Another "hypothetical" Eagle question

[Engineer61]

Would I hold him up? Nope.

 

He's "taking one for the club" by gutting it out for his misguided parents.

 

If he wanted out, I'd offer to talk to his parents on his behalf. If he's opened up to me on this, it most likely means he's already gone down the avenue of talking to his parents on his own, and gotten a nice smack-down.

 

[Beavah]

Yah, I'd go with (and have gone with) TwoCubDad's approach.

 

That havin' been said, there's an old tale about a fellow who wanted to marry a young lady, but she told him she'd only marry a man with the face of a saint. So he went off to a makeup artist and had his visage costumed, with a mask that made him appear saintly. He wooed her and married her and they spent many years together happily. All the time he kept up his costume. Of course to pull off the act, he also had to work frightfully hard each day to demonstrate that he actually was the saintly, considerate fellow that his costume portrayed.

 

Then one day an old acquaintance of his came to town and recognized him and spilled the beans. In front of the man's true love, he unmasked the man. And underneath the mask was the face of a saint.

 

So while I'd counsel the scout and the scout's parent(s) out of Scouting, at the same time I think that a lad who stays in and is genuinely willing to work on Scouting and Advancement is like the man with the face, eh? He's puttin' on a good face, but the work required to become an Eagle will change him and make him into an Eagle if he's genuinely willing to do it. Provided of course that your program is strong and your interpretation of the requirements is sound.

 

It should not be possible in any troop's program for the "minimums" for Eagle Scout to yield a lad who is not truly an Eagle at heart.

 

Beavah

 

[packsaddle]

I tend to agree with KC9DDI. Scouting is not a religion, nor is it some kind of Communistic cult in which the collective shares the 'glory' of individual initiative and achievement, or alternatively shares the 'shame' of individual 'minimal' performance.

The minimum requirements are there and the word 'minimum' should not denigrate someone who meets them. A boy either meets them or not. If units want to 'interpret' the subjective parts to their liking, or even add to them if they think it's necessary...they are free to do that. Such an outcome is a logical result of 'local option' at work.

But for everyone to wet our pants over these differences or continuously whine about it is just primate social behavior at work. It might be 'Fun' for us, but it's unlikely to resolve anything...I suppose thusly ensuring perpetual 'fun'. Play on.

[NJCubScouter]

I just think that before we "counsel" anyone "out of Scouting", we (hypothetically) might try to counsel the young man back "into" Scouting. We're basing a conclusion that this person (if he is an actual person) does not want to be a Scout on one statement, a few sentences long. As I suggested before, "I don't want to be a Scout" may really mean "this troop's program is boring." The hypothetical Scoutmaster here needs to find out the real meaning of the statement, and suggest ways that the Scout may become more interested, before knowing which way to "counsel."

 

And by the way, this is coming from someone who, at the age of 12 or so, quit Scouting. That's not hypothetical. I had no desire to be a Scout any more either, and my father (who was an ASM as well as CM at the time) understood some of my reasons and did not really try to pull me back in. A year later we were living in a different town, different troop (in which my father almost immediately became an ASM, without any sons in the troop), and about six months after that my father persuaded me to come to a troop meeting "to talk with the Scoutmaster." There was no "hard sell", basically just an invitation, and I decided to join the troop. So at the age of 14, as a Second Class Scout, I rejoined Scouting, and went on to be a PL, ASPL, SPL, JASM, joined OA, went to Philmont, advanced to Life, and I could have made Eagle if I had decided to do it. And I think my youth experience (mostly gained after rejoining) has made me better able to serve my son's troop as an adult leader than I would have been able to do otherwise. It's even possible that without my youth experience, I might have become one of those parents who leave the leadership to someone else. I'm glad that didn't happen.

 

So all I'm saying is, let's not write off a young man because of one (hypothetical) "I don't want to be a Scout any more."(This message has been edited by njcubscouter)

[Oak Tree]

I will assume the kid is older, has been in the troop awhile and has given Scouting a fair shot. Correct.

