Where's Your Adult Line?

[Beavah]

Yah, a couple of recent threads have talked about some of the issues with adults on campouts. Adults can interfere with boys' patrols (in the extreme, insistin' on sleeping or cooking with them). Lots of adults can change the dynamic in other ways, too, either taking Scouter time, or just changin' the feel of a trip. At the same time, as SR540 points out, welcoming adult participants and making it "fun" for them is probably the biggest single thing we can do to get new adult leaders and committee members.

 

So where does your unit draw the line? How much are adults welcomed/encouraged to participate? How are they "managed?" What have you found works for you? What is still a challenge? Help us learn and get new ideas!

 

I'm a bit curious, too, about whether there's differences for troops that do more care-campin' compared with adventurin' with backpacks/canoes/snowshoes etc. Around here anyway, there seems to be a big difference in adult roles in those different kinds of troop programs.

 

Beavah

[OneHour]

Ah ... the age old debate ... how much should boy-lead be? The old management style and technique holds true till now and in the future. ... If you don't teach them, don't blame them and don't expect any more.

 

In our troop, first and foremost, only scoutmasters attend campout unless seatbelts are needed. When parents come on campouts, they are assigned tasks to help with the troop. Their expectations are managed before and during the campout, including leaving their sons alone and sleeping with their sons. There are exceptions to the case. We had a scout who had night terror. The only person who could watch after him at night is his father. We also had a scout who is extreme ADHD. Again, for his safety, his father is asked to watch after him including at night. Of our 7 years of existence we have not had a parent who asked for his son to sleep with him. As for cooking, the scoutmaster who is responsible for the NSP usually stand with the patrol to teach them how to cook and prepare their meal for the first time, not cooking for them but to coach them how to cook. If a parent decides to interject himself, one of us would politely ask him to let them experiment on their own.

 

Having said that, we have not had a good quartermaster. The troop's gears are in terrible shape. One of us adults will have to interject before we have to spend $$$$ to replace gears.

 

To date, this style is working out for us, but times again, we are still challenged with the fine line between adults' intervention and boys' total freedom. Again, ideals will only work so far.

 

 

1Hour

[Beavah]

Hmmm... oops. Let me clarify a bit.

 

I was thinking of this as "non-scouter adults". Parent drivers and such - adults who aren't "regular" program people. For regular program scouters, there's always the question of how much "coaching" to provide, as OneHour states. But this question is different - how many total adults, what structures to keep 'em separate, how much effort is spent on keeping the adults safe/happy/fun compared with the effort spent on the kids, etc.

[anarchist]

Beavah,

long but you asked for it....

 

Our "line" moves constantly...as needed. As I have said in previous posts we encourage parents to help as they can. Go ahead sign up and put the "suit" on...Last month I accompanied 6 parents to their first Scoutmaster specific training class...It helps attendance for them to know that an old old man is going to bring the coffee and make sure they are there on time...(and hold their hands)

 

Our troop likes to grow adult leaders almost as much as we like growing scout leaders. We have a very active program with anywhere from 13 to 18 troop outdoor events annaully usually a large summercamp contingent (30+ boys) and most years at least one group doing seabase or philmont (or both like this year) and an annual minimum of 6 "patrol only" activities. And as Adult leaders sons 'age out of scouting it helps to have a host of newer adults to fill in the gaps as they occur.

 

Particularly with the younger patrols (our NSPs tend to stay together through their scouting "careers"), adults are really needed. If a Scoutmaster was expected to be at each activity...there would be a permanent "help wanted" sign at the church. So we encourage parents to be involved and get trained.

 

And just like new scouts, we do not give them a uniform and turn them loose. Starting at our shake-down campout for the new scout patrol, the SM takes every new parent who wants to go (this is a "car camp" BTW). He also "takes them out of action". He and they spend the whole weekend learning to be a "new scout patrol" just like their sons are doing...He is their "troop guide" for the weekend -a pure stroke of scouting genius (while I can take lots credit for our new scout (only) shakedown program...the "new parent program" was all his (did I mention he was a RGG-really good guy?) In this way they (the parents)learn to appreciate what their boys are learning...and they are kept from meddling and being distractions to their sons!

 

At troop level car camps, we generally have adults numbering between 6 and 12 in addition to being the "transport" for the weekend, they are mostly uniform wearing ASMs and committee members (like me).

