Article- The male crisis thats ruining our boys

[gblotter]

18 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

I'm saying focus on your neighborhood, on your community.

Or church.

[ValleyBoy]

On ‎6‎/‎14‎/‎2018 at 4:05 PM, Eagledad said:

http://nationalpost.com/opinion/barbara-kay-the-male-crisis-thats-ruining-our-boys-and-no-one-cares-about

I’m posting this article because it hints to what many of us were saying during adding girls debate. The article is mostly centered around fatherless boys, but there is some mention of what boys need to develop their instinctive nature that I’ve talked about in other threads. 

For example: “As Farrell and Gray explain: “The traditional boy’s journey to self-sacrifice incorporated service to others, and required responsibility, loyalty, honour, and accountability. It created his mission. And his mission created his character.””

I get that the BSA has moved on and there is no going back, but just maybe a few here will be swayed to consider the needs of the boy, sperate from the girl, and bend their family scouting program, at least a little, toward that need. 

I know that as much as girls needed a program like the Boy Scout program, boys need it a lot worse. 

Barry

I feel like the root to this problem is the brake down of the family unit that has taken place within our society.  No one wants to take responsibility for there own actions.  No ones seems to get the point that there actions affect not only them but there children and there grandchildren.  It is a never ending cycle that does not end until someone decides to put there foot down and take responsibility for there actions. 

Just my opinion, but there is not one thing any of us can do to fix this problem except be a good role model to the different kids that we come in contact  will and hope they decide to put there foot down in there life.

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, gblotter said:

With troops of 12-13 year-old boys and 12-13 year-old girls in the same summer camp environment, tell me which will be called out for being disruptive and distracting, and which will be praised for being focused and attentive?

This has been a big concern for me. I learned over the years that boys are big picture people while girls are more instinctively detail people.  When the two are mixed together in a meeting, girls naturally takeover because they get into details that make boys eyes glaze over. And we know the natural response of adults. Sadly, the more adults use girls to peer pressure the boys into being more proficient with program details, they more they are driven away with a sour impression of scouting.

Patrol method works well for boys because it gives them the practice of working the details of a big picture as a result of their decisions. A patrol will forget their food only once. I can identify good leadership troops from the bad ones simply by watching their older scouts lead. The adults of good troops allow the patrol method "method" to work so that the scouts get to practice details, a lot. To learn a thing, we have to practice a thing. The adults in bad troops tend to takeover and perform the details themselves. 

Trying not to brag about our program, but the OA adviser started pushing the scouts from our troop to be the leaders because he recognized that they were more creative and organized with organization business than the other troops in the district. 

Barry

Edited June 19, 2018 by Eagledad

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, Gwaihir said:

So quit.  throw in the towel.  the fight is lost.  

No, following  Kenny Roger's advice: " know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run."

I can be more effective, do more good, and not deal with all the crap by working with my sons and their friends.

Edited June 19, 2018 by Eagle94-A1

[RememberSchiff]

5 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I can be more effective, do more good, and not deal with all the crap by working with my sons and their friends.

This thought has been on my mind lately.  I wonder if scouting is like work, in the end one wishes more time was spent with family?

[gblotter]

5 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I can be more effective, do more good, and not deal with all the crap by working with my sons and their friends.

Because of recent BSA decisions and because of the recent LDS exit announcement, I feel I can be more effective and do more good working with the youth program of my church (and, yes - sidestep the crap).

[Jameson76]

1 hour ago, gblotter said:

With troops of 12-13 year-old boys and 12-13 year-old girls in the same summer camp environment, tell me which will be called out for being disruptive and distracting, and which will be praised for being focused and attentive?

This has been discussed within our troop.  Our go forward is to be a single gender, no linked option.  Only council / inter troop items we have is summer camp.  Already no district or council camporees.  We will take summer camps (we do 2 camps) 1 year at a time.  If significant program changes occur, then we will explore other options for summer.  

[Oldscout448]

1 hour ago, David CO said:

There are many good reasons for home schooling, but home schooling in order to avoid learning how to socialize with one's peers is not one of them.

 

Alas that depends on what form the "socialism " takes.    I cannot speak for The Latin Scot but in my case  socialism took the form of months of shoving, tripping, stabbing with needles, theft or destruction of property and school work, and assorted punches and kicks.       I finally exploded and gave one of my chief  tormenters a concussion.   Which got me expelled from St Marys Catholic pretty quickly.

[gblotter]

4 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

This thought has been on my mind lately.  I wonder if scouting is like work, in the end one wishes more time was spent with family?

I am the Scoutmaster of my son's troop, so Scouting time has been mostly family time.

Many of us understand how consuming Scouting can become. I completely detached from my Scoutmaster persona during a recent two-week family vacation. It gave me a pleasant vision into what my life will be like after the LDS exit on 12/31/19. There is indeed life after Scouting.

