Kid is having a blast, I’m going nuts

[Its Me]

 

In March we joined the troop of my sons choosing. I would have preferred the one of the two others that were much better organized.

 

Now four months into this I am going nuts. My biggest issue is that the patrol method looks more like the den method. Advancement is weak. We only have one kid above first class and of the 22 boys in our troop only three are first class. Last month our senior patrol leaders eagled then aged out in the span of two weeks.

 

The campout plan was established be youths no longer in the troop. The last two campouts have been one night only with considerable driving distance +3 hrs one way last month and about the same for this month. The campouts have no written plan, no aspect of goals, training or elements to work on. Not even a schedule, at least no written one. The SM has one in his head but doesnt seem to want to share it with his ASM or the scouts or their parents.

 

Meetings start a half hour late. Departure times start 1-2 hours late. During troop meeting the SM leads, teaches or otherwise just seems to demonstrate his extreme Eagle skills. Youths are not given a chance to lead. Recently at a lashing demonstration that was given by the SM, two older scouts just stood next to him holding the ends of the rope. Jeesh, let the boys try and demonstrate if they fail all the better; they will be better prepared next time, screamed in my head.

 

 

BUT

 

 

From my boys perspective this is a great troop. We have a strong new scout patrol, with boys my son has known for many years. These boys enjoy each others company and break and reform into pairs and groups of three all the time. It just depends on who is present or interested in doing something different. My son is confident that he made the right decision. I do not share this opinion.

 

The other troops we looked at were not interested in keeping all seven of our boys together in a new scout patrol.

 

Its getting to the point that I don't want to be a part of the adult leadership as an ASM. Such disorganization at the leadership level is driving me nuts. I look at this as a Thursday night recess club.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lisabob]

Ah, I feel your pain. Our first year with my son's troop was a little like this, though in fact yours sounds much worse. And, being an organizer-type of person, it drove me crazy to the point where I almost pulled my son from the troop. After talking it through with my son we agreed to give it a full calendar year before making a decision. I'm glad we did that. These days, while there are things that irk me a little, he's happy and many of the most frustrating aspects have been improved upon so that I can manage to do this without wanting to scream every week.

 

I don't know how much it will help, but here are a few things that you might consider:

 

1) It sounds like maybe you are part of a troop with a lot of young scouts (based on the fact that only 4 are at or above 1st Cl). Is the lack of structure, organization, and leadership a result of that? This isn't to say that it is acceptable, but sometimes it helps to look at the causes of problems to determine whether they're likely to get better over time (and whether you can stand it until then).

 

2) Maybe you need to have a sit-down with the SM and CC. Tell them what you've written here - that your son is having a great time, but the extreme lack of organization and lack of consideration for the adults/parents involved (as evidenced by the driving issue you mention, meetings starting so late, etc.) is causing YOU a problem. And you can't be the only one. Unhappy parents eventually pull their kids from the program in exasperation.

 

3) Ask them how you can work with them to alleviate these problems. Maybe they're desperate for help on this front and just don't know that you'd be a great resource for them.

 

4) If your SM and CC haven't been to training for their positions, maybe start publicizing upcoming training dates. At the very least, make sure they know how to access the online training segments, which aren't bad. If YOU haven't been to training for your position, bite the bullet and do it - and ask others from the troop to attend with you (even if they've done it before!). Even if the training session isn't wonderful, it gives you - and anyone else from your troop who participates - an excuse to get together and talk about scouting, how your troop functions, and what might be done better.

 

5) See if your council offers National Youth Leader Training over the summer. Next year's SPL and ASPL might benefit greatly from attending, which in turn may strengthen the entire youth leadership.

 

6) Suggest that the adults do a program review/thorns & roses type discussion at some point. We did something along these lines about a year after my son joined, with really good result in terms of building a common vision and a concrete strategy to achieve that vision. Of course, this may not be the way to go if you don't have a well regarded and fairly diplomatic person who is capable of running the show. Last thing you want is for this to disintegrate into a shouting match!

 

7) Be realistic about your level of involvement. There are basically two options. One is to become much more involved, if you think that doing so will a) alleviate some of the annoyance you are feeling and b) actually improve things for the troop. The other is to back way off, if you conclude that you just can't work with these folks without causing yourself far MORE stress, with no foreseeable pay off. In that case, if your son really wants to stay with the troop, you'll be the drop off parent. Sometimes that's not the worst thing, and there are other ways you can contribute to scouting outside of your son's troop if you so desire.

 

8) Is there likely to be change in the SM and/or CC positions anytime in the near future? Some troops rotate these every couple of years, giving you reason to expect some changes on the horizon, others keep the same person in the same job for life, or so it seems. (There's good and bad to both of course.)

 

Just one other thought. How many of your son's friends are going to stay with scouting (or with this troop)? I've noticed that troops with a high chaos level and weak program as you are describing tend to lose a lot of first year scouts. So you might want to re-visit that issue of staying because his friends are all there. They may well not be there next year.

 

 

[Beavah]

Yah, It's Me. It's hard bein' a new parent comin' into a Boy Scout program. We adults come with all kinds of preconceived notions and expectations. Adults who care a lot and who are "organizer-types" often want to dive in and "shape them up."

 

That's always a disaster.

 

My advice to you is to take a step back for the rest of your son's first year. Every time you find yourself gettin' near that "going nuts" point, step back and get out of the way. If that means you need to withdraw from an ASM role, do that. I'm never particularly fond of usin' new crossover parents as ASMs the first year.

