Parent Breakout Sessions - a new idea

[eisely]

Since there is very little new under the sun, I suspect others have tried this.

 

We are a fairly large troop. Average membership is between 50 and 60 boys. I have not been very active with the troop these last two years, but continue to do some outings and attend committee meetings. It became apparent that a lot of parents were at sea on a variety of issues. Since I was not involved in the activities of the troop meetings, I have been leading breakout sessions for parents. This serves two purposes. It gets the parents and their conversations into a separate room, and thus not disturb the boys. Second, it has become a great vehicle for informing parents about various aspects of the program and getting feedback from them.

 

These sessions focus on a very narrow topic and last about 45 minutes. For example, one session focused on patch placement on uniforms and merit badge sashes. So far the parents who have participated have been very enthusiastic and appreciative. The leadership is also getting valuable feedback, as I mentioned. Those of us who have been involved in the program for many years tend to take for granted that everybody knows what is going on and how to get their questions answered.

 

Has anybody else tried anything like this?

[mk9750]

Eisely,

 

That sounds like a great idea to me! If I can figure out how to create a seperate space to do this, I might try to incororate the idea into our program.

 

I think your last comment is really valid. I get people asking me questions all the time, and I'm sure my answer comes off with a tone like "Come on! Doesn't everyone know that?". I don't mean to, but I know it happens, and I heard others do it too. Maybe an effort to provide info to those who are interested might be received well.

 

Thanks for the great idea.

 

Mark

[Eagledad]

Hello All

 

We were doing this when I was SM with the new parents. We observed that most of the problems and complaints that came from the new scouts was mostly due to the parents misunderstandings with the program. So we asked the parents, or at least a parent of each new scout to participate in the three training sessions followed with at least two months of observering the program with the New Scout ASM. The ASM would take the parents to different parts of the program like the PLC meeting, patrol corners, planning meetings, SM conferences, BORs and what ever was going on during the meetings that would help the parents understand the program. The SM would sit down with the parents for a few minutes while the scouts were playing games to answer any questions the parent had.

 

This seemed to help us a lot in solving misunderstandings the parents had about the program. I can also say that the questions help me as a SM get better at explaining the values of the Methods toward the Aims, and what exactly we mean by the Aims.

 

Works very well.

 

Barry

 

[EagleInKY]

This is an area that I am constantly trying to do better in. I agree that most heartburn between the SM and new parent's are caused by the new parent's not understanding the Boy Scout program. After all, it's much different from Cub Scouting.

 

I like eisely's idea, and may consider it as an option. Barry's approach is similar to mine, but I think he has a better process. Here's what we do:

 

1) We prepared a "Parent's Handbook". I don't like calling it a policy manual. I don't believe in them. It explains the Methods of Scouting and how we try to implement them. We first give this to them on their first visit or at the Webelos Open House.

 

2) We have a parent's orientation session right about the time they cross over.

 

3) We ask every family to "volunteer" one adult to serve on the troop committee for the first year. This gets them involved and helps them learn what is going on.

 

Next year, I think I'm going to add two things. First, I'm going to try to get Fast Start, NLE and YP training for everyone. It can't hurt for them to better understand the program. Second, I'm going to try to have some type of parent's re-orientation or roundtable after they've been in a couple of months.

[BigMac]

Parent break in is a requirement these days, especially with single parent families, and families without scouting experiance.

We had a camp-out that yielded all kinds of wild stories and while the parents were complaining they tacked on the lack of advancement.

Well after a session of explaining that this is not cub scouts and their is responsibility of the scout to always have his book and initiate the requirement to be signed off.

Additionally I included a talk about equipment, too often the parents wasted their money and bought junk which had impact to our program.

Also there was another session just before Klondike, that gave us a chance to educate allot of folks abou dehydration, layers, the evils of cotton, nutrition and of course hypothermia. It comforted them especially since we were going to well below zero temps.(This message has been edited by BigMac)