[MattR]

I think there is a relatively easy way to help the boys. It may sound a bit of a cliche but focus on the patrol method. A patrol of boys challenging themselves is still within the realm of BSA's program. They will do what is natural for them, have a lot of fun, and learn what we really want them to do.

On father's days I was talking to my son, who completed eagle nine years ago, about the BSA. We haven't talked about it much since then but he'd fit right in on this forum. His words: scouting should be the anti-school. If it's classwork it sucks, don't do it. Also, eagle is not nearly as important as all the adults make it out to be. Anymore, eagle is just plodding though a bunch of boring merit badges, which are mostly schoolwork. His best memories have nothing to do with advancement. They're about adventure, some legit and some not. They're about friends. They're about doing things. It's not that he looks down on eagle but he would have much rather had an environment where eagle is a consequence, not the goal it has turned into. When I was 16 years old I was one MB and an eagle project away from eagle and I just didn't even care about it. My best friend moved so I quit scouts. I told my son that and he said that's the way it should be. That's what boys want. It's not the boys that push for eagle, it's the parents, the scouters, the council and the BSA. People are worried that the addition of girls is going to wreck scouting for boys but the emphasis on schoolwork and advancement is what's doing it. Eagle has become the koolaid.

And yet there's nothing that requires all of this. All it takes are some adults that are willing to support the patrol method, to explain to the scouts the options of what scouting is about, and to defend their decisions. I keep saying that fixing venturing, because it doesn't have the advancement aim, will fix scouts. That's where this discussion about what boys need should go.

 

[RememberSchiff]

4 minutes ago, gblotter said:

I am the Scoutmaster of my son's troop, so Scouting time has been mostly family time.

Many of us understand how consuming Scouting can become. I completely detached from my Scoutmaster persona during a recent two-week family vacation. It gave me a pleasant vision into what my life will be like after the LDS exit on 12/31/19. There is indeed life after Scouting.

Maybe. It is those family members who passed while I was Scouting whom I wish I spent more time.

Edited June 19, 2018 by RememberSchiff

[gblotter]

5 minutes ago, MattR said:

That's what boys want. It's not the boys that push for eagle, it's the parents, the scouters, the council and the BSA. People are worried that the addition of girls is going to wreck scouting for boys but the emphasis on schoolwork and advancement is what's doing it. Eagle has become the koolaid.

I will not dispute your experience, but that has not been the experience for my son. My son definitely drank the Eagle KoolAid, and he will be the first to tell you that achieving the rank of Eagle Scout has been the highlight of his life so far. But in no way has advancement wrecked his Scouting experience. Yes - he has earned 57 merit badges, but he also has 50+ nights of camping and 150+ miles of hiking beneath his feet. Who says Eagle and adventure need to be mutually exclusive?

[Gwaihir]

50 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

No, following  Kenny Roger's advice: " know when to hold 'em. Know when to fold 'em. Know when to walk away. Know when to run."

I can be more effective, do more good, and not deal with all the crap by working with my sons and their friends.

I disagree.  Now more than ever, dealing with the crap to reach as wide an audience as possible, is what we need to do. 

I think of the coptic Christians in the middle east, facing down the barrel of a gun and refusing to renounce their beliefs in public before being executed, or the political dissidents of communist Russia facing execution or a life time in the gulags and choosing the gulags over bowing to the party.  How can we say we are brave, if we shirk this responsibility because of name calling when there are those around the world who would do ten fold for their beliefs?  

 

Edited June 19, 2018 by Gwaihir

[gblotter]

17 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

It is those family members who passed while I was Scouting whom I wish I spent more time.

I get it.

I know other dedicated Scouters who willingly sacrifice unbelievable hours for the good of Scouting (i.e. they lead training weekends, they staff Camporee events, they mentor OA Lodges, they renovate dilapidated camp properties). I confess that my Scoutmaster motivations are more selfish (I want to facilitate a great Scouting experience for my son). When my son was unable to attend our troop campout last weekend, I wanted to transfer my duties to other adults/dads (but I ended up going anyway). I guess that makes me a "conditional Scouter" of a different variety.

 

52 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

I wonder if scouting is like work, in the end one wishes more time was spent with family?

If you are asking yourself the question, you probably already know the answer.

[MattR]

@gblotter, congratulations to your son. With 57 MBs he clearly enjoyed it so it was the right thing for him.

I'm not saying advancement and adventure are mutually exclusive. There's just an imbalance. Advancement, as it stands, was an adventure for your son and that's great. It's not for most scouts. I'm suggesting either the advancement be modified to be more adventurous or that advancement have less emphasis. It's a challenge to fry an egg if you've never done it before. I hate to say this but I know plenty of scouts that have completed cooking MB and still can't cook a pancake. But they have described and discussed the food plate. My son was okay with MBs that involved doing things. The worst were the citizenship ones, mainly because he already saw it all in school.