 

First impressions are fine and all, but to be honest, most of us notice the bad things and the unimportant things in early impressions. It takes time to see the good things and the important things for the long term. As Lisa'bob suggests, give it a year. It's your son's troop and the SM's troop, not yours. Give 'em some space, give yourself some time.

 

After that first full year (or two), you'll have a much more complete view of things, and you'll have built up some respect and "social capital" among the troop adults and kids. You won't be the obnoxious new guy anymore. At that point, you'll be able to select the one area which is (most) important to improve and which you have the skills and desire to work on. Volunteer for and do a good job with that, and let other people do their bit, eh?

 

We'd all like our children's experience to be perfect. That's our need, though, and often has little resemblance to our kids' needs. Kids learn more from mess than they do from organization most of the time. Trust your son.

 

Beavah

 

[Gunny2862]

Beavah, you are a wise woodchopper aren't you?!

 

I have some of the same situation as "It's me" only I'm certain that it is mainly my perceptions that aren't seeing all of what is taking place in the troop.

 

My answer is that I have signed up to be an ASM (Because I am #2 of 2 ASM's), and am working my way thru all of the training I can get to. (see below)

 

I am also intentionally sitting as far back from the drivers seat as I can get while observing the "?normal?" functioning of the troop. I am also working my own way thru MY copy of the Scout Handbook.

 

Funny thing though, My Troop Committee seems to think I need to Do more rather than learn my way in. The SM has a more balanced view, thank the Lord. Note: in BSA less than 30 days - Fast Start:Boy Scouting; Troop Committee Challenge; Safe Swim Defense; Safety Afloat; Red Cross CPR Adult/Child Infant with AED and Red Cross First Aid certified within that period; 2 night campout and Flag retirement, Troop Committee meeting last Monday, going to Roundtable tonight. Spending the whole week onsite at summer camp, this month. Just missed Adult Leader Training by about a month.

 

 

 

[scottteng]

Yes it all does look very chaotic especially if you are the type of micro-manager that makes a great den leader. As adults we are in charge of creating a safe environment for boys to fail, fail again, and maybe at long last succeed. Parental instinct makes us want them not to fail but that really is for cub scouts where they learn to "do their best". These are young men who are not well acquainted with Mr. Murphy and his laws. They cannot learn from your experience they must find out for themselves. So what if the burgers fell in the dirt and were all gritty it's all you have to eat and hunger is a delicious sauce. I even ate the spaghetti from the patrol I was assigned to eat with that was seasoned with nice fresh sand. Fresh caught fish for dinner sounds like a great plan when you are 12. Adults want to have a fall back plan other than more pop tarts or ramen noodles. As I told one young man on his troop visit if he did not like the way the SPL was doing things to come on over and run for his job. He has now crossed over and is part of the chaos but maybe with a couple of years under his belt and some learning experiences like grub master,cook, patrol leader etc he will be ready to make good his words.

[Lisabob]

Let's be careful here. A lot of what has been said so far is along the lines of boy leadership being a messy beast (which is true), the transition from great cub leader to new boy scout leader being difficult for a lot of us (which is also true), and the need to sit back and take some time before reaching any decisions (again, great advice). I admit I said some of the same things in my response, and also that in retrospect, I appreciate that several people gave me that same advice when my son joined the troop.

 

But, several things It's Me writes suggest to me that there is more going on here than just the general chaos of a typical boy scout troop. For example, the SM not sharing whatever plans may exist for a camp out with his ASMs? Routinely leaving for camp outs 1-2 hours late? Driving 3+ hours in each direction for a one night camp out, more than once in a great while? All of these would bother me a whole lot because they suggest that there is a lack of planning, a lack of communication, a lack of consideration for the parents, or some combination of all three factors.

 

Parents, even those who are former Webelos Den Leaders who love Scouting, will only put up with so much aggravation of this sort before they give up on a troop (or worse, on the whole program). "Sit back and wait until you see the whole picture" can certainly be valuable advice but it shouldn't necessarily be the only piece of advice for a frustrated new boy scout parent, or we risk downplaying some very legitimate concerns.

 

 

[Its Me]

 

Weeks before we joined an entire patrol left for another troop. The charter has a large pack and out of the ten webelos that crossed, only one went to our troop. There is no hiding that this troop lost somewhere around 50% of its scouts this past spring. A mom came up and said why would you join this troop, I would pull my son in an instant if my divorced husband would let me. It goes on. When I press for a root cause, all I get is that there was an ASM who wanted to take over the troop and he upset the whole apple cart.

 

Let me say again, this troop is my son's choice. And he is having great fun.

 

[Gonzo1]

It's Me,

You and I are in similar boats.

My son also chose the weaker troop of others available.

SPL is frequently absent, PL's frequently absent too.

SM is weak, CC is OK, other ASM is OK.

At times, it's Webelos III, at times it's a troop.

 

Get the CC to get him trained, yourself too (if not already) and be part of the solution.

 

 

 

[Gunny2862]

Scotteng, but is amazing isn't it, how Mr Murphy hangs on the sideline w/o disrupting anything that is properly planned and supervised.

Of course with a boy led wilderness encounter part of the fun is (within safety limits)seeing how they pull it back together when they realize that NO one has a compass and they left the trail 1/2 an hour ago, etc.

[scottteng]

Gunny2862 yup you just keep your hand on your portable gps in your pocket and say well boys I'm just going to go over to that tree over there and take a nap do wake me up when you figure it out maybe pages 114-118 in your scout book will help you. Boy I sure am sleepy. ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ

Helps the rep to take lots of naps you know they know for sure you are too old and feeble anyway.