Why do scouts quit?

[SWScouter]

I just read an interesting article from Patrick Murphy, 2005 National Chief of the OA. In it he summarizes a study that was done of why scouts quit. I found it interesting though it gave no details of how the study was conducted.

 

The report can be found at: http://www.main.oa-bsa.org/programs/ttr/lettertounitrep.htm

 

SWScouter

[OneHour]

For our troop, we have noticed the following reasons why a scout quit our troop for the past 3 years:

 

(3) quit because parents' divorced and were forced to quit or one of the parents made it hard for the scout to continue.

 

(4) quit because of too many conflicting activities, namely bands, orchestras or other school related activities, ie. not enough time in the day.

 

(4) quit because of sports

 

(1) transferred to another troop because his mother thinks that he can rank-advance faster with the other troop and they camp in the backyard!

 

(6) older scouts (15+) became inactive (partly from resenting new scouts invading "their" troop 3 years ago).

 

(2) quit because parents want for them to concentrate on school and grades.

 

(4) Eagled out.

 

(4) moved out of states.

 

(3) college bound.

 

I don't recall any complained about the lack of troop campouts or activities. The closest ones are the older scouts who wanted high adventure which we agreed totally and have since developed a program with them.

 

1Hour

[evmori]

In my neck of the woods, sports & band are the two big competitors we have.

[t158sm]

Just a few observations from our last camporee a couple of weeks ago.

 

1. At least 3 instances of leaders yelling at Scouts

 

2. Most troops under complete control of adults (Several of them on their own ego trips at that)

 

3. Scout decisions overridden by adults

 

4. No youth involvement in the campfire program (Other than OA tapout)

 

Sounds like fun to me.

[MarkS]

"(2) quit because parents want for them to concentrate on school and grades."

 

Wouldn't surprise me if stats say grades don't significantly go up as the result of quitting scouts.

 

I always got my best grades when I was also involved in extrcurricular activities.

[Beavah]

I'll try to duplicate OneHour's informative data for our last three years:

 

12 (34%) Aged out (all our Eagles stay around until age 18+).

7 (21%) Conflicts with sports (6)/other activities (1)

4 (11%) Not interested in camping/outdoors

2 ( 6%) Parents pulled to work on school/grades

2 ( 6%) Medical reasons

2 ( 6%) Family moves

2 ( 6%) Looking for faster advancement/advancement mill

2 ( 6%) Divorce issues

1 ( 3%) Conflicts with troop meeting night

1 ( 3%) Behavior issue

 

[OneHour]

MarkS,

 

The two scouts who parents wanted them to concentrate on their schoolworks are straight A's GT (gifted and talented) students. Their parents are overachieving parents who apparently did not see any benefit of scouting on their sons' scholastic achievements other than taking time from their studies. I, on the other hand, would love to see these boys take a break from their studies!

 

Now, we do have one parent who "grounded" her son from scouting because his grade dipped. He came back after he pulled up his grades! That to me is great, because it shows me that the scout loves scouting ... enough to work his rear off to raise his grades!

 

1Hour(This message has been edited by OneHour)

[Lisabob]

Interesting report, though I too would like to know more about where the data comes from. Regardless though, it does seem to fit with what I've seen around here.

 

Looking at my son's troop and retention issues over the last year:

 

About 20 new scouts joined the troop a year ago. Of those, 7 are with the troop now, and I think 2 of these are on the fence based on comments they and their parents have made. There have been a few who dropped out due to circumstances that had nothing to do with the troop but from conversations with parents, it seems that at least 6-8 left for reasons that are more directly linked to things within our control. I think the major problems have been:

 

1. programs that are not geared toward the needs of younger boys (until last year, the majority of the troop was 14 or older so the addition of a LOT of younger guys was a challenge)

 

2. A prevailing attitude among some leaders that new scouts should "figure things out" on their own, which left some of them (and their parents) floundering and not knowing where to turn for help (this is changing, thankfully - I'm not advocating hand holding either, mind you.)

 

3. Lack of respect, or perceptions of lack of respect. Things like: older scouts badgering younger scouts about their lack of basic skills, but not actually helping the scouts learn those skills; adults putting off scouts who request sign offs or help ("not right now..." can only be used a certain number of times before the boy stops asking)

 

4. poor troop meeting planning, leading to "boring" meetings that the boys weren't excited about attending

 

5. extremely slow advancement due in large part to the above concerns - this is both a symptom and a problem in its own right I think.

 

I certainly saw that the scouts who dropped out were below 2nd Class as the letter indicated was typical. Of the 7 boys who stayed in for a full year and are still active, one is now 1st Cl., 1 is 2nd Cl., 3 are Tenderfoot, and 1 is Scout rank. Of the others who dropped out two were tenderfoot and the rest were scouts, after several months of active participation (for most of them) with the troop.

 

I think the troop leadership has made significant improvement over the last year on most of these fronts and I'm hopeful that we'll see better results with the current new scouts.

 

Lisa'bob

 

 

[LongHaul]

# 1 the program does not interest them.

# 2 the parent force boy to chose one activity or the other.

# 3 the parents get divorced or family moves away.

[Beavah]

I certainly saw that the scouts who dropped out were below 2nd Class as the letter indicated was typical.

 

Yah, I'm sure this is true, but it's a red herring, eh? Lookin' at the stats I posted above for our boys' troop, most of the drops were below 2nd class, but that's not the reason for the drops. It's just that most of the reasons for the drops (conflicts with sports, don't like camping, conflicts with meeting night & behavior) are discovered very early on in a boy's time in a troop, before they get through much advancement.

 

The other reasons are randomly distributed, with some low rank and some higher rank boys.

 

So the end result is that the majority of the drops are below 2nd class, but that has nothing to do with the causes.

 

[SWScouter]

Beavah,

 

You're right, and it seems fairly obvious that the boys that drop out are the ones that aren't that interested in scouting so they aren't going to advance much anyway.

 

I see the whole report as interesting but really rather obvious if you take a few minutes and think about it. For example, boys are more likely to drop out of troops with a weak outdoor program. A weak outdoor program means a weak overall scouting program and it's no wonder boys are dropping out of those units.

 

To me, the message is that if you want to retain the scouts, make sure that they have a great scouting program!

 

SWScouter

[EagleInKY]

This article is interesting. The statistics don't tell us enough to draw any factual conclusions. There's too many unknowns about the data. But it's still good info to see.

 

My experience of dropouts and rank match up with those in this survey. We've had four drop out in three years (I often forget about that one that dropped out in the first month). Three dropped out before making Tenderfoot. The other decided when he was 2nd class, but his dad wouldn't let him quit until he earned First Class. Also, of the three boys that have transfered to other units, two were 2nd class and one was 1st class. I would bet it's rare for a scout to transfer units (except if they move) past 1st class as well.