Working the program

[Overly-optimistic Parent]

Several of my kids are members of various BSA units, including 2 different venture crews. I'm a gung-ho person; my motto is "if you join, you'd better be prepared to follow the directions and put lots of effort into and then we'll all have a great time!" Unfortunately, the mottoes of both of these crews seems to be more along the lines of "Our battle cry is "kid-led" but we can't be bothered to send them to leadership training, so we just founder a lot and don't get anywhere." It's driving me nuts! I'm only a parent and I offer to help, but the official leaders tell me it's working out fine; the kids are doing dandy. But they're doing nothing. How do you go about encouraging them to train the kids and schedule meetings more than "when we think about it," and encouraging the kids to DO SOMETHING?

[emb021]

Sounds like a bunch of adult leaders who don't *quite* get the program.

 

Too many adults think their job is just sit in the back and wait for the kids to ask questions. Sorry, that won't happen.

 

While you don't want adults running the show (the other extreme), you don't want adults so layed back that the kids will do nothing, because that's what most kids will do. They need to step up and mentor these youth leaders and get some things going.

 

Have they run VLSC (or its replacement ILSC) in the Crew? If not, why not? If this is available in council, they need to make sure atleast the crew leadership is going.

 

But frankly, if the adults don't get it, its hard to turn this around.

 

[ScoutNut]

Change starts with the youth.

 

Suggest to your kids that they talk to their Advisor about taking Introduction to Leadership Skills for Crews training.

 

Have your kids done any of the BSA online training for Venturers?

 

 

[qwazse]

What do you mean by "nothing"?

 

Have they elected officers?

 

How many meetings have they had in the past month?

 

How many activities have they had in the past four months?

 

Are meetings announced at least a few days in advance?

 

Your situation happens a lot, and there may or may not be reasons for it. Scoutnut suggested a good starting point. Be careful that you don't come off like your blaming it on your kids, explain that when youth are part of the solution for one crew, they become a great resource for lots of crews.