 

On our hikes and canoe camps we find the number generally drops as one would predict(but not as precipitously as you might expect). We just came off a three day (spring break) 33 mile hike on the A. T. that terminated at Harpers Ferry...13 -first class and above scouts and 5 adults -all had a great time. Two weeks prior to that we had a 6-7 mile practice hike camping weekend breaking in boots training on water filters and back pack stoves, and 28 scouts with 9 adults took part.

 

Our canoe camps can end up with ratios nearing 1 to 1 on our flat water events (young scouts and fathers mostly) and drop to 3 to 1 or 5 to 1 for our river trips like the annual hundred mile canoe event (never less than three parents ...and four adults is our usual "optimal target" for this week long trip). On this trip, most of the parents are long time ASMs or committee members.

 

At patrol events the younger scout patrols usually have two or three adults while the older patrols frequently get SM approval and arrange transport and "go it alone" or sometimes with two ASMs or an ASM and a willing parent...whatever the patrol and the Sm determine works for them.

 

Managing parents- we have several trained leaders at each activity who have no special duties except transport, adult "patrol" cooking and keeping a fresh pot of coffee going. "Secretly" their job is to "hold" new parent hands and hold back "more experienced" parents when their own "parental mode" kicks into overdrive- after all -it happens to all of us occaisionally. Not having a boy in scouting any longer makes me the usual gatekeeper...and if they get too jumpy I stop their coffee intake.

 

Where our "line" is drawn "tightest" is where an event has a space limit- due to camp ground or district event requirements ...we never bump a scout for an adult. We take only the adults needed for transport in these cases...scouts sign up first and "transporters" are then "allowed" in. Case in point our Assateague Island National Seashore weekend is coming up...An extremely popular event. We have 40 scouts going and 50 group camping spaces available by park regulations...but we have 22 parents and 11 younger sibs wanting to join in the fun.

In this case, the parents (beyond the ten needed for transport)and sibs must find their own accomodations...in the family camp areas just down the road. The troop adults will set up a large kitchen and feed all adults and sibs...

 

Our scouts will stick to their surf fishing, head boat fishing, nature hiking, pony watching, hole diggin and crab hunting program...and everyone will have a great big sunny-sandy time.

 

 

And Long Haul...the number of parents along has little to do with boy led...as long as enough scouters who believe in the program are there to hog tie or coral the newbies back at the adult kitchen...If you travel like we do it gets hard to ask a parent to drive fifty miles to drop a bunch of kids on friday night and then drive home only to do it again Sunday...and by studing your "prey" in the field you can determine which ones are the best "catches"...

Anarchist(This message has been edited by anarchist)(This message has been edited by anarchist)

[SR540Beaver]

Where we camp and what we do for program has a drastic effect on non-registered adults coming or staying home. It dies down anyway after the crossovers have gone on a campout or two and the new parents have checked us out to make sure we won't let thier son die. It is after this couple of campouts that many new parents decide to register or not. We don't have 30+ registered adults, non-registered adults and sibling family members on every campout. The campout last weekend was in a state park about 50 miles straight down the interstate from home and we were doing our annual chili cook-off.......which the new scout patrol I work with won BTW with the instruction of their Troop Guides.

[gwd-scouter]

I guess we don't have an adult line, since the only adults that go on campouts with our troop are me, my ASM husband, and our other ASM.

 

Those two ASMs were a bit difficult at first to turn around to my efforts toward getting our troop boy-led a couple of years ago. Both have been to training and have experienced my "personal conferences," (i.e., let the boys do it), and have since discovered how much more pleasure they have on a campout now that they've "caught the vision."

 

We have on occasion had a few parents along when we've done the more "fun" type of outings - skiing comes to mind, we had a bunch of parents come along for that - but that trip didn't involve camping. Backpacking? Forget about it? Sleeping on the ground - even car camping with a full trailer of all the comforts of home (almost)? Forget about it.

 

I marvel at the posts on this forum about parents that interfere with the troop. I can't even get anyone right now to take over for our treasurer!

 

 

 

 

[orennoah]

In our troop, the non-registered adults are included with us uniformed adults into the Grump Patrol. We make SURE that they're busy with Grump Patrol duties, so as to keep them away from their sons. We also brief them ahead of time, both orally and in writing (our Grump Patrol Manual), with what we expect of them and what they can expect from us.

 

It's our most fervant hope that their sons will have a great time and the parents will, too. We want them to volunteer and to step up and take on uniformed responsibility.

 

After all, the SM's most important job is to identify, motivate and train his/her successor.

 

- Oren