Advice for disrespectful cub scouts

[ItsBrian]

I think at the WEBELOS age especially...but really for all ages..... they act up when they are bored

....Idle hands, and all of that.....

 

You said the webelos are disrupting when other dens are getting awards?

    one solution might be to involve the webelos den in the award presentation....  they are, after all the older scouts that the younger ones would hopefully be looking up to.  Give them a chance to be that role model we hope they are.

 

Something I tried to do some of when I was CubMastering, was to involve the scouts more....and to get them out of their seats.  Sadly, I didn't do it enough and wasn't all that good at it....  I tried to use the scouts, especially the old

er scouts, to do things like pick teams, pass things out... But I wish that I had done more.

 

After getting pushed away from pack life and looking more into troop life, I benefited from hind site and realized that embracing the patrol method....even down at the wolf or bear level.... really could have been a game changer.  Let the scouts make decisions of what to do and how, let them DO a lot more.

 

I see that a huge amount of the issues in the cub days could have been at least partially resolved.  The whole program, and how we presented it, involves all together too much sitting, too much inside, too much getting talked to.

 

I feel your pain though.  Something I always struggled with was the kid acting up when his parent was sitting in the back of the room.  I never wanted to attack it head on because I felt it was that parent's job to deal with it....they rarely did.

 

But in the context of scouts, instead of attacking, I feel the better approach much of the time anyway, might be to call that kid to the front and give him a task....

but it can't be a task for task sake.....but instead something fun, and preferably something that gives that scout some responsibility and authority to learn from.

I agree with you! Webelos are at that age to where they know everything, and can do whatever they want. I noticed at the camp I had worked at, the wolves were better behaved than the webelos!

[fred johnson]

Biggest mistake I ever made in scouts was not to deal with bad behavior early enough.  

 

I was once impressed by a cub scout presenter.  There was a scout that could not sit still to participate.  The tiger cub was extremely disruptive.  Extremely.  The presenter paused, explained the issue to the tiger cub and if he could not behave, he'd ask him to leave.  The scout did not behave.  the presenter ask the cub scout to leave.  It's a hard lesson to give, but an important one.  

 

Just as important, if you don't do it, you drag everyone down.  The scout program has great flexibility to deal with people with different challenges and issues.  But there are boundaries.  If the scout can't operate in those boundaries and if the adult leaders can't find a way to work around it, sometimes the hard lesson needs to be taught. 

Edited September 13, 2017 by fred johnson

[Eagledad]

Biggest mistake I ever made in scouts was not to deal with bad behavior early enough.  

 

I was once impressed by a cub scout presenter.  There was a scout that could not sit still to participate.  The tiger cub was extremely disruptive.  Extremely.  The presenter paused, explained the issue to the tiger cub and if he could not behave, he'd ask him to leave.  The scout did not behave.  the presenter ask the cub scout to leave.  It's a hard lesson to give, but an important one.  

 

Just as important, if you don't do it, you drag everyone down.  The scout program has great flexibility to deal with people with different challenges and issues.  But there are boundaries.  If the scout can't operate in those boundaries and if the adult leaders can't find a way to work around it, sometimes the hard lesson needs to be taught. 

I didn't have trouble at the Cub age because I knew to just keep the cubs moving. If they weren't exhausted by the end of the meeting, I added more jumping,  yelling, clapping, and cheering somewhere in the program.

 

Personally I feel Cubs are unfairly expected to behave like adults at Pack Meetings. IF I saw scouts talking to each other during my meetings, I took it personally that I was doing something wrong, not them. My goodness they have sit all day in school and then sit for another hour at meeting that is supposed to be fun. The scouts had so much fun at our meeting that their siblings came to join in as well.

 

As for the Webelos, they are called the Cub Master assistants. They helped with all awards and led the flag ceremonies. They also were expected to perform at least two skits and three run on skits. They loved it. Scoutmasters told me that they never had a scout from our pack that was afraid of getting in front of the crowd. I believe that by the time our cubs left the pack, they had enough experience and confidence to lead any troop campfire.

 

We taught our den leaders to have at least 20 minutes of free time where the scouts are running. Most of them had a basketball goal that was used heavily. I suggested sacrificing arts and crafts for physical activities is always a preference when boys are acting up. If they can't focus, just send outside with the basketball and they will go home thinking it was a good meeting. I only had two Webelos meetings a month, but they were 90 minutes long with 45 minutes of game time. I never heard a single complaint and had 100 percent participation. Boys just love to run. 

 

But to Fred's post; how he describes discipline is exactly how we taught the patrol leaders and senior scouts. If a scout is acting up, warn him once. If he continues, send him out of the room or activity. Don't yell, don't argue, don't debate, just quietly ask him to leave and deal with him later when you have the time. The youth leaders liked that method because it took conflict out of controlling behavior. If the scout was still a problem, then the SPL , JASM or SM might be brought into the picture, which was very rare.

 

At the adult level, we learned over time to get the parents involved sooner than later. AND, LOL, we made the scout call their parents to come in early and talk with the SPL or SM. I think that scared them more than anything. As Fred implies, just nip it in the bud.  It's better for everyone including the misbehaving scout.

 

Barry