new and frustrated

[kari_cardi]

Wrong or right, what SP suggested doesn't seem that different to me than the new boy I signed off of as unit leader so he could attend day camp with his friend. His parents have no intention of being involved in scouting except for that day camp, it was a child care issue. I felt it was misleading for the camp to advertise that any boy could attend without also stating that boys who attended would be registered with BSA.

 

Also, moosetracker, I home school and like most home school parents I sign my sons up for all sorts of activities like art classes, writing classes, sports and scouts. I sign them up for the experience, not for socialization. Socialization best happens naturally, and I think it is a detriment to expect kids to only hang out with other kids their own age. I don't know anyone who doesn't want friends for their kids. I do know parents who want to select friends for their kids, home schooled, public schooled, private schooled, or any other kind of school. Sometimes it's for a good reason, and sometimes it isn't. But it certainly isn't exclusive to home schooled families.

 

Suzy, good luck in starting your new unit. I hope you find the boys you need.

[moosetracker]

OK, experience is good too.. Experience is still learning from different people, as the parent isn't the most knowledgeable or best qualified to teach all subject.. It means trusting other adults with that knowledge to offer the experience, or working as one of the adults with the help of other adults to bring about the best experience.. But, unless your fabulously wealthy it means signing them up for a community based program, rather than hiring a exclusive tutor.. Allowing them to interact with others rather then just their parents.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

Here here!

 

Let us especially heed the Moosetracker advice about "trusting other adults" and let us trust them to raise their children.

 

Let us not assume that homeschoolers need us to save them from themselves by barring them from the Lone Scout program so that we can satisfy ourselves that they are "socialized."

 

Let us recognize that no one owes us any personal explanations or assurances that their children are being "socialized" to our satisfaction, and that unless we know them and are in their social circle ourselves, their "socialization" is none of our business unless we see evidence of some crime or gross neglect.

 

And when someone advises us about "allowing them to interact with others rather then just their parents" we should agree that this is good policy and agree to follow it... and we should return the favor of the good advice by advising the adviser to stop beating his wife and starving his dog.(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)

[moosetracker]

CC.. you trust the parent who can not let their child contact with anyone adult or child, other then themselves until their 18th birthday (and beyond) to be raising their child right.. Hopefully you may have the chance to hire them someday and have them work for you.

 

I will trust any child homeschooled by parents who allow their child to become enrolled in art classes, writing classes, sports and scouts and other community activities. Whether the parent, like sasha, enrolls them for the expirence, or you enroll them for the socialization, or you enroll them to enrich their lives.. Those are the home schooled children, I would be happy to hire.. They wont have to call mommy for advice on every little thing.. I wont have mommy calling me, because I gave their child a project to challenging for them.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

"Hopefully you may have the chance to hire them someday and have them work for you."

 

Thank you for hoping that my eyes are opened. If it's really a common and serious problem, I'd like to know about it.

 

Your comments suggest that you are convinced raising dysfunctional kids is common enough among homeschoolers to be a primary concern in dealing with them.

 

Are you sure this idea isn't a prejudice?

 

Profiling isn't necessarily a bad aid to making private judgment and decisions. If you can observe one behavior that has a strong statistical correlation with another, you may rationally consider the probability of the unobserved but correlated trait or behavior if circumstance requires you to make a judgment about something for which the likelihood of that unknown factor is relevant.

 

But is there a correlation between homeschool and social maladjustment?

 

If there's any correlation at all, the sum of what I've read and experienced on the matter suggests it may be a slight inverse correlation, not the positive correlation that you worry about.

 

[BSA24]

Wasn't our country built by people who had cabins no closer than 2 miles to one another. Didn't they only see other people every now and then, when they went into town for supplies or went to a local church? Were't all kids home schooled previous to our government setting up schools?

 

What are we worried about here? I don't see this as a problem. How much social interaction beyond the family is really required? What exactly is going to go wrong?

 

Trying to say that a minimum amount of community involvement is necessary just looks like helicoptering to me.

[moosetracker]

No, I don't.. But, I think few homeschool parents would use the lone scout program also, prefering to have their children in a normal unit..

 

Dysfunctional children are all over the place whether in public school, private school or home schooled.. .. They are either raised by overprotective, overcontroling, or living their 2nd childhood parents, along with parents on the opposite end of the spectrum those who are self-centered and don't care what happen to the children.

 

The homeschooled children are rarely raised by self-centered parents who don't care for them.. But, can easily fall into the other category.. Parents not trusting any programs where they don't have complete control, are definately point to overprotective, or overcontroling..

 

As for examples, read some of the other forum threads, or other articles in general..

 

Parents who now go with their child to their job interviews.

Parents who call the boss to complain about a missed job promotion, or to give their child a raise.

Parents who come in to yell at the boss about overworking their child.

Parents who have to have the child call almost every hour of the day to give detail of all that has happened, even if the child is away at college or out in the work force.

In Scouts they are the parents who make sure that the program revolves around their child, forget the other scouts.. There is a thread now about parents who insisted taking their child to Boy Scout camp for the entire week when he was a cub scout. There have been many others of ridiculous rantings and ravings. Or SM's who are only in it to make sure their son gets preferential treatment.

Parents who have enough money buy or build homes with indoor playgrounds, to keep their children from ever having to go outdoors.

Parents who have to be "the friend" not the parent.. Feeling they should naturally hang with the gang on every outing to the mall, or to the movie.. Some doing the beer runs and wild parties to be the "hip parent".

Parents who do all their childrens homework for them.. And come in to argue over a grade, or that their child didn't get the lead in the play.

 

then you got the parents who kill or do something illegal or at least dishonest to do away with the competition.

