Questions about what is appropriate

[Beavah]

With all of new sexual offender laws, a large number of these fellows end up in our neighborhoods, most of the suburbs have laws that say a sex offender cannot live with in 1000 feet of a Park or school.

 

Nah, sorry, still don't buy it. Yeh do submit BSA applications for background checks, right? While those aren't da greatest things in the world, they will catch someone on the sexual offender registry. So that takes care of that problem.

 

Now why is it yeh would exclude all the single folks who are out gettin' an education, workin' for a living, tryin' to follow in da footsteps of the Shakers or whatever who are not on the sexual offender registry? Fewer and fewer people are gettin' married each year, so our potential pool of volunteers contains more and more good, honest, upstanding single folks. Why exclude 'em?

 

there were two problems that I don't think can be chalked up as one -- there is supposed to be 2-deep leadership (unless this wasn't considered an "outing") and there is supposed to be co-ed leadership for a co-ed crew.

 

Yah, yah, whatever. The point was that's ticketing the person twice for the same event. The female leader didn't show up. That's not the same as choosin' to break two different rules separately.

 

And remember, this is a crew, eh? It's entirely possible that one of the crew members is a legal adult, so that in the eyes of the law (or had it been a boy scout trip), two-deep was still in place.

 

We know there were injured kids, and so one can quite easily imagine that because they were waitin' for word on an injured kid, they were delayed in their departure. As a result, they did not meet the female co-leader in the field as they had planned.

 

A simple, reasonable explanation. Deciding not to travel late at night when the driver was tired, they instead crashed on someone's floor.

 

Now, should it have been the single leader's floor? Nah, that's sloppy. Lots of times, though, durin' vacation weeks like this families leave town eh? The rest of the family takes a vacation while the high schooler is off with the crew. So yeh can't just send kids home. The proper thing to do may have been to try to get someone's mom to come and sleep over, but not that many crews have two registered female advisors, and this wasn't a big group, eh? Maybe yeh call VentureMom to see if the whole crew can crash on her floor, along with the Advisor. But I think yeh start to see where the headache and "not wanting to impose" makes it seem like just usin' your own place is the most reasonable.

 

I don't know a single scouter who is worth a sot who hasn't at some point "violated" the youth protection guidelines in some way or another. Kid's parents don't pick him up on time and everybody left, needin' to deal with problems or issues and yeh do the best yeh can, just being focused on other things at the time and not thinkin' about it, whatever. If we were to run 'em all out on a rail we wouldn't have a BSA.

 

So is this sloppy? Yes. Does it merit a respectful conversation? Yes. Should it trigger heightened alertness? Yes. Could it all be a fairly reasonable lapse in judgment that's understandable under the circumstances? Also yes.

 

It is not at all likely that a fellow is abusing high-school aged kids with six of 'em around all equipped with cell phones. Real predators isolate kids, they don't keep 'em together.

 

Beavah

 

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Basementdweller]

Buy it dont buy it this is my reality. We have 17 sexual offenders with in 1mile of the Co according to the City website

[Basementdweller]

Just checked the website we have 13 registered sex offenders within 1/2 a mile of the church...

[Callooh! Callay!]

"he immediately handed the phone to my son"

 

Knowing only what is described up to that point... at that juncture I'd be discussing with my son the logistics of picking him up. My wife and I would be in the car and our way before getting off the phone.

Four hours away? Would only increase my resolve not to let this stand. Further away? I'd fly.

 

[Beavah]

Yah, that's an easy thing to say, Callooh! Callay!. But even on a frabjous day I reckon that goin' to do an 8-hour round trip car ride is a bit much for a person gettin' a call for a kid and so handing the phone to the boy.

