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Lions now an official Cub Scout rank and program


The Latin Scot

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So now you can be in Cub scouts for 6 years. :blink: We (at the troop) get numerous Webelos II's that are ready to move on, or also we get several scouts joining each year, got weary of the younger kids in the pack and redundancy of the program (fire station again??), so they dropped but now they are back.

Guess it will work for some, but in a pack or program setting the interest and ability difference between a 5 year old and a 10 year old is pretty extreme

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I’m good with the changes they made. I definitely recommend the minimal Pack activity so as to not burn them out over 5.5 years.  We also limit Tiger activities in some cases as well.  I agree with those that burn out can be a concern, so adding additional activities as Scouts age is critical.  This takes a lot of work but with a larger pack is manageable.

Our first year we had 18 Lions.  15 made it to Tiger (we added 9 additional Tigers who were not Lions).  This year we have 12 Lions (excluding girls).  Typically we would only see 8-10 Tigers join each year.

I think we lost a lot of potential scouts in the early years as parents start setting up their sons activities at a young age.  Dasies start at the same age as Lions and prior to Lions I had to turn away parents who were confused when Cub Scouts started.  Several of those parents never returned.

 

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53 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

This will be a crazy year for packs implementing both girls AND 5 year-olds! I am honestly relieved my CO isn't accepting either, LOL.

It is a lot of work...and honestly they are very young.  Multiple times I’ve felt something on my leg and it was a Lion giving me a hug.  Kinda sad but I’m not comfortable with that at all, I get self conscious that the parents will think I’m a creep.  So I gently pull the young one away and get him back on task only to have the other leg attacked by another.  If your parents already think of Cub Scouts at Tiger age then I wouldn’t recommend it.  For us, I feel that it helps to get the kids and parents together at a young age in prep for real Cub Scouts.  I think of it as  more of an early sustained Join Scouts Night than a real Cub Scout rank.

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Too young.  Kindergarten is just too young.  When I was a Cub Scouter I thought half the Tigers weren't ready, and this is a year earlier than that.  And yes I know the Girl Scouts has Daisies, one of my daughters was a Daisy, but that was probably too young too, and from my observation 5-year-old girls are, on average, better at sitting still and paying attention and following instructions than 5-year-old boys.  And actually some of these boys will be 4 when they join, depending on the school district's cutoff age.  In my school district a boy who joins Lions at the beginning of September and turns 5 on Sept. 30 (cutoff is Oct. 1) will be a 4-year-old Lion for the almost a whole month.  Four years old!

I know, I know, grumpy old man, etc.

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21 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

Too young.  Kindergarten is just too young.  When I was a Cub Scouter I thought half the Tigers weren't ready, and this is a year earlier than that.  And yes I know the Girl Scouts has Daisies, one of my daughters was a Daisy, but that was probably too young too, and from my observation 5-year-old girls are, on average, better at sitting still and paying attention and following instructions than 5-year-old boys.  And actually some of these boys will be 4 when they join, depending on the school district's cutoff age.  In my school district a boy who joins Lions at the beginning of September and turns 5 on Sept. 30 (cutoff is Oct. 1) will be a 4-year-old Lion for the almost a whole month.  Four years old!

I know, I know, grumpy old man, etc.

And I think wolves are too young from what I see at daycamp sometimes. :laugh:

Edited by ItsBrian
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