 

 

So maybe you are right put the child in Lone Scouting.. It will save some poor SM and the whole troop, boys and parents from being run in circles by over controling parents and spoiled bratty children.. But then the allowance should not be to allow home schooled children to be a reason for being a lone scout.. The reason should be listed, allowing the boy to be in the lone scout program if the parents nor child are too controlling to be able to work with others well. Then it will be open to other kids who are not home schooled, and save many Packs & troops alot of headaches.. Why, maybe even we can allow CM's & SM's to make the recommendation that the boy is not fit for anything else but Lone scouting(This message has been edited by moosetracker)

[moosetracker]

BSA24 - When that was happening (a long time ago, as one room school houses were around early in our history).. Then children rarely got schooling.. Education was how to tend the farm, boys taking care of crops and hunting for food. Girls how to cook, clean and make homespun clothes..

 

Then when they aged they did not work with others, but stayed out on the farm, still not needing to socialize.

Now there are few farms, and even if you go into buisness for yourself, you need to learn that unless your an artist who says "This is what I made, either buy it or do not".. You will still need to socialize and get along with the customer, and understand they will not pay you if you don't follow what they ask for, but disregard it and do it your own way.. Then when they get mad, mommy wont be able to get them to pay up either.

 

What was, isn't anymore.. Don't try finding a wife by grabbing her hair and pulling her into your den either.. Just because it was allowed at one time in history, it won't be well recieved now-a-days..

[SeattlePioneer]

Socializing is what public schools boast about since they often do a lousy job of educating children.

[5yearscouter]

to the OP

You have several options.

unless the 2 boys have been removed from membership in the prior troop, (which is unlikely) they are still registered scouts. That means they are covered by insurance and registered scouts can attend provisional camps if available.

If adults who currently want to become leaders in the new unit, were leaders in the prior troop and have not been removed from membership in the troop (which is also unlikely) then they can attend summer camp as well --but would need to find someone who would take them provisionally. In that instance the other troops that you have visited may allow you to attend summer camp with them provisionally that way. I've seen that happen when boys and adults were "in between troops". Finding a troop to go to summer camp is gonna be difficult at this late of date IMHO.

 

Or you can transfer these boys and adults to another troop that you have visited with. That usually costs $1 plus any troop fees. If you talk to them about your situation--that you are leaving a troop, thought about starting your own troop, but don't have enough boys to make it happen--they may accept you. They may also look at you weird and worry that you'd be joining their troop in order only to try to recruit 3 more boys for your start up unit. They also may not have "room" to bring you to summer camp with them unless they have last minute cancellations.

 

You can beat the bushes around your kid's school and see if anyone wants to join your troop, run ads in newspaper, put up flyers at the grocery store. this will take time.

 

see directly with council registrar what it would take to register 2 boys as lone scouts with their parent. This may work and then you'll still be scrounging for a summer camp location.

 

Ideally you'd spend the summer getting a plan in place, calendar, place to hold meetings, CO, supplies and materials and camping gear donated if possible if you really really have your heart set on starting a new unit. recruiting flyers created and approved if you are able to send them home with scouts, info from DE about what areas you could recruit from--sometimes councils or districts have things divided up by school district to keep units from stepping on toes of other units and causing grief for the DE and council from fighting units. Take the boys camping as family camping and figure out if this is all going to work out for you and the adults you have worked out. Take all the training you can find, even if it means driving a long distance to do so asap. get prepared so you can hit the ground running. even if this summer ends up as toast for the boys to go to summer camp. it just may not work out.

 

[jdsmerud]

Padding your membership numbers with paper scouts hurts the unit and the boys. When it comes time for QU (now JTE) and units miss the mark on advancement and long term camp percentages because they have "paper scouts" that don't camp or advance everyone in that unit loses The boys miss out on recognitation they could have earned, leaders miss out on QU requirements for awards. Carrying inactive Scouts through a re-charter, hoping they return is one thing and bad enough, but the benefit of this isn't worth it for the unit.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello jdsmerud,

 

 

You are reading your own prejudices into this case.

 

 

The term "paper Scouts" is a vague term. I suggest that there is such a thing as a fraudulent application.

 

But that's not what I suggested. I suggested that a applications for real boys, signed by real parents and a real unit leader and paid for with real dollars be obtained in order to form a new unit.

 

The bottom line is that those are real applications, not fraudulent applications.

[jdsmerud]

Seattle,

 

I hear what you are saying, and I'm with you on signing up any Scouting age youth that may get involved with the program even slightly in the future. The problem I have is with new unit charters and in-active registrants, unless the unit recruits heavily prior to the next re-charter, they will be carrying these "ghosts" until the unit gets more established, which could take some time. I would rather they wait until they have 5 Scouts ready to be active before a new unit charter, it makes the unit start in a more traditional organization situation, which will carry on as the unit picks up more youths. I don't mean to offend or accuse the OP but 2 parents, 2 boy units turn into helicopter parent advancement machines, that don't serve the boys developement in the way the patrol method does. Common sense rules in these situations and not being directly involved begs these kinds of discussion, I don't mean to entice arguements as I'm sure we are all on a similiar page here.

[AlamanceScouter]

Suzy, as others have said try to get the 2 boys to camp as provisional scouts registered under their old troop......I will just add that their summer camp experience will hopefully help them to be the anchors of the new troop once the Webelos cross over next March.

 

Good luck and welcome to the board. You will learn more about how to do Scouting right here than most anywhere.........and folks like moose and SP...while they might disagree from time to time have great insight into the program.

[SuzyBullett]

After many phone calls, talking and talking and talking... We are officially a troop. We got 3 more boys to fill out applications. District got back to us late last week and said all the paperwork is in, it is processed and now to move forward.