Irrate parent

[jambo]

Eagle dad, and Mr. Nelson:

I think you missed my point, that I tried to bring out, I would suggest you read it again..." The real Scouting is dying, a slow death "...it refurbished into tigering, cubbing, and weblows. As I said before ,soon we we will have " diaper Scouts, and girls scouts will be the baby sitters ". Our rough and tough Boy Scouts units will be found and mentioned only in Boy Scouts museums. A few of the boys that will cross over from cubbing , will be joining " club for boys ", as I indicated before.So called" boy run " units, where the boys are ashamed to wear their class "A" uniformed, nor lead by axberienced adults., is going to be history . Since I spend more then 30 years, in many functions of Scouting, it hurts me, to see my beloved organization turning into demise. Oh, yes...we still have very few units that resemble the REAL Scouting units, but they going to go, as soon as the new leaders get trained on the philosphy of ' boy run ' consept. jambo

[Eagledad]

>>" The real Scouting is dying, a slow death "...it refurbished into tigering, cubbing, and weblows. As I said before ,soon we we will have " diaper Scouts, and girls scouts will be the baby sitters ".

[Gold Winger]

I think that I may agree with jambo to some extent here but it is the fault of the parents and our society rather than the fault of Scouting.

 

Parents want to be too involved in their kids's lives today. Walk to the mini-mart to get a soda? No, I'll drive you. Ride your bike to the ballfield for practice? No, I'll drive you, stay and watch and then offer "advice" to the coach.

 

In the Scouting world I've seen parents go ballistic because their son didn't get the same belt loop as his den mates usually because he missed the event. "It's not fair!" is the usual cry.

 

I've had parents tell me that it is unfair that his son won't advance because he missed a campout to play soccer. They don't get that he's not being "punished" for missing the campout, he just didn't meet the requirements.

 

Patrol outings? Forget it. A group of 16 year olds can drive and go to the Dominican Republic for spring break but they can't go on a hike without two adults, cell phones and an ambulance on stand-by.

 

Most of us need to back off a bit and let our kids learn how to run their own lives before they hit their 20s.

 

Boy run works well, if you have adults who will let it and boys that want to do it.

 

Few kids want to run stuff anymore because parents do everything for them.

 

40 years ago, we used to have a neighborhood circus. Kids did the design, construction and were the talent. We'd spend a couple weeks putting everything together do a few shows and then move on to something else. Now, the parents would have to co-ordinate everything.

 

30 years ago, our high school plays had two adults both teachers, involde with them. Now, there seem to be more adults than kids.

 

Whens the last time that you saw some kids playing a pick-up game of baseball after school? Doesn't happen too oftne.

 

What happens in Scouting? The young boys say "I don't know how to run anything" The older boys drop out because they don't get to do anything. The parents step in and say, "if we let the boys do this, nothing will happen."

 

My son is 16 but his patrol leader is 12. Reminder emails and phone calls all come from the patrol leader's parents. Why? Becuase the boy doesn't have a clue what he's supposed to do. The parents should step back and let the boy learn from his mistakes.

 

Time to stop and get down off the soapbox.

[jambo]

Barry, I respect your opinion...but you chastised me for not having my facts straight ?( I deserve an apology !) I feel that you never been in the trenches of Scouting...on professional level as I have, or a scoutmaster for 32 years, and maxed out at 90 boys in the troop, Our troop attended two National Jamboree, and one International at Calgary Canada. We went on a exchange program to England and Kandersteg Switzerland.. We had 20 Eagle Scouts and etc. I am getting closer and closer to 90 years of age...and soon you will have me on 'silent key ". Good Scoutmaster never die, they just pass away. If I can impart some wisdom, to you neophytes, it is you who have to carry the ball. Here is 3 cheers to Scouting, jambo

 

 

[jambo]

Eagle dad, and Gold winger, I appreciate your input. Yes ,we have a problem in todays Scouting. How do we solve that problem,? then I have to write a book on it or run a course on leadership...and then ,I have to throw away the notion for the boys to run their own troops. We need dedicated adult leaders with a vision, imagination, energy and love of kids. It would be nice to have council cooperating in recruiting boys from 10 1/2 years and up. Which at present time they are just involved to get the cubbing program running. A lot of cubbing program resemble the old Scouting program, where the adults guide in running the units. I hear that we have cub packs as large as 40 to 60 boys. Only 20% join a Troop, and then within a year 50% quite, because boys don't know how to run a unit. They get dissolutioned and join churches teen club, where it is run by religious dedicated adult leaders.

[scoutldr]

The more responsibility the Scoutmaster gives his patrol leaders, the more they will respond.

 

When you want a thing done, 'Don't do it yourself' is a good motto for Scoutmasters.

 

The object of the patrol method is not so much having the Scoutmaster trouble as to give responsibility to the boy.

 

"An individual step in character training is to put responsibility on the individual."

 

"After forming a cadet corps of boys for assisting as noncombatants during a military campaign in 1900: We then made the discovery that boys, when trusted and relied on, were just as capable and reliable as men."