Patrol Activities NO Adults?

[mtscout]

 

Guide to Safe Scouting says that some patrol activities do not require adults. Do you do it? What type of activities would you permit sans adults?

 

 

[EagleInKY]

The easy "by the book" answer... anything reasonable that they ask for that is safe and planned-out.

 

Do our patrols do them? No. Unfortunately. I've encouraged it, and reminded them from time-to-time. I think our guys are easy too busy or too lazy to make the effort to pull off a patrol activity.

 

However, on the other hand, many of these things happen naturally. If a patrol is truly a "gang of friends", then they are probably getting together to play video games, go to a movie, spend the night, play lazer tag, etc. None of these ever come to me for approval, because they're just hanging out as friends.

 

Finally, what type of things would I approve. As long as they have a plan, I'd approve things like a campout on one of their family's property, a day hike, a service project, a trip to an amusement park, etc.

[Eagledad]

EagleinKy gives some great responses. I think you have to be proactive here at first because boys of this are not use to adults giving this type of permission, much less allowing it. We did little things at first like adults going to bed at a reasonable hour during all-night lockins. At one campout out we let the scouts go on a hike by themselves and on another we let the scouts take a five-mile bike trail without adults. I remember once when we did an indoor climbing wall activity in downtown Oklahoma City. After we were finished, the Troop planned to eat about six blocks down the street at a pizza restaurant. We had to move the cars, so I asked the SPL to lead the troop on a hike to the restaurant and meet the adults there. I was surprised not only by the scouts excitement, but by the other adults as well.

 

In all cases I told the older youth leaders to take good care of the troop and they were responsible for the health and safety of all the scouts. Of all the activities we gave the scouts responsibilities without adults, the lock-ins where the hardest because the scouts had full run of the facilities. At first we started by one adult staying up but in a separate room. But as the adults saw how the scout handled the responsibility, we gave them more rope, so to speak. Its a growing process for the adults as much as the scouts.

 

As you do these little things, the bigger ones will come easier. We have a BSA camp 45 minutes away and it's not to hard now to let a patrol camp by themselves if the choose because there is a Camp Ranger there as well. I'm not as active with the troop now, so I don't know if they still do that, but my point is take Ky's advice and start looking for opportunities to give the scouts some independence. Start small and allow the adults as well as the scouts to trust the idea. Develop a new relationship with the scouts that you have not experienced yet. It's wonderful and a great growing experience for the scouts.

 

I love this scouting stuff.

 

Barry

 

[EagleInKY]

Barry's reply reminded me of something we did at summer camp. It had been a very good week and we were proud of our guys. The SPL was doing a good job of keeping the troop on schedule and we had no behavior issues to speak of. So, on Thursday, we adults decided to skip the standard mess hall dinner and cook some brats in the campsite.

 

The guys asked what was going on when they saw us cooking. We said "we're having brats!". The guys responded "Cool! No dining hall tonight!". We corrected them, "No, WE'RE (emphasis on "WE") having brats, you guys are going to the dining hall".

 

The guys were a little bummed about missing out on the brats, but then they realized that they were going to be on their own. I had a quick chat with the SPL about not letting us down. They were proud of the fact that we let them go off by themselves for the meal. I had several adults from other troops mention to me that night that they were surprised to see the boys with no adults at dinner. They were impressed and said they wish they could trust theirs to do the same. Who knows, maybe we'll start a new tradition.

 

Now we are trying to work in our troop on taking these successes and translate them to the patrol system. Small steps, yes. But remember, it's a journey not a race.

[acco40]

A year ago I suggested to our two "regular" (as opposed to NSP or Venture) patrols that they could have a patrol outing without adults. "Cool!", was the response. What we did was camp at a neighboring council camp and those two patrols were at a different site that the adult leaders and two other NSP patrols. We made a visit in the evening and once in the morning but otherwise left them alone. They loved it and so did I.

 

Let the boys have as much responsibility as they can handle!

[LemSiddons]

I know the world has changed - but when I was a scout, we had very little adult involvement. We often took patrol hikes - either while on campouts - or back in the city. We spend countless hours teaching these kids how to camp, hike, cook, do first aid, handle emergencies, etc. ....then we lock them in a box.

