Am I over-reacting? follow-up

[Bob White]

NJ

 

What makes you believe that the SE has anymore experience with this than the scoutmaster has?

 

The SM has only a few decisions to make

 

He either calls the police or he doesn't.

He gives this to the committee to deal with or he doesn't

He talks to the Scout or he doesn't.

 

Why would he need an SE?

 

 

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[Twocubdad]

Doctor, lawyer or Indian Chief, if he thinks the SE can be of value, he sould talk to him.

 

My first call would be to my CC to let him know what's going on. At some point I would also call my COR and IH for the same reason.

 

My second call would be to my District Director, because I value his opinion and I believe he has more contacts -- if not experience -- in such things. For one, one of the other DE has an extensive background in juvenile issues and may be helpful. I would also hope, that at some point in the career of anyone who is a professional in a youth services organization, they all, including the SE, would have some training in this area. Again, that's a hope, not a fact.

 

And with the possibility of a bad outcome -- whether that's police involvement, media attention, or a really bad outcome -- he may like a heads up.

 

Other resources would be an ASM who is an ex-cop, one of my committee members who is a middle school teacher, my son's old pediatrician who used be be a den leader, maybe the counselor at the school, any number of school administrators I know.

 

Sooner or later I would try the yellow pages, but I would definitely find help.(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[NJCubScouter]

Bob asks:

 

What makes you believe that the SE has anymore experience with this than the scoutmaster has?

 

Maybe the fact that the SM made pretty clear that he had no experience with this, and did not know how to handle it, when he started the thread. You could only go up from there, right? If he knew how to handle it, he wouldn't have started the thread.

 

And when he tried the option that seemed the most logical to me, which was very similar to what you (Bob) suggested -- try to have a nice, calm conversation about it with the family -- the SM got yelled and screamed at for his trouble. So now he probably knows less what to do than he did when he first asked us!

 

The SM has only a few decisions to make

 

He either calls the police or he doesn't.

He gives this to the committee to deal with or he doesn't

He talks to the Scout or he doesn't.

 

Yes, and look at the answers that this forum has given him, in two different threads: Every one of those options, on both sides, in various combinations, amounting to a confusing array of different possibilities. I don't think we've helped him very much.

 

Why would he need an SE?

 

It doesn't have to be the SE necessarily. Twocubdad, in the post above, makes some good suggestions for other options. But it should be somebody. Someone else suggested the SE, and I agreed with it. My reasoning is that the SE is the person you call when there is suspected child abuse within the Scouting program, so how far a leap from that is a situation where you have a teenager sending a death threat to an adult leader, within the Scouting program? I realize that there are specific reasons for the SE's involvement in the YP context that don't directly apply here, but it just doesn't seem like that big a jump.

 

As for the "overreaction" issue, I don't think people have really overreacted to this problem, at least not much. We now know that this kid's father has basically taught him that death threats are a big funny joke and that anybody who doesn't "get it" deserves to be yelled and screamed at. I don't think I'm the only one here who is concerned that this Scout may have a real problem, which goes beyond how quickly his Eagle project gets approved.

[Beavah]

Oi! What an odd thread.

 

BobWhite is quite correct, eh? An SE is the chief executive of a small NFP business. He has da skills of a CEO. If you're lookin' for advice on a youth issue like this one, far better to sit down with a teacher yeh know and respect, or someone else who really deals with a variety of kids on a regular basis.

 

Otherwise, you're down to BobWhite's list of actions to choose from.

 

1) Call the cops. Perhaps the lad is arrested and the parent charged as an accessory or under one of the "corrupting youth" statutes. Social services will get involved, dad may lose custody. In many districts, this will also result in a removal from school and placement in an alternative education setting. Let me just say, folks, that there is no reason at all to assume a measured, reasonable response by "the system" unless yeh have a personal relationship with all the players. The folks in the system spend so much of their time dealin' with real criminals that they start to see everyone as a real criminal. Zealous representation by a competent defense attorney is therefore absolutely necessary, so this family needs to be spendin' many thousands of dollars. Boy and family will be lost to Scouting forever.

 

Is that really where you want to go? And if it is, why on earth did yeh let this kid be a scout in your program in the first place?

 

2) Bring it to the troop Committee for their action, presumably to consider being ejected from the troop. Personally, I think expulsion is a last step, eh, after all efforts to work with a lad have failed. Committees, particularly committees that are mostly parents, are goin' to be all over the place just da way folks on this board are, eh? That's goin' to cause a lot of dissension within your unit, no matter what the outcome.

 

3) Deal with it as the Scoutmaster. Meet with the boy, maybe share with him all the comments from here, eh? Show him how serious it is, and talk about the quandry you're in. Ask him if he needs help, or if right now he thinks he could hurt somebody. Yeh see, the thing about the perps at VT and Columbine and whatnot is that they sent all kinds of warning signals and opened up to friends in advance about what they were thinkin' of. Ask him what he thinks he needs. Make your decision on where yeh go after that.

 

4) Do nothing beyond make a side comment to let him know yeh noticed and you though it was inappropriate, because you've known the lad and his dad for all these years and it's obvious that they're tellin' the truth - it really was just a lame joke.

 

Your choice. I vote for #3 if yeh think there's some prior hints in this lad's behavior that he's dealing with some issues, or #4 if not.

 

Beavah

[Dustoff]

Perhaps you should certainly make it clear to all that this letter will be attached to the Eagle Scout Leadership Service Project Workbook before it goes up for any and all approvals.

 

Perhaps then maybe the father would change his mind about this not being a big deal.

 

As it states in page 3 of the workbook under "Approvals" and "Before You Start": "The project plan must be reviewed and approved by the beneficiary of the project, your unit leader, the unit committee, and the council or district advancement committee before the project is started."

 

All of these entities must review and approve the project proposal so it is only correct that the same proposal be forwarded to each of them.

 

After serving on council eagle boards of review myself, I believe that the members of these boards would think it was a big deal.

 

They must determine if this scout is truly eligible to advance to scoutings highest rank, a scout that will be looked up to by the younger scouts and will represent all eagle scouts and scouting in general with his words, actions and deeds.

 

Naturally the proposal should be ash canned at the earliest time and apologies should, at the very least be in order.

 

If this scout and his father think a proposal for scoutings highest rank is a joke, then maybe the entire proposal was also a joke. Surely someone making sch jokes cannot expect anyone else to take their application seriously.

[cookiemonster]

I say LEARN FROM THE JUDGE. This boy and his father need to be brought into this century. His future will be very dim if he is not shown the consequences of this immediately. I work for a government organization that has killed from within several times. We have less than zero tolerance for a joke, much less a threat with a defined plan. As an adult, this would lose him his job and end up him up in jail. Better to deal with this on the juvenile level.

 

Do not, I repeat DO NOT, let this pass without intervention at a high level. How would you feel if later you found out that he did something drastic to someone else (or you!!)? You would live your life saying "if only...." Regrets are for suckers. Act now.