Discipline Policy for Troop--suggestions needed

[st0ut717]

In order to make it simple for the boys, I have only 3 rules I operate under. I have surprisingly little discipline problems, but I would be foolish to say I don't have any.

 

1) Safety first

2) Look and act like a Scout

3) Have fun

 

I never react to breaches of these rules in a way the boys would normally expect me to. Screaming and yelling is what they expect and they figure once the tirade is done, they are off the hook.

 

Bullying for example. I approach the picked on kid and ask him if it's fun getting bullied? Obviously the answer is always NO. So he gets a lesson on breaking rule #3. If you aren't having fun and you didn't report it to anyone, you're breaking the rule. One boy said he didn't like tattling on the others, and I simply reiterated, the fact he wasn't having fun and he was breaking the rules.

 

The bully gets a dose of rule #2. Is bullying scout behavior (quote A Scout is Friendly)? and then HE defines the punishment. Often times they inflict more punishment on themselves than I would have dished out. So far no boy has dared to get off easy by suggesting a slap on the wrist. I had one incident where an older boy said something not very nice to one of the new boys while they were sitting at the campfire. He intended it to be a "harmless" comment, but I heard it and first of all asked the young boy what he felt about it and he said, "It was a hurtful" comment. When I asked him if he was having fun, he said, "No", to which he got an earful from me about not saying something IMMEDIATELY to an adult. He was breaking the rule! Then the older boy got an earful about respect and if he wanted the younger boys to look up to him he had better change his ways. Then I asked him what he was going to do about this incident. All of this occurred in front of all the other boys. He sat there in front of all his peers and didn't say a word for a moment. Then he got up, went over to the younger boy, apologized and asked if he could be his buddy for the next 6 months so that no other scout does what he did to him. The younger boy hesitated, but said okay. They became close friends after that.

 

I was really surprised by the older scout's reaction because I was more using it as a learning experience than really applying any kind of punishment. I had assumed the older boy was thinking it harmless fun in the first place. However, it would seem that none of the other boys participated in that kind of harmful joking for quite some time.

 

I caught a boy on a cell phone and asked who it was he was calling and he said his mom. I asked if I could talk to her too. He handed me the phone and it was his mom on the other end, much to my surprise. I did tell her how harmful it was for her son to have a cell phone because of the other boys who see him talking, especially those who are homesick would want to call their moms too. After our conversation I handed him back the phone and said he mother wanted to talk to him. His mother had a little chat with him at which when ended, he handed me the phone and asked me to keep it until after the campout. He never brought it with him again.

 

A lot of times when being creative, it is far easier to deal with the scouts when treated on a peer-to-peer basis with them. With punishment it is a top down negative type of situation, but when one deals with the boy as a respected peer, they more often than not will take ownership of the situation and make appropriate corrections on their own.

 

I guess after 40 years of working with youth I have never really had any serious situations because I constantly try to head them off before they get serious and I do so by dealing with the minor infractions in ways that the boys participate in the discipline long before they have become normally accepted traditions of bad behavior in the troop.

 

Of course if any of these rules were written down in some policy book somewhere it would have been lost 5 minutes after being handed out.

 

Keep it simple and apply it constantly. Like safety, one can overlook it only so long before someone gets hurt. Never let it get to that point in the first place.

 

Stosh

In many years of both military and civilian leadership I have never come across an example where adding to the abuse of the victim is acceptable.

That is on par with the islaimic tradition of stoning a girl because she was raped.

 

This is wrong on so many levels.

1 you blame the victim first.

2 you administer punishment of the victim publicly.

 

You are very lucky I am not one of your adults.

[fred johnson]

Why is the Comm. Chair involved to this extent with Discipline and punishment of the boys? The ScoutMaster has the final say with everything pertaining to the boys, not the CC. I used to have issues within my troop when I first took it over... we had a few "bad apples" that were only interested in causing trouble... once I took over the boys realized that they'll actually have to earn what they receive, I now leave initial punishment to the SPL and ASPL... they have a heavier and more appropriate hand than I ever would. If something occurs that warrants my attention as SM, the boys bring the accused to me, and they plead their case. I have never had to send a boy home from a campout, never had to call the police, or anything like that. I've had one boy tell me to "screw off" after he was being increasingly difficult during a troop meeting, In that case I pulled the boy aside and told him I wanted to speak with his mother when she came to pick him up after the meeting. I mentioned it to her, and she had him write an apology to me and now he's the most polite boy in the troop :-)

In our troop, the SM deals with teaching and coaching the scouts. I've rarely seen him direct "punishments". Usually, his guidance is restorative such as "okay, now help fix his tent" or similar. When real punishment is needed such as removing the scout from the troop, that is a committee and committee chair job. We want to keep the scoutmaster as the good guy if possible.

[fred johnson]

Random comments

 

- If you look for problems, you will find problems.

 

- Scouting is not about punishments.

 

- "Discipline must be constructive." Guide To Safe Scouting, page 2. Constructive discipline, in my opinion, is restorative discipline and teaches lessons.

 

- I don't care for long documented procedural ways to handle discipline. They are never consistently applied and only get called when really serious things happen. At that point, you have bigger fish to fry then a procedure. You are also dealing with leader failings by writing a policy. Remember to also train the leader or find the right leader. *** You can never deal with leader failings by writing a policy. ***

 

- If the scout is a safety risk, you separate the scout from the troop. Period.

 

- If the scout will not behave within the bounds of the scout oath and law, he is removed until he is willing to work within the bounds of the scout oath and law.

