Help - Merit Badge Completion

[caffeinatedmom]

We are members of a new troop and don't have many Merit Badge counselors yet.  My son has started several merit badges through camps or merit badge clinics, and has several badges that require one additional item to be signed off in order to complete the badge.  He has since completed these remaining requirements, but I'm not sure who can sign off on them.

 

I have found a few counselors for each of these merit badges at meritbadge.info.  I'm not sure what the proper protocol would be - is it okay to email these counselors with evidence of the completed requirement to ask them to sign off on the requirements?  

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

[John-in-KC]

The correct method is for the Scout to approach his Scoutmaster, who will issue him a merit badge application (blue card) and the name of at least one Counselor.

 

Merit Badge Counselor is actually a district registration, not a unit registration, though Counselors don't wear silver loops.

 

Contact your unit commish, district advancement chair, or Professional to find out how the District manages its roster of Counselors.

Edited August 22, 2016 by John-in-KC

[Beavah]

Yah @@caffeinatedmom, welcome to da forums, eh!   Caffeine is what keeps most of us old critters goin' with a smile on our face!

 

What you're experiencing is fairly normal for boys.  Not just in scouts, in school as well.  Boys will do the fun stuff and accept da challenges until they feel they're good enough, but they can't abide paperwork and busywork.  Whether it's turnin' in homework or finishin' the last MB requirement, it's a drudgery for the lads.

 

Speakin' as an older fellow who was once one of those lads, and who has had a few Beavah Pups, the biggest thing yeh can do for your son is to give him the space to work through that and develop his own techniques for pushin' through drudgery.  If yeh line it up for him he won't learn initiative.  If yeh annoy and pester and threaten and take things away he'll come to hate school and scouts.    It's a bit like da research out this week about kids and weight loss.  Talkin' about weight is da surest way to make your kids fail.

 

Problem is for all of us parent types it's really really hard to do the right thing by not doin' much. 

 

Best thing yeh can do?  Have your son tell yeh stories about camp and what he did for the badges.  See which ones he doesn't seem to really care about.  Let those go.  He did a good thing and tried somethin' new, eh?   He learned it didn't light his fire.   That's worth praise, not pesterin'.

 

Note which badges he seems to light up about.  Have him describe to you all da things he accomplished and da requirements he completed.  Give him your attention for da things he did well and finished strong on.   Now here's da challenge:  Don't even mention completin' the badge or da thing(s) he has left to do.  Not a word!!

 

The game you're playin' is to make him feel confidence from his successes, eh?  Not feelin' guilt and stress from his incompletes.  Da more confidence he feels, da more success he'll pursue on his own, eh?  He'll figure it out, and it will be his for life.   Maybe he doesn't finish a badge this time around, but when his buddies get a badge at a Court of Honor and he doesn't, that will be its own lesson (without a word from you!). 

 

That's da magic of Boy Scouting.  Yeh get to be da parent who loves and encourages and celebrates adventures and victories, not da parent who pesters.  He gets to learn and struggle and grow and fall down and feel da triumph of gettin' back up again in small, safe cutout of da real world made kid-sized.  Odds are that will lead him to be a confident, independent teen rather than a sullen, rebellious one.

 

So... don't find him MB counselors.  That's his job, when he wants.  He'll get 'em through his Scoutmaster.  You'll find he stalls out for a while, watchin' and learnin' and buildin' up confidence.  That's a good thing.  Once he figures it out, he'll be blazin' through badges at a gallup.

 

To answer your technical question, a MB completion has to be signed off by a counselor for that badge (though in a few rare cases a SM might do it if da requirement left is just nights of camping or something like that).  One of the great things boys get to learn in Scouting is how to call a strange (but friendly) adult MB Counselor to set up a meeting.  It's torture the first few times for everybody.  One of those real-world-made-kid-sized growin' experiences!

 

Happy trails,

 

Beavah

[fred johnson]

Beavah is right in his answer.  

 

The only caveat I'll add is scoutmasters take time to learn their role.  In the most ... absolutely the most friendly way possible ... ask the scoutmaster if he has contacted the district or council to get a merit badge counselor list so that he can share those names with the scout.

