Girls make up for lost summers...

[mrkstvns]

There's an interesting Bryan on Scouting post about a 16-year old girl who is ensuring she has enough merit badges to make Eagle...she's signed up for four weeks of standard merit badge summer camps this year!

Let's see, the boys in our troop tend to earn about 4 to 5 merit badges each (or at least get substantial partials), so that girl could be coming home from her camp experience with more than 16 badges!  

Kudos to her!   

Blog Post:
https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2019/07/12/why-this-new-scouts-bsa-member-is-attending-four-weeks-of-camp-this-summer/ 

[Jameson76]

We had a Scout join later than most, he was 15 and maybe 9 months.  We had a conversation about his goals, he indicated an interest in earning the Eagle rank.  At our first summer camp (we attend 2) had discussions and I told him if he was committed then the second camp would be a good thing to earn some additional MB.  He did attend and we worked with the camp to get into MB sessions that could be completed and could assist with rank advancement (also some for fun).  Then last summer he went  to high adventure and attended the second summer camp.  He did wrap up his Eagle in June. 

Not a bad plan.  The Scout summer camps can assist with the rank advancement.  Hope she enjoys the journey.

[Buggie]

We had a scout (11 yr/o) who had a tiger mom who signed him up as a maverick for multiple camps his first year. 

Scout eventually burned out because of said mom too. 

[mrkstvns]

Yep. It's easy to push a kid too far, too fast. In scouts, as in any other pursuit.

In the case of girls joining scouts, I don't think it's really an issue because those girls who are on a tear to meet deadlines have a different kind of motivation. They're already older and wiser and they know the clock is ticking.  It's not a case of mom and dad pushing on a youngster.