 

One of the things scoutin' and especially Venturing tries to teach is communication skills, and that includes communicating with your parents. Venturing in particular is designed to be very youth run, eh? The norm is that the youth decide on plans and communicate to each other, and are expected to communicate to their parents. In this case, one of da big issues seems to be that Junior VentureMom didn't do a very good job of explainin' the plans to his parents and keepin' them informed of changes. That's pretty normal for a 14 year old, of course. But 14 year olds learn by doin', not by having adults do it for them so they can sit back.

 

So when mom calls and wants to know what's goin' on, it really should be junior who tells her. That teaches junior several lessons. How to communicate with mom, but also how important it is to communicate with mom before the trip and to keep her informed of changes so that she isn't callin' and interrupting his fun.

 

It also allows the Advisor not to be interrupted or to stop the other stuff that's goin' on for the rest of the group so he can deal with every parent phonecall that happens to come into the field.

 

From where I sit, most of this seems like it's the case of a parent and a kid who are new to Venturing and who are havin' the typical communication issues / new parent / new unit thing goin' on. Just like we talk about how hard it is for parents to transition from cub scouting to boy scouting, there's a similar shift when they move to Venturing. Particularly if the lad was or is in a troop that is more adult-run.

 

Beavah

 

 

 

[Beavah]

Just checked the website we have 13 registered sex offenders within 1/2 a mile of the church...

 

Yah, sorry I wasn't clear BasementDweller. I wasn't sayin' that yeh don't have such people in your neighborhood. I'm sure you do.

 

I was sayin' that havin' such people in your neighborhood has no relationship whatsoever to accepting a single person as a scouting volunteer. A background check will catch and reject anybody on the Scarlet Letter list, and probably more than half of the folks on the list were married anyways.

 

Being single has nuthin' to do with being a risk to youth.

 

B

 

[OldGreyEagle]

As Jerry Sandusky preps himself to go to Court today to ask that the charges against hin be dismissed, one has to ask how many years he has been married, how children he has and how that makes/made him any less a threat?

[TWOMORROWS]

Very well said Beevah. I think that maybe the boy and his parents are not quite ready for the freedom that Venturing offers. In Venturing the parents should be able to get all the information they need from the boy. That being said I also feel that the Advisor should have done better planning and had a contingency plan for leadership attendance.

[Lisabob]

TWO, I disagree to some extent.

 

The boy is 14. He is new to Venturing, as apparently is his mom. They are still trying to figure out how this all works. While I agree that self-sufficiency and individual responsibility are traits that Venturers should be working to develop, I also know a good many 14 year olds (even those who are well acquainted with how BSA programs work) who aren't all the way there yet. And in a Crew, 14 year olds are on the youngest end of the scale. Just as we don't expect (in a troop) the 11 year olds to have fully grasped the concepts that a 17 year old should grasp, in a crew the 14 year olds are still the young-uns and shouldn't be expected to be as functionally independent as the 20 year olds.

 

So: combine new membership with young-ish age and (at best) Crew leaders who may not be completely trained themselves, and I think this kid's mom has some very reasonable concerns here.

 

Hopefully, all of this boils down to some miscommunication and inadvertent errors. I hope that VentureMom will let us know how everything turned out.

 

 

[VentureMom]

Well, everyone made it back safely and no worse for wear, although we also found out that the boys and male chaperone had ridden up in the chaperone's car instead of the church van, which my husband and I assumed they had taken since it is taken on the other scout (not Venturing, now I know the difference!) outings. We believe there was just a LOT of mis and non communication and we are planning to address this with the appropriate scout leaders both at the church and otherwise. We also misunderstood that the female chaperone DID stay that Saturday night at the male chaperone's house, though my son did not see her after a certain time, and I never did. And once at the destination the boys and male chaperone had one cabin and the girls and female chaperone another. Anyway, all is safe for now, many lessons are learned and we are planning to get many questions answered. My son had a good time and is safe.

[Engineer61]

"So when mom calls and wants to know what's goin' on, it really should be junior who tells her. "

 

Bull. When I (a parent) asks the responsible adult in charge "What is going on?" I expect that adult to respond. Venturing and Scouting be damned. If I want to talk to my kid, I'll ask to talk to my kid.

