How many years

[Karen_216]

A few years ago I read an analogy (or saw a demonstration)about how few years parents have to spend with their children and to be an influence in thier lives.

It was in the contaxt of recruiting and suggested getting a rope with average life span, and went on to segment off so that at the end there was only a few inches left.tjhis represented thetime as a parent wehave left to spend with our children.

Does anyone have this analogy or formula ? It's a really good recruting tool to get parnets to participate and I wanted to use it this year.

[John-in-KC]

I don't have it, but I can create something akin to it...

 

Take a rope (It can be a line, a railroad track, a ladder, whatever).

 

Divide equally into 18 segments. One segment per year of life. (Typical child graduates HS and launches to college or workforce at 18).

 

Now...

 

The child sleeps 1/3 of every day, more or less. Overall, that's 6 years of the 18. Coil up that part of the rope. 12 segments left.

 

The child is in school or doing homework for 12 years, 38 weeks a year, 5 days a week, 9 hours a day. (6 hours classroom, 2 hours homework, and 1 hour RT transportation) (Deduct 2 weeks for SY holidays, snow days and teacher inservice). 45 hours a week x 38 weeks a year x 12 years = 20520 hours. A year is 8760 hours. Coil up 2.3 segments of the rope. 9.7 segments left.

 

Let's kick in Kindergarten. 1 year, 38 weeks, 5 days a week, 4 hours a day (3 hours classroom, 1 hour transport). 760 hours; coil up .1 segment of rope. 9.6 segments left.

 

The child has hobbies/sports/music, let's say from age 6 or so up to 18. Across the years, he averages 4 hours a week. 12years x 52 weeks x 4 hours = 2496 hours. Coil up another .3 segments of rope. 9.3 segments remaining.

 

TV or computer time. I think the average is 3 hours a day, daily, across their youth. Take away another .2 segments of the rope.

 

See how this works? Sleep and school alone take 8.4 years of time away from the parent. Yes, development is happening, but we as parents have to husband our opportunities to influence who our child is and how we want him or her to develop.

[AlFansome]

Check out page 10 of the PDF file at http://www.girlscouts.org/who_we_are/global/overseas/forms_doc/recruitment_manual.pdf under the heading "Adding Machine Tape Demo". Change all the "she" to "he" and "Girl" to "Boy" and you pretty much have it.

 

Basically, you have a long strip of paper marked from 1 to 100 signifying the years in the boys' lives. Then you start ripping of parts of the paper until you demonstrate to the parents that they really only have a few years left to influence their child's development.

 

 

[Karen_216]

Yes, that measuring tape example (or rope) was what I was looking for-

It also can go further as John suggested and have the hours in school, or sleeping taken off as well. At the end there is a little piece left. I saw it in a recrutment training last year.

We really need leaders this year. CC and myself (Cm) are going to make special visits to visit dens to talk to parents to get them more involved.

We're using the 100 point plan this year at sign ups and to fill out at the first pack meeting for existing families.

 

[John-in-KC]

I was just working with a Committee Chair in my area. Here is something which might help:

http://old.scouting.org/commissioners/resources/13-500.pdf

"Selecting Cub Scout Leadership"

 

Do I advocate slavish devotion to this process? No. Is it worth looking at to see what ideas you can leverage from it? Certainly.

 

Key takeaways over the years:

 

1) Approach people as individuals when recruiting.

2) Commit to being alongside as they train up

3) Thank them for helping if they volunteer. If they don't, thank them that they are there for you to call on again someday.