 

- The best scoutmaster I've seen handled things with a shake of the head, sometimes a negative chuckle and phrases such as "What happened?" "How does feel about it?" "What caused that?" "How did he react?" "Why do you think he reacted that way?" He'd ask way way more questions and kept the questions very simple and almost naive. Usually the asking of the questions was plenty for the scout to know what he did was unacceptable. Then, he would suggest a way to handle it.

- One thing that took me awhile to figure out ... Scouting isn't for every kid. Some kids are mean. Some have bigger issues. Some kids might really really need scouting to teach them lessons, but it can kill a troop. Troops need to identify those scouts and make they fairly and consistently lay down the law before that scout drives many other scouts away.

[Stosh]

In order to make it simple for the boys, I have only 3 rules I operate under. I have surprisingly little discipline problems, but I would be foolish to say I don't have any.

 

1) Safety first

2) Look and act like a Scout

3) Have fun

 

I never react to breaches of these rules in a way the boys would normally expect me to. Screaming and yelling is what they expect and they figure once the tirade is done, they are off the hook.

 

Bullying for example. I approach the picked on kid and ask him if it's fun getting bullied? Obviously the answer is always NO. So he gets a lesson on breaking rule #3. If you aren't having fun and you didn't report it to anyone, you're breaking the rule. One boy said he didn't like tattling on the others, and I simply reiterated, the fact he wasn't having fun and he was breaking the rules.

 

The bully gets a dose of rule #2. Is bullying scout behavior (quote A Scout is Friendly)? and then HE defines the punishment. Often times they inflict more punishment on themselves than I would have dished out. So far no boy has dared to get off easy by suggesting a slap on the wrist. I had one incident where an older boy said something not very nice to one of the new boys while they were sitting at the campfire. He intended it to be a "harmless" comment, but I heard it and first of all asked the young boy what he felt about it and he said, "It was a hurtful" comment. When I asked him if he was having fun, he said, "No", to which he got an earful from me about not saying something IMMEDIATELY to an adult. He was breaking the rule! Then the older boy got an earful about respect and if he wanted the younger boys to look up to him he had better change his ways. Then I asked him what he was going to do about this incident. All of this occurred in front of all the other boys. He sat there in front of all his peers and didn't say a word for a moment. Then he got up, went over to the younger boy, apologized and asked if he could be his buddy for the next 6 months so that no other scout does what he did to him. The younger boy hesitated, but said okay. They became close friends after that.

 

I was really surprised by the older scout's reaction because I was more using it as a learning experience than really applying any kind of punishment. I had assumed the older boy was thinking it harmless fun in the first place. However, it would seem that none of the other boys participated in that kind of harmful joking for quite some time.

 

I caught a boy on a cell phone and asked who it was he was calling and he said his mom. I asked if I could talk to her too. He handed me the phone and it was his mom on the other end, much to my surprise. I did tell her how harmful it was for her son to have a cell phone because of the other boys who see him talking, especially those who are homesick would want to call their moms too. After our conversation I handed him back the phone and said he mother wanted to talk to him. His mother had a little chat with him at which when ended, he handed me the phone and asked me to keep it until after the campout. He never brought it with him again.

 

A lot of times when being creative, it is far easier to deal with the scouts when treated on a peer-to-peer basis with them. With punishment it is a top down negative type of situation, but when one deals with the boy as a respected peer, they more often than not will take ownership of the situation and make appropriate corrections on their own.

 

I guess after 40 years of working with youth I have never really had any serious situations because I constantly try to head them off before they get serious and I do so by dealing with the minor infractions in ways that the boys participate in the discipline long before they have become normally accepted traditions of bad behavior in the troop.

 

Of course if any of these rules were written down in some policy book somewhere it would have been lost 5 minutes after being handed out.

 

Keep it simple and apply it constantly. Like safety, one can overlook it only so long before someone gets hurt. Never let it get to that point in the first place.

 

Stosh

To each his own. Everyone deals with situations differently. I handle it in a manner that tends to forgo problems of a more serious nature further on down the road. Maybe this is why I have very seldom had to handle major problems in my working with youth.

 

One can decide to coddle the victim and tell him how unfortunate he is having been bullied, or you can teach him to stand up to the bully and deal with the situation he finds himself in. If he simply sits there and "takes it" he is in fact enabling the bully and every other bully in his life to continue the process. If he doesn't report it, he enables the bullies as well. There comes a day when the "victim" can choose not to be a victim any longer and needs to learn how to step up to the plate and deal with it. My "yelling" at the "victim" is paramount to giving him permission to not be a victim anymore and that I expect him to say something about it to someone.

 

st0ut717: if you read carefully my comments, I didn't blame the "victim" for the situation, I only "corrected" the part where he didn't deal with it. Punishment? Since when is a lesson on standing up for oneself a punishment? Permission to report abuse is now considered a punishment? Giving out the lesson in front of everyone so everyone learns bullying won't be tolerated in the troop/pack? That's a punishment, too?

 

You are right on one account, I'm lucky you're not one of my adults.

 

I work in a multi-billion dollar, international business and as such part of a culture of safety in an industrial setting. When I see people doing dangerous things, I do not address them directly, but deal with the unsafe situation at hand. I apply correction actions to contain the danger and then get a commitment from the person that such activity will not repeat itself. It is my intent to keep the worker safe, not punish him/her for their unsafe behavior.

 

So with the bullying situation, I stop the situation and correct the actions of those participating. First the "victim" who needs to address it immediately and then the bully who in fact does get a boat load of "A Scout is courteous, kind, helpful, and friendly", and how it will apply to Scout Spirit come advancement time.

 

Just as a thought to consider, corrective action to a situation is not punishment. Punishment is something that is done after the fact by those that feel it necessary to do more than just correct the situation. Far to often punishment does nothing more than steel the resolve of those who participate in anti-social behavior and just get better at hiding it.

 

Stosh