2 year tenting rule - with yurts??

[Liz]

Our young ladies have decided to reserve 2 yurts at a state campground for a "cabin camping" weekend next month. Each yurt holds 8 people. The intention is to have the youth in one yurt and the adults in the other (we only have 8 youth planning to go; it's a new, small female unit). 

How would you interpret this rule to apply here? 

Quote

Separate accommodations for adult males and females and youth males and females are required.

Tenting

• Separate tenting arrangements must be provided for male and female adults as well as for male and female youth.
• Youth sharing tents must be no more than two years apart in age.
• In Cub Scouting, parents and guardians may share a tent with their family.
• In all other programs, youth and adults tent separately. (Youth Protection and Barriers to Abuse FAQs)
• Spouses may share tents.

Lodging/Cabin Accommodations

Whenever possible, separate cabins or lodging should be provided for male and female adults as well as for male and female youth. Where separate accommodations cannot be provided due to group size or limited availability, modifications may be made. Where completely separate accommodations are not available, additional supervision is required. (Youth Protection and Barriers to Abuse FAQs)

• If adults and youth of the same gender occupy single-room accommodations, there must be a minimum of two adults and four youth, with all adults being Youth Protection trained.
• Physical separation by other means, including temporary barriers or space, should be used only when no other arrangements are possible.
• These modifications are limited to single-gender accommodations.

 

We'll need to get creative for the male and female adult issue (probably involving the addition of an RV or something, and one male leader has offered to just sleep alone in his truck), so I'm confident we'll find a way to handle that. But I am not entirely sure how to deal with the 2-year thing for the youth yurt. Do we follow a tent rule because no specific exception is made for lodging, or does that rule not apply because it's not mentioned for lodging? The only thing I can think of to get around it is to have our 2 or 3 oldest Scouts pitch a tent outside the yurt or something. Our Scouts are all fairly closely clustered from 11-13 years old, but we have at least one who hasn't turned 11 yet (recent crossover), and a couple of the 13 year olds are getting pretty close to 14. 

So... OK in a large group because of the limitations of the lodgings? Or pull out the 13 year olds and tell them they have to tent it?

[qwazse]

Lean on the "modifications may be made" bit.

When we had one female adult with a troop in one cabin, she'd have a bunk with a tarp hung for privacy ... adults on one wall, boys on the opposite wall. (I actually, slung my hammock outside that night, and that's what I'd likely do if I were the sole male in this situation.)

All the youth will be fine in their yurt. The tenting scenario applies to the more typical situation where you have 2-man or 3-man tents. Basically, abusive situations seem to be more likely when pairs or triples are too far apart in age.

That said, be prepared with a spare tent. 

Edited January 25, 2020 by qwazse

[Liz]

I've seen an abusive situation happen in a large tent full of same-age (11 year old) Scouts, but then again, we were able to quickly put a stop to it and the offender was immediately sent home from the event and then barred from Scouting. That might have been more challenging in a 2-person tent where it was one kid's word against the other's. 

I feel quite comfortable with our girls sharing a yurt. I just wanted an outside pair of eyes on the G2SS rules to make sure I wasn't conveniently interpreting it to suit my unit's situation.  

Stringing a hammock outside (without rain and wind protection) would not be an option for a February campout on the Oregon coast, but it's definitely something to keep in mind for other outings. 

[T2Eagle]

Consider the yurt a cabin not a tent.  Whole troops with a full range of ages share cabins all the time.  For the adults, do whatever separation makes everybody most comfortable, be it hanging tarps or the lone male sleeping in his truck.

[TAHAWK]

I checked and find no "yurting" rule, nor a "hoganing" rule.  😃 

[qwazse]

4 hours ago, Liz said:

I've seen an abusive situation happen in a large tent full of same-age (11 year old) Scouts, ... might have been more challenging in a 2-person tent where it was one kid's word against the other's. 

I feel quite comfortable with our girls sharing a yurt. I just wanted an outside pair of eyes on the G2SS ...

And that's the crux of  the matter. The G2SS claims to lower the olds of abuse ("barriers" is a slight misnomer) based on the most general of observations. It hasn't seen your camping conditions nor does it know your youth. For example, I can imagine pairs of 13 year old boys who if I can help it will be assigned different camps, let alone tents. And I can imagine a half dozen 10-11 year olds would benefit from being in the same room as a couple of scouts two years older. I think the G2SS gives you the latitude in this case to make arrangements that will best serve your scouts.

