Kids Going Solo

[Beavah]

 

In the parent thread, jblake asks:

 

I wonder how many SM's who believe they run a boy-led, patrol-method, troop would actually allow a patrol of boys go off for a weekend without the two-deep leadership? ...For those who would allow it in certain circumstances, what limitations would be placed on these boys or would they be allowed to actually lead themselves and make their own decisions for the weekend?

 

Well, how 'bout it, lads and lasses? Do we allow patrols to camp or hike on their own? Under what circumstances? Is that even a level of understandin' and self-confidence we care about getting kids to?

 

If they can't handle things on their own, can we ever really make 'em responsible for leading and teaching others? Wouldn't that just be make-believe?

 

Note: For those who want to discuss G2SS or NCS policy or guideline issues/legality/whatever, please use the spin-off thread below so this one can just focus on the youth leadership/patrol method issues, eh?

 

Beavah

 

[Oak Tree]

I would allow it in our troop, although no patrol has approached me about it. And I haven't really pushed them to do it.

 

I suspect I might have an ASM or two who would argue against it from a safety perspective, but I've got enough faith in the boys that they could go ahead. It would depend a little bit on which patrol it was and which boys were planning on going, and I'd make sure the parents were ok with it.

 

And I'd want to review their plan for the weekend, just to confirm it wasn't involving any high-risk activities. I've observed that boys don't always make the best risk assessments when considering their own capabilities :-)

[local1400]

The real question Beav is would Mommy allow it?

[Lisabob]

Hey hey, there's also Daddy to worry about and sometimes that's worse. But yeah, I get your point there local and I agree it would be an issue, especially for the younger guys. Except, I think the REAL "real" question is, would the kids even ask to do it? Between getting (and probably accepting) the message that they're "just kids" all the time at school and in society, plus the difficulties of conflicting and over-scheduled lives that many families lead, I'd be really surprised to find very many troops where patrols were even very interested in doing this. Sad, but true anyway I think.

 

But not being a SM I will take a stab at answering hypothetically as if I were, supposing all sorts of probably unrealistic conditions. First I will suppose that we're probably talking about older (13/14+) scouts here, who may have better judgment and hopefully better skills than your typical 10-11-12 year old - or else, that we're talking mixed age patrols where there are several senior scouts who are pretty mature and have experience working with younger guys. Second, I'm supposing that the scouts who want to go do not include that one boy every troop seems to have who requires two adults shadowing them at all times because of behavioral issues. Third, I'm assuming they have in mind reasonably familiar activities where simply being alone adds a bit of a thrill (esp. for 13/14 year olds - maybe something a little bigger for older guys). With these assumptions in place I like to think I'd say sure, as long as their parents could be convinced to support it too.

[mk9750]

This is a great question!

 

I have been trying for probably 6 years now to convince our guys to give this a try. I have been trying to get our older Patrol to put together a plan to review it with the SM to see if they can get his approval. Every time we get the guys talking about it, they seem excited. The excitement peters out by the time they get back together again the next week. I've always suspected that they discuss it with parents, and the parents say no. But the guys say they didn't talk to their parents about it, and no parent has mentioned they heard the guys were trying to do this. I now suspect that the guys just don't believe their parents would give them permission.

 

I am not the SM either. But were I, and had a group of older guys (I think majority 16+), with a SOLID plan that included very little down time, at a location they were very familiar with, I believe this would be an extremely valuable teaching opportunity. I also like Lisa's comment about that one Scout. And here I thought only OUR Troop had one of those!

 

I base my enthusiasm on two things. First, when I was a boy around 12 - 15 years old, in the late 60's and early 70's, it was not unusual for a group of guys I hung around with to grab a sleeping bag, a few snacks and a buck or two, tell our parents we'd be home the next day, and ride our bikes down to the local pond for the night. We'd wander over to the pharmacy nearby and buy some candy. Our best fun was when we started bringing a transistor radio. About noon the next day, we'd get hungry enough to ride home and raid someone's refrigerator. I KNOW that the vast majority of guys in our Troop now are WAY more caple of being on their own then we were back then.

