing a concurrent examination of the situation to see if immediate troop level action is required. National has only one button to push when it comes to Troop level leadership; they can pull a Scouter's membership. National doesn't have the ability to remove him as Scoutmaster while leaving him as a registered Scouter, or limit his behavior or tell him he can't make decisions about Class B uniforms. They can only decide if his behavior warrants kicking him out of the program. By contrast, your Troop committee DOES have the ability to do all of those other things, which is likely why they wanted to meet to discuss the issue. And there is NOTHING about the the Youth Protection report you filed that says a troop can't also independently review an adult's actions and respond in addition to whatever the local council decides to do.

Yep, I can easily see an exchange going something like: SE: "I can't give you any information at this stage, if you want to know what the complaint entails you'll need to speak with the aggrieved party." Turns into: CC: "The SE can't tell me what happened so you need to tell me what the issue was that got reported so that we can discuss it with the committee and figure out what needs to be done" Turns into: Parent: "The CC is demanding I turn over a copy of my report so they can investigate it"

No, that's not scout led, that's "scout figure-head puppet" and I promise the scouts can see the difference. Even in a brand new troop, the counseling and advice should be coming from adults either before or after the meeting or activity in the form of a "what worked, what didn't" style conversation, unless something is going seriously off the rails of course.

I think that's part of what's really tripping me up here too. I've seen too many instances of parents going to battle for their kids only to find out what the kid told the parent in the first place wasn't exactly or entirely what happened. I don't know if that's the case here or not, but some parts of the story as laid out certainly trip some warning bells saying SOMETHING is missing here.

I just want to make it clear that I never said, nor do I think, that the behavior the OP has described is acceptable. If I were the CC or COR and I became aware of an incident like this it would take an other-wise sterling record, a completely repentant attitude and some serious consideration before I considered anything besides booting the SM from his/her position if not the troop. I just Bullying is certainly reportable, all I said is that not all instances of someone being mean is "bullying", regardless of whether or not there is a power imbalance. It really depends on what "behaved poorly towards him" actually means. Just didn't want to hang out with him? Told him to go away? Started calling him names? I have to think, given the topic, if the kids had actually been openly hostile, the OP would have mentioned it. Expecting kids to maintain an emotional calm at all times in order to be perfectly kind is ridiculous. If there was some kind of big blow up between some kids on a camp-out, I'm not going to bat an eye if the groups involved want to avoid each other for an hour or two until their feelings settle down. Of course if it goes on for an extended period of time or if one side or the other starts trying to entice others to ostracize people, it's a different story. Well, I started my post when there were only about 4 comments. There's been a whole lot of additional information OP has tacked on since then that makes the situation look like the SM is a significant problem with a history of abusive behavior over the pink shirt thing. But I still think it's reasonable for the core Committee to ask the OP and maybe scout to come in discuss the situation. (though not with a large group of parents and maybe not with the SM) But to be clear, it should be to discuss the incident, not the report to the Council. As far as the whole "repeated behavior" thing, well that one is trickier. In this case, if the SM has been reported 3 times (I'm going to assume by different people and not OP) for harassing people wearing pink, I think it starts to be pretty clear the guy has a homophobic issue with the color pink and he's bullying anyone that violates his standards of masculinity. But I'm always going to be hesitant about claims of bullying for single incidents happening to different people unless there's a clear unifying factor (as in this case) or a significant pattern of recurrence.

I'm going to agree that, on it's face, this wasn't really a YP violation. It may well have been a "Bad Scoutmaster " situation, but not a Youth Protection violation. A single incidence of being mean or rude or unkind isn't "Bullying", it's just being unpleasant. Telling your son "that shirt isn't appropriate for the activity and you need to change" is likewise not bullying. If the Scoutmaster encouraged the other boys to then be unkind to your son, that WOULD be bullying, but if the other boys were just pissed at your son for taking up 45 minutes of their time over not changing his shirt, that is not bullying. Frankly, the Committee Chair and maybe COR is exactly where this issue "as presented" should probably be dealt with, but I'm not faulting you for filing a report with the SE either. And while I don't think you should be asked to sit in a meeting for 30 minutes of grilling, it would be entirely appropriate for you to sit with the key committee members and the COR (not all the assorted parents) for a conversation about what happened. And as a side note, what "Class B" is for your Troop is pretty much up to the Troop Committee or maybe PLC depending on how the troop handles it. That description of what a Class B uniform is doesn't mean a scout gets to pick ANY scouting related Tshirt to wear. The whole point of a Class B uniform is to wear something more comfortable than the field uniform (Class A) but something that still distinguishes and identifies them as a group. In other words, the point is for them to look the same.

This is correct. Doing that allows you to provide an explaination or comment on the post. You can even create your own reply and then report it with a comment to draw the Moderator's attention to an ongoing problem. Alternately, you can click on a moderator's name and message them directly, though that doesn't go to everyone the way "Report" does.