[Liz]

Right. That was a case where we had one Scout who, while the same age as the others, was MUCH larger, and he had a long history of major behavioral problems. We couldn't see any sign that his parents were acknowledging or addressing those problems. He'd been in cub scouts with my oldest, and the incident occurred at their first Campboree shortly after crossing over. 

I think all the kids in my child's patrol were traumatized by the incident. They all did single-person tent camping from there until the end of their Scouting days (which for several of them was 7 more years). 

[Treflienne]

 

On 1/25/2020 at 2:23 PM, Liz said:

8 youth planning to go; it's a new, small female unit)

On 1/25/2020 at 3:21 PM, Liz said:

I feel quite comfortable with our girls sharing a yurt.

 

On 1/25/2020 at 3:50 PM, T2Eagle said:

Consider the yurt a cabin not a tent.

I agree with T2Eagle.   Given the number of scouts, and given the size and spaciousness of a yurt (if it is like the yurts I have seen) it is much more like a cabin than a tent.   Very different from the situation in which you have two scouts in a small tent.

I actually wish that the GTSS would make its distinction by the number of scouts in the space, rather than how much canvas or wood is involved in the structure.

Also, it is my experience with girls that they tend to like all being together, 3 or 4 or 5 in the same tent,  rather than being divided into two-person small tents.  It would be much simpler for my unit if the tenting allowed a 2.5 year age range (or better yet, a 3-year age range) if there were at least 3 scouts sharing the tent. 

[elitts]

1 hour ago, Treflienne said:

Also, it is my experience with girls that they tend to like all being together, 3 or 4 or 5 in the same tent,  rather than being divided into two-person small tents.  It would be much simpler for my unit if the tenting allowed a 2.5 year age range (or better yet, a 3-year age range) if there were at least 3 scouts sharing the tent. 

I di put forward an interpretation of that rule that says "An 11 year old can tent with a 14 year old because their ages are only 2 integers apart", but I didn't get much buy-in. 

So instead I've had to content myself with insisting that if they'd meant "24 months apart" they would have said so.  Which matters because when the rule first came out I had people arguing that we needed to start bringing the roster on camp-outs to make sure we didn't have a kid born in May 2004 tenting with a kid born Oct. 2006 even though their ages were still 14 and 12.

[Eagledad]

Ah, the age of dealing with fear. Everybody excepting your same age tent mate is a suspected bad guy. Not very scout like I guess, but keeps everyone safe. Unless that same age tent mate has been bullying you since Cub Scouts. True situation we had to deal with.

OP, what do the parents say? 

Barry

[David CO]

On 1/25/2020 at 7:25 PM, Liz said:

That was a case where we had one Scout who, while the same age as the others, was MUCH larger

Shhhh.  We don't want national to hear this and impose (in addition to age and sex) height and weight divisions.

[MattR]

18 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

OP, what do the parents say? 

I agree. Also, you know these girls, do you expect any problems? Do they work well together? Or are they cliquish? If there is just one older girl that looks out for the younger scouts then nothing more than a quick discussion with all the scouts about looking out for and being helpful to each other is all that's needed. Have fun.

[qwazse]

2 hours ago, Treflienne said:

... Also, it is my experience with girls that they tend to like all being together, 3 or 4 or 5 in the same tent,  rather than being divided into two-person small tents.  It would be much simpler for my unit if the tenting allowed a 2.5 year age range (or better yet, a 3-year age range) if there were at least 3 scouts sharing the tent. 

Our boys and my daughter also liked to be four to a tent. They started using smaller tents as they got older once they realized that they could manage quiet hours if it was just one buddy or just themselves.

The real goal was to separate the owls (late nighters) from the larks (early risers). Nothing ruins a decent coffee more than some scout walking the 100 yards to your campsite just to complain about their bunk mate keeping them up all night or leaving the door to the tent open early in the morning.

[MikeS72]

I had to google 'yurt'.  In 55 years of scouting I have never been anywhere that had them.  My first thought when I saw the pictures was 'Oh, Genghis Khan!'

As a few others have said, I would look at those the same as I would a cabin, or the Adirondacks that our council camp offers in a number of campsites.

[mrjohns2]

There was a faq or a Brian on Scouting asking about adirondack trail shelters being accommodations and not using the tent rule. I would consider a yurt being more cabin like than an adirondack. 

Edited January 28, 2020 by mrjohns2