blackft

Thank you all so much for your help. I really love what WisconsinMomma said because I don't want to chase the boy away, but I do want to retain my professional demeanor and I'm afraid that I've lost that during this challenge. I guess he really hit my main hot button lately and that's communication. We just had an event where the Scouts were to prepare breakfast for the Church congregation. Only two of my boys showed up, but thankfully the Venture Crew and older (retired?) Scouts were there to run things. I had several folks challenge me that we didn't communicate it properly. We mentioned it in the meeting. We mentioned it at the Camp out the week before. It was on our Troop Facebook page, an Email was sent to all parents and it was on the Google Calendar. We had a great event, but I agree with you when you say that I need a plan for how we communicate. I thought I had a plan but communication only happens if the message is sent and received.

That's why I'm not using any names or locations for myself or this boy. I don't know what the exact "situation" is. All I know is that none of the other kids want to deal with him because his behavior is difficult for us to deal with. I realize that special needs is a politically correct term that has a very specific definition to those who keep up with the textbook, but to me special needs also means that an individual has needs that are special. It's so exhausting that I'm about to hang up the leader shirt I've been wearing for almost a decade.

Thanks everyone. I'm just trying to do my best while not allowing myself and the rest of my troop get derailed and distracted from the mission of guiding young folks toward self-fulfillment and leadership. I'm even now considering that perhaps this boy and father have been put in my life to help me improve myself. The only problem that keeps gnawing at me is, if I focus even more attention on helping this boy succeed, will he ever succeed or will he continue to sap energy from everyone who takes the time to help him? Ah, direct him toward his patrol leader! The kids lead the troop! I also like that answer because it gets me off the hook, but I hate that answer because the SPL and ASPL are trying to get the 5 brand new scouts up to the Scout rank and this kid would take valuable advancement time from them.

I've joined this forum because I was recently confronted by a rather angry father and I'm really confused if my natural reaction was appropriate. I've read some of the other topics and they seem to cover somewhat similar root subjects but I'm just hoping for some guidance on my specific situation. We have a 15 year old boy who may be special needs, or he may just be difficult. He'll never answer a question directly and he'll argue and renegotiate everything you ask him to do, all with a smirk on his face. So many events have been derailed because he seems to innocently mis-participate that I'm left wondering if he simply enjoys the chaos he creates. Last year I resolved to do my best to give him special treatment because the other boys were distancing themselves. He was not voted for AOL and the SM was so nice is playing it off like the boys didn't understand the voting procedures. I've asked my son to also be more inclusive to see if this would change the outlook of this scout, but this guy just won't make anything easy. He asks so many questions over and over again that the SM has asked that he does not ask another question without a note pad and pen. Last camp out, the boy insisted he was told the wrong time and caused all sorts of problems with our SM's wife needing to get involved to escort him to where we were. I put the time and location of all of our events on our Facebook page and on an electronic shared calendar and we cover the events in meeting and we re-explain it to him and his parents after the meeting. The exact same thing was set to happen when last week I overheard the boy tell his father the wrong time for our upcoming camp out. I took out my phone, showed father and son the information on the calendar and Facebook and spent about 5 minutes covering the details that were just discussed in the meeting. As I turned around to leave, the dad asks the SM to recap everything I had just covered. I threw up my hands and said something to of the effect, "I just covered that!" and walked to my car where my son was waiting. Last night the father walks in and confronts me to ask if I have a problem with his son being a Scout. Do I have a problem with his son specifically? I had forgotten about the week before so I'm wondering where all this is coming from. I start telling him about one of three of today's situations where the boy was being needlessly difficult and he cuts me off to remind me about last week. The more I try to explain the more of a creep I feel like because I didn't volunteer to be a leader to make anyone upset. A moment of natural frustration on my part has unraveled years of patience but I can't help but want to distance myself like the rest of the troop has. What do I do? Or is this difficult behavior really not supposed to be tolerated at scouts? Every kid forgets but this kid in particular has me at my wit's end.