Choice: Football or Webelos 2 ?

[funscout]

My school district pushes sports early and often. Every year, our second year Weblelos are faced with a choice between football and scouts. 5th graders can start playing TACKLE football, and we end up either permanently losing some Web. 2s, or temporarily losing them. Practices are Mon.-Thurs. from 4:00-6:00, which only leaves time for dinner and homework. Some years, the Web. 2 den suspends meetings until football season is over.

 

As a Web. 1 DL, I've run into problems with basketball. One league had the 4th grade boys practicing 4 days a week, just like football. I hated to lose my scouts, so I switched to only 2 den meetings a month (1 1/2 hours each), instead of 3 - one hour meetings. One of those meetings is on a Sunday afternoon, so the basketball players could make at least one den meeting a month. I may have to have all my den meetings on Sun. afternoons next year. Friday nights are out, due to games, Saturdays are out, for the same reason. My husband isn't crazy about giving up our Family time to accomodate the "sport-scouts," but nothing else seems to work.

 

Does anyone else have a similar situation?

[t158sm]

I think that most units are hit with the casualities from sports at some time or another. Basketball has hit us for 5 Scouts right now. Band hurt us last fall, football was the culprit a few years earlier. People place too much emphasis on winning today and not enough on playing the game. A 10 year old practicing four or so times a week in addition to the games is too many times.

[funscout]

t158sm: I completely agree with you that 4 practices a week is WAY too much for these young kids. As I mentioned in a different thread, however, no one listens to me!

 

I signed my 4th grader up for a basketball league that met for only 6 weeks, and that consisted of 2 (yes, a total of 2) practices and 4 games, all of which took place on 6 consecutive Saturdays. He could have been in the other league that practiced 4 times a WEEK, in addition to games, but before I could tell him "No", he said, "I don't want to do that league because they have too many practices." Smart kid!

[ScoutNut]

Both our 4th & 5th graders are up to their necks in basketball, including the leaders kids. The coaches this year seem to be borderline psychotic. They have practices all the time and let the kids know THAT day when /where/or if the practice is happening.

 

We have learned not to make the boys choose between sports or scouts. The secret is to be flexible & do what you can, with whoever can show up, whenever & where ever you can get them together. Sometimes that means a meeting with 2 boys. Sometimes that means you start with a couple & more show up after practice. It does tend to slow advancement up a bit, but it keeps the boys in. When basketball finally ends at least they can get back to some kind of schedule.

[EagerLeader]

I have always had my den meetings on Sunday afternoons, for that very reason! But in my case, it's to accomodate my own kids who play hockey. Sunday presents its own problems... birthday parties, family get-togethers, etc. so there have been more than a few meetings with only 3-4 Bears instead of 12.

 

I totally agree with ScoutNut... be flexible with them! My older boy chose sports over Scouts and never completed his AoL, because his game/practice schedule conflicted with the den's. Take a poll of the parents, see if Sunday works for most of them. If the kids see you going out of your way to work around them, they'll be more likely to stick around.

 

EL

[SemperParatus]

As the old saying goes...fight fire with fire.

 

Maybe you should try 5 den meetings a week with an outing each weekend. Let some of the kids know upfront that they may have to take some long breaks to let those with the best scouting skills show their stuff. And don't forget to harangue them frequently about giving 110%.

 

 

 

[Lisabob]

Around here football and hockey are the big culprits. It's not that other sports don't exist, but these two have particularly long seasons and grueling practice schedules. Sometimes these poor kids seem so exhausted and they almost all end up burning out on the sport by the time they reach middle school (just when they're least likely to re-join scouts, based on the "coolness" factor - too bad!)

 

Anyway we too tried as hard as we could to be flexible, re-assure parents that attendance at every event was not required, etc.. (and give as much notice as possible for any special events that the boys really should be at) Some parents will accept that and others - probably the same ones who coach those sports - won't. The only other thing I found that was helpful was to offer rides or car pooling to scout meetings so that the over-scheduled parents of these over-scheduled kids could catch a break.

 

I don't know if it will help but maybe a "gentle" reminder to your husband that this is a temporary deal. If cross over is in Feb or March then for the Webelos II year you're looking at Sept-Feb/March only and then on to boy scouts and (hopefully) a return to your family time on Sunday afternoons. My experience was that boys who quit as webelos due to scheduling issues do not re-join as scouts even after their sport season ends. So if this is what it takes to keep boys involved who want to be scouts, great.