 

Heard a discussion recently - about how some boys were out hiking a trail at our local scout camp. One was injured (broken leg?). The adult that worked at the camp said, "Thank God one of them had a cell phone." Why??? Were they not Scouts? They were not exactly out in the middle of nowhere. Some of the group could have easily gone for help while the others stayed with the injured scout. They could have made a splint and a stretcher. Any Tenderfoot should have been able to handle that situation. Isn't part of the purpose to teach them how to survive without cell phones, computers, electricity and the like?

[dan]

Isn't part of the purpose to teach them how to survive without cell phones, computers, electricity and the like?

 

No.

 

The purposes of the Boy Scouts of America are Citizenship training,

Character development, Personal fitness.

 

There use to to be a course in Junior Leader Ship Conference, that was called Utilizing your Resources. Sounds like the scout used his resources to get help in the best and quickest way.

[msnowman]

This is refreshing - Nephew's troop is still wrestling with the idea of Patrols doing activities seperate from just Troop activities. There has been a long held belief that Patrols couldn't do activities on their own (adult supervision was immaterial to that specific debate).

 

As far as "Any Tenderfoot should be have been able..." knowing what to do in theory and being able to apply it in practice are two seperate issues. An 11 year old BS may very well know how to do a splint and stretcher when it comes to pretend rescuing a buddy with a broken leg. Being able to keep ones head when faced with the real need to apply those lessons sometimes takes a little bit more. Maybe a more "realistic" training would be a good patrol/troop activity? Like departments conduct for PD/FD? Give them a chance to put the things they learn in comfortable, indoor settings into real world use.

 

Sorry for the tangent.

 

Michelle

 

 

[LemSiddons]

I definitely agree on that being the best use of resources. I was bothered by the adult's comment inferring they would have been helpless without a cell phone....which leads back to the original topic of trusting the kids to have an activity without adult supervision.

 

 

 

So why do we teach camping, cooking, and first aid?

 

[LemSiddons]

"Maybe a more "realistic" training would be a good patrol/troop activity? Like departments conduct for PD/FD? Give them a chance to put the things they learn in comfortable, indoor settings into real world use."

 

Absolutely! You learn a lot more that way - than by someone spoon-feeding the information. It's really fun to watch the boys figure things out for themselves. We had our Fall Camporee a couple weeks back - with several "skill" stations - most of which required teamwork and creativity with limited resources. At the first station, they were just a group of kids. By the last, they were a team.

 

[Eagledad]

Our Troop once hiked a mile from the parked cars to the campsite. The reason given to the scouts was so they needed to practice packing everything in a backpack. The real reason was we had the older scouts simulate a car wreck a half mile down the dirt road. They had studied how to simulate different wounds, broken legs and things like that.

 

It went very well, but a long story short is two months later our Troop of about a dozen cars filled with about 60 scouts drove up on a real wreck within a mile of the summer camp we were attending that week. Every scout that had been on that first-aid training campout was out and ready to deal with the injured driver of the wrecked car. We had to ask them to get back in the cars because their were enough people taking car of the driver and we were afraid another car was going to hit the scouts before it could stop.

 

I spent all week trying to live down how we trained the scouts in first-aid but wouldnt let them help a real hurt driver. The kidding was all in fun and Im still living that down. But, those guys were ready and eager to give first-aid to that hurt driver.

 

I love this scouting stuff.

 

[LemSiddons]

I can't tell you how many times my Scout training has been needed in my life. I've lived off a main road for 40 years - so I've been first on the scene for many an accident. I'm no EMT - but at least I have a clue where to start. I've seen many non-scouts 'freak out' in adverse situations - because they had no clue what to do. I'm soooo happy my boys now love Scouting - as I KNOW they will learn many valuable lessons.

 

I, too, love this stuff!!!

 

 

[KurtB]

LemSiddons,

 

Welcome aboard. Pull up a seat and grab some coffee while it is still warm.

 

You asked...

 

So why do we teach camping, cooking, and first aid?

 

We teach those skills, and many others, because they are related to the "Methods of Scouting". The methods were selected by the BSA to achieve the "Goals of Scouting". Other programs use similar items to try and achieve similar goals.

 

Of course, that basic question "Why do we do what we do?" has sparked more discussions (and sub discussions) that possibly any other question that gets asked here on a regular basis (JMHO). The default answer is:

 

"Because that is the program."

 

I prefer "Because it works, and it is a lot of fun for everybody that is involved."

 

Of course, as in everything - YMMV.

 

Kurt