 

Scout works with scoutmaster, but the scoutmaster isn't guaranteed to know the answers either.  A friendly help to the scoutmaster can help ... if done right.

[jr56]

Unfortunately, some districts are so disorganized that they don't even have a MB counselor list.

[fred johnson]

Unfortunately, some districts are so disorganized that they don't even have a MB counselor list.

 

At least in our council, it's really a council function as it is a matter of membership registration.  Districts can be disorganized, but the council must have a way to provide that info to the right person.  It's fundamental information to the whole advancement program for all units. 

 

If desperate, you can always go to the registrar and see if they can look up registrations for the badge.  ... but that's the scoutmaster's job.  

Edited August 24, 2016 by fred johnson

[BamBam]

I agree with Beavah. Boys will do the fun stuff and pass on the more school like aspects of the merit badges. My son has 4 partials and at this time he doesn't want to finish them. He says it was fun doing the requirements than he finished, but he didn't feel like doing "research" or writing a paper. It  did surprise me though  that he completed family life without any prodding.

[Tampa Turtle]

Son#1 saw the light when he was 15 and one summer methodically banged out 4 merit badges, 3 Eagle required. Just took him a while to 'get it'. Before then a certain amount of nagging was required.

 

Son#2 is more into doing the work than the paperwork. He hasn't bothered to get his POR credit for several jobs (OA Rep, QM) even though he did great jobs because there was some final Troop paperwork step required. He is now SPL and not interested in getting the past signed off (He really doesn't it for advancement). 

 

It is best for them to look up and do the Merit Badges on there own...and a lot harder than being spoon fed at a Merit Badge class setting. It helps build up skills that pay off in school too. Seems less boring too. I think we seemed to be raising a generation of worksheet filling automatons at times. That is another thing, have the boy read the requirements carefully...sometimes "explain" does not have to be a written essay. That can be a barrier too. A couple times when my boys had problems getting together with a busy MBC they introduced the old scouters to the wonders of video presentations and Skype calls.

[Ankylus]

Unfortunately, some districts are so disorganized that they don't even have a MB counselor list.

 

I can see this. I thought our district was unorganized, but we at least can do this.

 

The unit commissioner should be able to help you find a counselor whether through district or through a nearby troop. If your district cannot furnish the information and your unit commissioner is of no help, ask a nearby unit to share counselor  information. As noted above, counselors are not registered with a unit, but with a district. Any counselor in your district should be able to counsel your scouts.

[thrifty]

our SM is easy-going and asks the boys about the badges before he hands out blue cards but has never assigned a counselor as far as I know.  I have a feeling our future SM will be the exact opposite and will give the boys the third-degree before allowing blue cards.

 

My son and another boy had partials for Game Design from summer camp last year.  As new parents, we never got an explanation of pre-req's so he wasn't prepared with game ideas and its not necessarily easy to come up with that stuff on the fly.  After camp, both boys said it was an awful experience and wanted nothing more to do with it.  A year later, my son is entertaining himself by creating games (like he always has) and I finally get him to put some stuff on paper so he can complete the badge.  He needs a counselor to ok his design and then playtest it with the troop and report back to the counselor. 

 

I asked the SM, a committee member and our advancement coordinator about this counselor list and got the run-around from all of them.  These are people I communicate with throughout the month.  Each pointed the finger at the other.  No one had the list.  Finally, the advancement coordinator had the newest list.  He gives me a name and ph# for the only counselor in our district.  I wasn't allowed to see the list.  My son calls and eventually talks to the person but the list wasn't updated and this person isn't a counselor anymore.  Now we started over, and got two more names for people out of our district and we'll get it done but his motivation is gone again.

 

On top of this, when I asked where the partial blue card was, I got blank stares.  No one gave it to us and we didn't know we should have gotten it.  The SM and ASMs didn't know or remember my son had a partial at camp.  Finally, the SM found it in paperwork somewhere.  He also found 4 other partials, one for the other boy in Game Design and the others were for boys that had aged out.  I was so upset through this whole process, I was ready to call the camp and see if they could provide me a copy or something but I didn't want to embarrass the troop.