 

Lisa'bob

[John-in-KC]

Lisa,

 

In point of fact, with rare exceptions, once a youth (or his parents) decide on sports, and he drops out of ANY Scouting unit for a semester, he's pretty close to gone forever.

 

Thankfully, son's Crew Advisor in his Crew understands his Eagle project, and understands son is off doing chunks of his project on meeting nights

[mbscoutmom]

I homeschool my youngest, and am not physically able to teach him pe, so I put him in YMCA sports. I make sure to write on the application form "no Tuesday practices", and usually the coaches schedule practice on a different day.

 

Last year two of my Wolves missed a lot of meetings due to basketball. This time I made sure they didn't--I put my son on the same team with them, and planned den meetings so they weren't on the same night as practices or games. All three boys earned the Basketball beltloop and pin, too.

 

 

[EagleInKY]

Scoutnut had a good solution. Work through it, be understandable, and keep the program going. Make sure it's interesting for the boys who stick around, so they don't get discouraged. Make it a big enough carrot that the sports kids want to come back as soon as possible. (But, not too big a carrot in that they may get discouraged.).

 

Case in point, I've got a 2nd year scout going up for First Class BOR tomorrow night. That's almost a whole year later than his peers. But he chose to play competitive soccer in the spring and fall and basketball in the winter. He missed lots of outings, thus slowing his advancement.

[fotoscout]

Scout Nut's solution is really the only way to manage it. Unfortunately, in my experience it leads to many problems with the kids, and your program.

 

First off, when the boy misses meetings because of sports he (they)usually needs to be "reconditioned" when he comes back to the Den. These boys are always a distraction to the den when they return after missing a few weeks or a few months. It ultimately takes many weeks to get them back into the fold.

 

Second, it becomes very difficult to setup a den project that requires two or three meetings to complete. Too much time is spent doing remedial work with the boys that missed the prior meetings. Ultimately the quality of the project goes down hill very quickly.

 

The last problem is that the many of the "Sports Kids" loose the ability to function and interact in a peer group setting that is not either, on the field, or, on the court. We have had a number of these kids, and they have become nothing but trouble. Yes it's nice that they still want to be a part of Scouting, but at what price? Who gains, and how much damage does it do in the long run?

[Lisabob]

Funscout,

 

I wonder if your experience says more about the particular children in question than about the general difficulties of incorporating kids into the pack when they have to miss meetings due to other obligations.

 

I know we've had boys who were difficult to integrate after lengthy absences. But they tended to be difficult prior to those absences too - it wasn't their absence that made them difficult to handle. We've also had some boys who came and went depending on the sport season and seemed to re-integrate pretty smoothly. If anything, they'd just get an ear-full from their den mates about all the fun stuff they missed while slavishly practicing sport x instead of coming to cub scouts (it was great - we never had to say a word!).

 

As for lengthy projects - this is pretty tricky, I'll agree. We made it the parents' responsibility to get their kid up to speed if they missed the early stages of a project. When possible, we'd provide the parent with the material and instructions prior to our next meeting and ask them to work on it at home with their son. That way everybody could be at about the same stage at the follow-up meeting. Most of the time this worked ok. The only time where it really did not was when the boys wrote their own play (showman activity badge); boys who weren't there just couldn't show up with additional parts for the play, or that would've thrown everyone off. Even then, however, boys who hadn't been involved in writing the play, hadn't been to many meetings, and suddenly showed up unexpectedly, could help make the stage props and take on other supporting roles.

 

Lisa'bob

 

 

[Lisabob]

Err I meant: Fotoscout, not Funscout. Sorry about that! (and why won't the system allow me to edit my own messages? )

 

Lisa'bob

[Trevorum]

(not to hijack the thread, but ... I, too, can not edit my own posts. I'm envious of those who have been granted this special power. No one has ever been able to diagnose the problem or offer advice. Ahh, well. It teaches me to be extra careful and think twice before I hit that 'post' button ...)

[SemperParatus]

I thought you could only edit within the first hour following the post. Are you locked out during the first hour?