Scout Contracts, Parent Contracts - Anyone Use Them?

[oddball]

What do they say?

 

I realize a contract with an 11 year old is pretty useless, but do you hold the parents to anything? 

 

 

[KenD500]

The old Troop tried to use them.  I refused. 

 

The new Troop uses the Scout Oath & Law.  No contract needed.  But clear communications have to take place between everyone.

[Twocubdad]

Yes, we use them but they are oral.  Our Scouts pledge, on their honor to be Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind, Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty, Brave, and Reverent AND to do their best to God and their country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; and to keep themselves physically strong, mentally awake and morally straight.

 

We've found that's good enough.

[eagle77]

 Sorry I ran a non-union shop. Like twocubdad there already is a verbal contract that exists. Had a troop in our area that used these things. His problem wasn't with scouts as much as it was parents. Though once the scouts saw what the parents did they really had no trouble following right along.

[fred johnson]

Oath and law.  

 

We communicate expectations, but we don't represent it as a "contract".

[Stosh]

Never had a need for such a thing.

[prof]

Never had a need for these either.

A discussion of expectations at the beginning of an event, be it boy activity or adult leadership role, has usually been sufficient.

The main thing is to have that discussion at the beginning to set the right tone!

[CricketEagle]

Hate them. But on this world sometimes a necessary evil.

 

Not 100 percent sure what you refer to byour contact? Financial or behavior.

 

Yup every permission slip now has a reminder for scout oath and law. Permission slip also cites cost of weekend camp out and if not paid will be deducted from scout bucks.

 

Big trips and high adventure may elaborate payment and extended notes referencing oath, law and and violation of civil or criminal law. Including parents will be liable when I ship your kid home from 5 states away.

 

Written behavior contract of scouts and associated parents. Only ever offered those twice in hundreds of scouts. Both cases scouts left troop of their own accord. It was a last chance offer to be civil.

 

However usually in these cases you are dealing with a sout and parent that are not civil. These files help when you must deal with those.

 

Rules the 99 percent of us need to protect us from the less than 1 percent of youth and adults that should not be in scouting.

[CricketEagle]

To go a little further. Behavior contract often geared towards parents.

1. You will be at events to control your son.

Etc

[ScouterRob]

Behavioral contacts(Standards) can be useful when educating the scout and parents of what the troop expects. The rules are common sense, but a lot of parents seems to be missing that.  The scouting age is a good time to teach boys common sense.

 

One rule in the contract is a parent is not allowed to drop off their child(camping trip) and leave until they are cleared with a leader.  In the past, parents has drop of their children with no supervision and did not know the trip was canceled.  The parents(who left without checking) screamed at the leaders for their children being left alone.

 

Another rule is the foul language and indecent behavior(parents again). 

 

Also basic sportsmanship, when a simple game/contest ends it does not mean that you have to fight over who is the winner(argument lasted 6 months with 2 fist fights).

 

Guess who started the idea of the contact?  The PLC did.  Most scouts and parents who joined afterward did not have any issues.  The ones that did went to another troop.

 

 

Also the contact has been useful for dealing with some autistic scouts.  Some autistic scouts are looking for structure and the contacts provide them their structure.  My son has Asperger's and he read the contact and learned more from that one contract than he did from a lot of his counseling sessions.  He is now in a different troop, but he still follows that contract today

 

Contacts can be good and bad, depends upon how you run your troop.

Edited July 21, 2015 by ScouterRob

[Polaris]

We use payment agreements for High Adventure trips.

[TAHAWK]

Never heard of such a thing.  

 

In my last troop, we did use "tickets" written by the leaders at the annual Troop Operation Workshop to set goals that they wished to reach in the year that they were planning.  SM would review with them in SMC at mid-point and year's end.  

 

Current troop has pages of "bylaws" imposed by the SM with penalties specified.  Takes almost a half hour to read them.  Gloom!  Just sucks the air right out of the room. 

 

(Looking for a new troop to join.  Five years of beating my head against the wall is enough - and no fun.)

[perdidochas]

What do they say?

 

I realize a contract with an 11 year old is pretty useless, but do you hold the parents to anything? 

 

We haven't, but it might be useful for scouts that are causing discipline problems.