 

Where do people get all of these hypothetical scouts? If you think this is truly hypothetical, then my use of quotation marks and clever tongue-in-cheek manner has failed.

 

I appreciate the suggestions that looking at the program might be something to do. In practice, I think this is unlikely to be the solution. Our group is around 50% older Scouts, so there are lots of them who find interesting things in the program. The program does not seem to have become stale in general, and there are lots of activities that are new each year, which the older guys specifically choose just for them.

 

This Scout hung out in a clique, which, for lack of a better term, I will call "the slackers." As his friends drifted away, I think he just lost any real interest in participating.

 

It's possible that there might be something he'd like to do, but at the moment I judge it more likely that there's not going to be anything that would really interest him all that much, mostly because I don't think it's the activities that are the issue, it's the lack of his good friends.

 

he should hold out for an F-150. I laughed about this suggestion. It's a good one, but I think the parents have too many other levers.

 

Do you think he told you so he would be ejected from the troop or you would tell his parents? No, I don't think so. I think he told me because I asked him about how he was liking Scouts, and I listened to him when he told me his answer. I think he's probably already had the conversation with his parents, and I doubt it's crossed his mind that I would intervene to change the outcome.

 

If he likes, I'll meet with him and his parents and help him explain to them why he doesn't want to be in Scouting. I've contemplated this option. Dad is an ASM who has been very helpful over the years. A lot of the pressure comes from mom, but I think that dad also supports pushing JimBob to get Eagle. I don't really want to tick off the whole family. I might ask the Scout whether he'd like to do something like that. He seemed sort of resigned to the situation. I may have to contemplate this for awhile, and make some hints to the parents over a longer period of time to soften them up.

 

Does the troop have attendance requirements to satisfy the "active in the troop" requirement? If not, you may want to consider having them. We don't. I agree that more hard and fast requirements here might help convince the Scout it's just not worth it to go through with it. From a troop side, though, this would be a significant undertaking. In order to be fair, we'd have to start doing a serious job of taking and recording attendance, which is something we don't do now. It's possible, and it's possible we could be more rigorous about our positions of responsibility, too, but that's a troop-level change and not something we can implement for just this one Scout.

 

Thanks for all the responses. I'll let this hypothetical situation age a bit and continue to re-evaluate.

 

[JMHawkins]

This Scout hung out in a clique, which, for lack of a better term, I will call "the slackers." As his friends drifted away, I think he just lost any real interest in participating.

 

Slackers or go-getters, I think this is the real issue. His friends aren't in Scouts. Teenagers want to be with their friends. In an ideal world, their friends are their Patrol mates, but that isn't always the case.

 

I doubt there's much you can do with the program to revive his interest, unless you can manage to lure his friends back into the Troop. Of course, maybe there's something he could do to lure them back in. He probably knows them better than you. If he's "stuck" anyway, maybe you can challenge him to see if there are changes he thinks the Troop could make to re-recruit guys who've dropped out.

[Twocubdad]

You folks do understand that when we write of "advocating for the Scout" or "counseling him out of Scouting" that there is more to it than "here's your hat, what's your hurry?" don't you?

 

Do we really need to spell out all the hypothetical conversations which would occur with the Scout and his parents before he the Scout leaves the troop?

 

 

[boomerscout]

"I don't want to be in Scouts any more. My friends have mostly dropped out."

This is the crux, as has already been mentioned. Boys like to hang out with their buddies, and his buds have left. Perhaps there should have been more High Adventure offered each year to retain them all. Now, in the troop, he gets to hang with the "little kids"; that's not going to cut it.

I don't believe there's much you can do unless you talk him into doing some kind of special project for the troop. Perhaps get him to plan, organize, make all the arrangements for 3 weeks on the AT for a group of older scouts

[Engineer61]

No...I didn't catch the quotes on hypothetical...slow on the uptake this week...