 

Just another example of adult leaders not respecting parents. If you don't respect the parents, you don't respect their kids.

[KC9DDI]

Agree with E61. Perhaps Junior should have been more proactive in communicating plans and changes in plans to mom (assuming these plans and changes were communicated to Junior in a timely fashion, and the unit didn't have some silly ban on cell phones or communication devices in general) - but, if a parent wishes to speak with the adult leader in charge of an event, that parent should not be given the run around.

 

Also glad to hear from VentureMom that the situation turned out OK. It also illustrates the importance of holding off on effectively accusing someone of child molestation until all the facts are in.

 

Sounds to me like the unit - both youth and adult leadership - need to work on communication in general.

[Beavah]

Yah, thanks for comin' back and letting us know the outcome, VentureMom. We appreciate it, as it really is nice to know how things worked out when yeh spend some time tryin' to help out from afar.

 

Don't mind the rest of the discussion here unless yeh have an interest. Long threads like this one slowly "drift" onto other related topics which might not be useful for yeh.

 

Venturing is a great program, and will really help your son learn and grow. It will also help you learn and grow in your relationship with your son. I always tell parents of a child your son's age that yeh have 4 years for him to be ready to be on his own as a responsible adult, and yeh have to plan for that, eh? If he's suddenly responsible for himself at age 18 he's goin' to fail. So it's worth you and Mr. VentureMom to sit down and map out year by year what responsibilities you are goin' to transfer to him, so that by age 17 he's responsible for everything (giving him a year to make mistakes and learn while you're still around).

 

Enjoy da rest of your Venturing experience!

 

Beavah

 

[Beavah]

On the phone call thing, I think a lot depends.

 

Yep, with a new parent and boy, yeh have to make allowances and leave some time for instruction. The transitions between programs can be jarring for parents. When boys join a new activity, it's easier for the folks runnin' that activity to set expectations because there aren't as many assumptions in play. But when yeh move to a different scouting program, there's a lot of assuming it will be like the last one. That takes some time to work through.

 

On the flip side, I think we have to recognize that when units are in the field, adult leaders can't be at the beck and call of parents phoning their cell. They are responsible for bein' with the kids and supervising activities and all the rest. I remember any number of times when scouters pockets started ringing while supervisin' climbing activities or helpin' a lad cook dinner and such. There should not be an expectation of adult contact on the part of parents while units are in the field, if only because there's no guarantee of cell reception.

 

I think generally it's the responsibility of the parent to know what's goin' on before they send junior off, and they shouldn't expect that if they weren't payin' enough attention before they dropped him off that a scouter is goin' to have time to spend explainin' things to 'em from the woods. Phone calls to the field should be saved for true emergencies, like a death in the family. They shouldn't be used for "Oh, yeah, we forgot to ask what the itinerary was before you left."

 

Beavah

 

[Scoutfish]

"I think generally it's the responsibility of the parent to know what's goin' on before they send junior off, and they shouldn't expect that if they weren't payin' enough attention before they dropped him off that a scouter is goin' to have time to spend explainin' things to 'em from the woods. Phone calls to the field should be saved for true emergencies, like a death in the family. They shouldn't be used for "Oh, yeah, we forgot to ask what the itinerary was before you left. "

 

And I agree, but that wasn't the case here was it?

 

The OP said:

 

"They are also doing a lot of activities that parents were not asked to pay for like going to an amusement park, etc."

 

So, if the parents are given an intierary, and the group doesn't follow it, then you bet your butt that the leader does owe it to the parents to let them know.

 

Since he is the adult in charge, he does need to answer to them personally instead of a youth.

 

Actually, he should of contacted the parenst first before changing the plans as parents did not agree to or sign any permission slips for the extra unplanned activities.

 

This guy is lucky he doesn't find himself in a big bunch of trouble.