 

My only peace of mind is that he's only 12 so we have plenty of time to get it done before he's 18.  I've got the impression that our troop is only accustom to having merit badges earned at summer camp and a few miscellaneous classes here and there.  There's never any talk about boys earning badges on their own but mine will be.

[jr56]

It is your son's merit badge.  He is the one who needs to be checking on prerequisites for merit badges he plans to take at summer camp.

Too bad, it sounds like your scoutmaster is not very up to date on the merit badge earning process either.  You can look in the Advancement Policy and Procedure book, probably available online, to get the proper procedure.  Have your son point this out to his scoutmaster.  Hope he follows through and completes the badge.

[Beavah]

 

My only peace of mind is that he's only 12 so we have plenty of time to get it done before he's 18. 

 

Yah, hmmm...

 

@@thrifty, thanks for comin' to the Forums!

 

I highlighted this comment of yours just so yeh could see it by itself and think about it a bit.

 

"We" shouldn't be doin' Merit Badges, eh?   HE should.  And if your own peace of mind is affected by what your almost-teenaged son does or doesn't do, you're goin' to be needin' heavy doses of Xanax within a few years.     So will he!

 

Just a thought. 

 

Informationally, some MBs are low-hanging fruit for younger boys, while other MBs offer more of a challenge for high schoolers.   Game Design MB is a harder one, eh?  Lots of younger boys end up with partials that they don't complete.  What you're seein' is normal.   Give your son some space and he'll come back around on it in a couple of years when it's right for him.   Or not.  Could be Robotics instead by then.  

 

Beavah

[perdidochas]

We are members of a new troop and don't have many Merit Badge counselors yet.  My son has started several merit badges through camps or merit badge clinics, and has several badges that require one additional item to be signed off in order to complete the badge.  He has since completed these remaining requirements, but I'm not sure who can sign off on them.

 

I have found a few counselors for each of these merit badges at meritbadge.info.  I'm not sure what the proper protocol would be - is it okay to email these counselors with evidence of the completed requirement to ask them to sign off on the requirements?  

 

Thanks for any insight you can provide!

 

You need to get the SM or Advancement coordinator to get a list of registered Merit Badge counselors from your District or Council. 

[qwazse]

Guys, I think there are some wrong assumptions being made about @@thrifty and Thriftyson.

 

First, parents -- inasmuch as they transport a youngster, help him order his private world (i.e. clean up his room, file away partials), and observe his daily activities - are de facto partners in the MB process. In Venturing we call this "stealth advancement" and advisors are trained to give similar nudges to venturers with lines like "I see you've already done X, how would you like to earn Y?" In my experience, the minute you throw out an encouragement like that and get a favorable nod from the scout, you become heavily invested in the process. Sure scout is doing the reqs, 100%, but it sure feels like scouts and adults are earning and learning together. So let's not pounce on "we" like it's some Fruedian slip betraying some parent trying to relive his/her childhood. At least in Thriftyson's case, it does not sound like it.

 

Second, we should not hold scouts responsible for the quagmire that has become BSA's MB counselor record-keeping. We've fashioned mega districts and conscripted volunteers, then burdened them with repeated YP certifications. (All for good reason.) But in the process, we've lost "community".  When I was a kid, every # on the counselor list was reliable because these folks *never* retired, never considered themselves property of just one troop, and always were within an hour's walk until the day they died. The list was on the wall in the scout-house, 'cause nobody was going to copy it to spam or robo-call them.

 

There is no way that there is not some decent guy in Thriftyson's neighborhood cranking out boards and figurines for the next local game night. (Probably some lady as well.) Some caring adult needs to get off their duff and push the paperwork to bring them in the fold. That may include providing a lunch where the would-be counselor could take YPT.

 

I'm not quite sure how, but we all need to figure out how to restore our "community" of MB counselors in the face of post-modern nomadic society.

Edited September 6, 2016 by qwazse