 

"Do you think he told you so he would be ejected from the troop or you would tell his parents?"

 

I'd think probably not, teenagers are funny that way ... they tend to assume that their own parents won't stick up for them, they double that with unrelated adults. It gets worse when they think (or know, as in this case) the the parents are definitely on the other side of the fence.

 

I am always amazed when one of my teens finally admits their in over their heads with a problem. Usually, had they asked for advice early on, the fix would have been simple, but by the time they do let the cat out of the bag, the problem is a lot bigger. It's part of the growing up experience of "I can handle this" without being able to perceive all the nuances of the problem. And they are always amazed that my wife and I do stand up for them when called upon.

 

Do what you will, but is sounds like this boy is done with Scouting. Friends trump Eagle. Couple that with pushy parents ... he's got a lot of misery coming ... so you have to ask yourself, "Is this what Eagle and Scouting is about?" I'd step up to the plate for the kid, ASM or no ASM.

[CalicoPenn]

I think we're missing something here and that's even if it is his parents pushing him to get Eagle, he still needs to be somewhat active in order to earn it. Oak doesn't tell us if this is a newly minted Star Scout or a soon to be newly minted Life Scout. Either way, he's going to have to serve a POR for at least 6 months, if not longer, and will be active that way, and depending on what POR it is, he may be more active than he hopes or a little less active than the adults hope.

 

Has he earned Camping Merit Badge? Then he's really got no more camping requirements to meet, does he? If he isn't liking camping anymore, why force him to camp at this point - unless he's ASPL, PL or SPL, in which case he should be camping as part of leadership to the Troop (if he's a Den Chief, does he really need to go camping with the Troop?) Sure, we might like him to go camping, but every scout's journey is different - if his no longer includes camping, so what? He's already camped quite a bit to get to where he is. And maybe it's a friend issue when camping, or maybe he's just outgrown the camping trips that the Troop does - been there, done that, got the t-shirt, can I go now kind of thing. It's not unusual for Scouts of a certain age to lose interest but even if its for the "wrong" reasons, he'll still be around, and might just surprise everyone in a few months with a renewed vigor.

 

Sometimes I think a lot of the adult angst over Eagle Scout and "is a Scout doing enough" is just adults forgetting to look at the bigger picture and forgetting that there are natural transistions built into advancement - after First Class, we're moving away from learning basic skills and moving towards using those skills to lead and teach (and despite what folks like Kudu think, leadership and teaching are skills that are just as important to learn as tying a bowline). Somtimes I think the angst is because many adults are unable to adjust to the needs of different age levels - the program is for 11-17 year olds but an 11 year old is a whole different animal from a 14 year old which is a whole different animal from a 17 year old. And sometime I think its because we, as adults, fear failure more than Scouts do sometimes - we try to force Scouts to follow our paths because we know that we can be successful when they do and are afraid to let Scouts follow their own paths because we're unfamiliar with them, are afraid to change, and fear that if the Scout's path doesn't lead to Eagle, we're the ones that have failed.

 

Whether he's a Star or Life scout, he's still got a lot left in his journey to Eagle - so even if he "just" does Eagle requirements, he's still going to be doing a lot. Come at it with that understanding and attitude, instead of an attitude of disappointment, and I think you'll be much happier.

 

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Just to flesh out our hypothetical situation here, let's say the Scout is a Star Scout. He doesn't have the camping merit badge yet, but he has over 40 nights of camping with the troop.

[Twocubdad]

As I said originally, advancement is besides the point. If he has otherwise met the requirements, sign him off. But you have bigger fish to fry.

 

 

[Oak Tree]

There are definitely bigger fish to fry. This is just one interesting sidelight in a troop full of all kinds of Scouts - from the very active, to the mostly inactive. But it's an interesting sidelight. I appreciate all of the thoughts.