 

Second, we've let the older Patrol set up in the next campsite over and had no contact with them for the weekend. The only difference between that and letting them go on their own completely is the safety net adults a few hundred yards over provide. After hearing what they have done with their "almost" freedom, I have no qualms at all to let our older guys do this. I wish they would.

 

Mark

[Bob White]

As a Scout our patrol (Hawks) di patrol activities on our own ALL THE TIME. These ranged from biking to the local public swimming pool for the day to overnight campouts on some private land a few miles from our home. At our peak our troop had 8 patrols and most of us did patrol activities separate from the troop activities.

 

As A scoutmaster twenty years later, with 6 patrols in the troop, mostdid patrol activities on their own outside of the troop activities, at first they did them with two adults with them, then with two adults nearby, and in the final stages with no adult leaders on the activity.

 

It depended largely on the readiness of the patrol and the nature of the activity. It was the leadership goals of the adult leadership team to train boys to go from dependence on adult leaders to independence from adult leaders as they grew through Scouting.

 

We realized that the best way for this to happen was to focus on they they ability to lead and cooperate as a Patrol team, and to have a high level of scouting skills.

 

Patrols going on a patrol outing needed to have my perission as the SM to do so. They were rarely denied. As they did each activity we added more requirements to the plan they had to present and diminished the amount of adult participation required.

 

Fo a patrol to be able to go out without adults on an overnighter they had to show they were prepared. They needed to shao a plan; Who is going, What means of transortation are they using (we prefered hiking or biking, What is their travel route, What was their agenda, What troop equipment are they needing (patrols had their own euipmentthey could always take on a patrol outing but they needed to specifically request troop equippment), Where are they going, When are they leaving and when are they returning, and why are they going.

 

We also had a parents permission slip that each scot had to produce a week prior to a patrol opvernighter that explained to the parent that no adult would be p[resent on the outing.

 

Scout outings while always having plenty of time for fun needed a purpose or mission to accomplish. It had to have a skill improvement aspect, merit badge application, or service to others.

 

Rarely did scouts leave the troop prior to aging out. We never did merit badge classes as part of troop meetings, yet nearly every scout aged out as a Life Scout or Eagle Scout. Several of the scouts from the troop served on campstaff at council summer camp, Philmont, Sea Base, and Northern Tier High Adventure Bases.

 

That's what happens when you follow scouting as a fun way to teach and not just a game.

 

 

[Stosh]

I would think that this issue would be the #1 goal of every leadership program. Can these boys take what they have learned and venture forth independent of all the safety nets, adult supervision, and for a brief time function like an adult with other adults?

 

When I went fishing in Canada with my buddies, I didn't need to ask my parents, or my boss, or anyone else for that matter. We just organized our trip and we went.

 

For me, this is what I am working towards with my boys. I start out with little steps along the way just like anything else in the program. Do your boys have patrol meetings on their own where they can plan and do things? It can be at one of their homes, at the mall or after school or just about anywhere. Maybe 10-15 minutes to make plans. Do the boys eventually like to hang out with each other. Do they take any pride in their patrol, do they banter and tease each other like the WB guys do? Do they group up and head out for non-scouting events, i.e. movie, sports game, xBox tournament? Once these boys hang together, it's time to focus their energies into leadership training -- planning, organizing, and doing things as a true patrol. If one of the boys is working on his Eagle are the others there to help? Are these boys truly friends?

 

If these patrols are always fragmented, changing, fluent and lack stability, then they are always trying to reinvent the wheel and never get a chance to really show solid leadership.

 

Even Beavah's choice of title for this thread is indicative of the problem. Solo means a single individual. We do well with getting our Eagles to solo, but do we ever really develop team leadership? Can the adults let go and let the patrol develop and grow as would any other group moving towards maturity/independence?

 

Stosh

[gwd-scouter]

We have a group of older Scouts (ages 14-15) that are planning a backpacking trip on their own, or at least part of it on their own, for March. On Saturday morning, we will drop off those Scouts at one end of the hiking trail, then drive the adults and the younger/new Scouts to where we will camp. The older guys will hike, camp over night, and then hike some more and meet up with us on Sunday morning.

