Camping Distance for Adults

[krikkitbot]

After many false starts and looking like I would not be the scoutmaster of my troop I can now announce that starting today I am the new scoutmaster. Time to see if I can do this or if I was just a bad back seat driver. 

Here is my first question of many to come. I will try to be as vague as possible with my questions because I think people in my district and even unit may read this board.

I know that there is a desired distance of 100 yards between adult tents and youth tents. Is that in writing somewhere (G2SS) or is that just a best practice? What do you do about the scouts who will only sleep in their parent's tent? Do you set up 3 areas?

 

Thanks for the help. 

[perdidochas]

33 minutes ago, krikkitbot said:

After many false starts and looking like I would not be the scoutmaster of my troop I can now announce that starting today I am the new scoutmaster. Time to see if I can do this or if I was just a bad back seat driver. 

Here is my first question of many to come. I will try to be as vague as possible with my questions because I think people in my district and even unit may read this board.

I know that there is a desired distance of 100 yards between adult tents and youth tents. Is that in writing somewhere (G2SS) or is that just a best practice? What do you do about the scouts who will only sleep in their parent's tent? Do you set up 3 areas?

 

Thanks for the help. 

I believe the 300 foot gap was Baden-Powell's advice.  I don't know how, but I would discourage any scout from regularly sleeping in their parent's tent UNLESS there is some disability (mental or physical) involved.   The Scout isn't growing much if that's the case.  The umbilical cord needs to be cut sometime.  About the only time that happened in our troop is 1) backpacking and 2) if the scout and parent showed up late, after the troop had already set up tents, but it was never allowed as a regular practice.  I never slept in a tent with my sons after Cub Scouts.  It's hard for a scout to have a buddy in another tent, and I don't believe in a mixed adult/scout buddy system.  

[gblotter]

Only rarely do our Scouts share a tent with dad. There is an annual father/son campout where it makes sense.

Sometimes one boy will end up without a tent partner (odd numbers). I have no problem if a Scout tents with his dad in that situation either, but we can usually get him into a tent with other boys so that isn't necessary.

[gblotter]

1 hour ago, krikkitbot said:

I know that there is a desired distance of 100 yards between adult tents and youth tents.

With the size of campsites we usually occupy, 100 yards is not really practical. A hands-off attitude works pretty well for us.

Edited March 1, 2018 by gblotter

[krikkitbot]

It seems to be fairly common in our troop with a handful of scouts especially the first year. I want to change it but I believe that have to make small incremental changes.

[MattR]

59 minutes ago, krikkitbot said:

What do you do about the scouts who will only sleep in their parent's tent? Do you set up 3 areas?

Not three areas. One for the adults and one for each patrol. The reason for a scout to sleep with a parent is that the scout is not mature enough. There are all sorts of reasons. I see it and I understand it. There are very few scouts that want this and by making them go find their parents they see the difference between them and the other scouts. They know they're a bit different but they are honestly not ready. It's a decision for them. It took a whole year for one scout to let go of mom but now he's doing fine. And mom was so ready for him to get to that point.

As for distance, 100 yards would be nice, if you have it. The bigger issue is training PLs to politely tell intruders (adults or scouts from other patrols) to leave. That's the whole point of the 100 yards.

BTW, congratulations!

[Eagle94-A1]

35 minutes ago, perdidochas said:

I don't know how, but I would discourage any scout from regularly sleeping in their parent's tent UNLESS there is some disability (mental or physical) involved.   The Scout isn't growing much if that's the case.  The umbilical cord needs to be cut sometime. 

110% True. You are not helping the Scout.  We have a case where one Scout does NOT want to leave daddy's side. He may be technically meeting the requirements, but he is not mastering the requirements as was the expectation in the BSHB and G2A until recently.

 

What's ironic is that we do have one Scout who MUST sleep with his dad for medical reasons and he "HATE EVERY MINUTE OF IT!" (his quote).

[Tampa Turtle]

We do not allow that. The boy would have to sleep in a tent with a buddy. We would allow Mom or Dad to be in visible line of sight of each other and make frequent checks but under no circumstance (unless the boy was VERY disabled) would let the camels nose under that tent. By the 2nd or 3rd campout it is not an issue in just about every case the boys shoos his parents check ups away.

We strongly encourage the Webelos visiting boys to sleep in boy-only tents even if the tent is 6" away from mom and dad. That helps expectations. I think the almost complete abscense of any camping at the Cub level in some units does not help matters.

Now if the boy HATES camping that is another story.

One time we had some newbies at a beach campout and it was so fair and dry no rain flies were needed and one pair just had the mesh top up under a cabbage palm. They were a bit freaked out by the chattering raccoons directly above them. When one of the tussling raccoons (a lot like young boys I noticed) fell out of the fronds right on top of the mesh they screamed pretty good. But we moved the tent, fixed some midnight hot chocolate and they had a good laugh about it in the morning.

[Tampa Turtle]

2 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

110% True. You are not helping the Scout.  We have a case where one Scout does NOT want to leave daddy's side. He may be technically meeting the requirements, but he is not mastering the requirements as was the expectation in the BSHB and G2A until recently.

 

What's ironic is that we do have one Scout who MUST sleep with his dad for medical reasons and he "HATE EVERY MINUTE OF IT!" (his quote).

In my experience 100% of those "special case scouts" never stay much past year one. 

[Eagledad]

We've never had a scout that wouldn't camp without a parent. Not that I knew about anyways. I think the Patrol Leaders know how to deal with something like that.

I like to move the adults far enough away to where we can't hear them at night. That's about 100 yards, give or take. The only time I ever regretted that spacing was when I had to visit a sick scout at 3:00 AM on a moonless night in a heavy woods with an outside temperature of Zero degrees.  

Barry

[blw2]

Our troop never really did that actual distance thing when I was along....mostly just a function of the place.  In most cases it would be more like a figure 8...the adults set up in one circle and the scouts in another. (not actually touching usually, but close by...)

But I personally think that the space idea is very good.

Occasionally when i camped with the troop no effort was made at all....adults and scout tents just placed any old random spot in the site.... I didn't like that at all, even though a hands-off approach was used for the most part.

[RememberSchiff]

Upwind of the latrine and between where the scouts camp and where you don't want them to go.

[Eagle94-A1]

2 hours ago, Tampa Turtle said:

In my experience 100% of those "special case scouts" never stay much past year one. 

CLARIFICATION:  Scout with medical condition hates having to camp with dad. He knows he misses out not only when he cannot camp because dad is unable to go with him, but missing out in general because he is not with his patrols mates....

... On second thought he is friends with my middle son and they are in the same patrol. It may be a good thing they don't tent together, otherwise they would never shut up and go to sleep.

[krikkitbot]

So how do I encourage breaking from this "tradition" without ruffling too many feathers? I think that out of a troop of about 20 boys there are about 3 families who do that. 

[MattR]

2 hours ago, Tampa Turtle said:

In my experience 100% of those "special case scouts" never stay much past year one. 

Right now there are two in my troop. They are tenting with their patrols now. Both have unusual families.

I used to never see this but now I do. I think kids are less mature at a given age then they used to be even 10 years ago. A friend is a third grade teacher and she's a bit shocked at kids that are belligerent to their parents. They just tell their parents what to do. Maybe this is an anomaly. I doubt if they will have problems in a tent but they have obvious social skill issues.