 

This is what we've been working toward. Last fall on one of our backpack trips these older Scouts said they wanted something more adventurous. They want to go back to the trail we hiked on that campout, but instead of only a few miles they want to do 10 or 15. Kinda tough on the new guys, so they asked if we couldn't do a lighter backpack trip for the young guys and let the older Scouts go on their own.

 

I think they were surprised that I said it was a great idea. Work out the plans guys and we'll do it!

[oldsm]

I dropped a group of 4 scouts on the A.T. in western Maine a couple of years ago. They'd planned their own trek (reviewed and approved by me), got parental approval, and I provided the transportation.

 

Their plan didn't work as they expected. They bit off more than they could chew (it was a particularly tough stretch of the trail), so instead of doing 30 miles over 5 days, they wound up doing a lot less over 3 days. When they realized that their plan wasn't going to work out, they developed an alternative, communicated it to me, and implemented the new program. They had 2-way radios and cell phones for communication, had the trail maps, built fires in the pouring rain at night, and kept their spirits up. It was a grand experience and adventure for them, and it gave them a chance to demonstrate some maturity to their parents.

[Eagledad]

Great Friday All

 

>>I would think that this issue would be the #1 goal of every leadership program.

[Gold Winger]

I spent years encouraging my son's patrol to go do something by themselves but to no avail.

 

I'd hear the standard cry of today's teen, "there's nothing to do." I'd say, "Call your friends and go to a museum or go on a bike hike or go camping or something. . . ." "Nah . . . no one wants to go, we'll just go play Nintendo (or XBox or whatever).

 

If your Scouts are willing to do stuff on their own, I envy you. I feel sorry for so many of today's suburban teens, they either don't want to do stuff by themselves or they aren't allowed.

 

My son has a parttime job that is, by the map, less than 700 yards away from home. Sometimes he does walk to walk but his mother insists on picking him up because "it's dark." He lives less than a mile from his high school but catches a ride home with a friend who lives a few doors away. The friend's dad picks them up every day because, "it's too far to walk."

 

I'd tell all the stories of "when I was a kid" but we all know them.

 

 

[Hunt]

I think the magic words here are "group of older boys." I can tell you that at least where I live, there is no way that parents would allow younger boys to camp overnight without adult supervision. My observation is that parents (around here, anyway) are anxious about letting 13-year-olds go to the mall without adult supervision. A lot of the parents are anxious about letting their boys camp overnight WITH adult supervision. I should note that this isn't primarily about trusting the boys--it's fear of crime--probably exaggerated and unrealistic, but it is what it is.

In the case of my son's troop, there aren't enough older boys currently to make up a patrol of boys old enough to do this, anyway. I think if the 14-16 year olds in the troop wanted to camp out overnight without adults, both the leaders and the parents would probably think it was safe--but they aren't all in a single patrol.

[Eagledad]

Hi All

 

>>My observation is that parents (around here, anyway) are anxious about letting 13-year-olds go to the mall without adult supervision. A lot of the parents are anxious about letting their boys camp overnight WITH adult supervision.

[Venividi]

I spent Saturday running a first aid scenario at our district's version of a klondike. It was a day full of activity challenges where patrols followed a compass course between challenges.

 

It was a beatiful day, around 30 degrees, with a foot of snow that had fallen the day before.

 

I was surprised at the number of patrols that had an adult tagging along with them (better than half). And most were mixed aged patrols with at least some scouts that were 14 to 16 years old. This was in a relatively small forest preserve where, if a patrol got lost, it might possibly take them up to 5 minutes to stumble upon other humans. Probably less. My thought was what better message could we give scouts than to show them we trust them enough to let them particiapte on their own without adults tagging along. Another thought was that perhaps they were thinking of this as a spectator sport like watching their son play basketball or soccer.(This message has been edited by venividi)

[Bob White]

"The question isnt really if the scouts can do it. It is whether the experience is important enough for the adults to go through the hassle. That is the big hurdle."

 

I think the big hurdle is that most leaders either don't know that it is an element of scouting, or they do not develop the scouts suffciently for the scouts and the parents to have enough confidence to do it.