Oversleeping

[SMDonHall]

How does a boy-led troop handle the problem of boys oversleeping, especially if some of those oversleeping are in leadership positions. (and by oversleeping I don't mean "Oh my gosh my alarm didn't go off!" kind of accidental oversleeping, but more "I don't want to wake up, so I'm not gonna")

 

Don

[asm 411]

We let the Scouts handle waking the Scouts up.

 

The Scoutmaster and I do things like make several courses of a hot breakfast, pack up our gear, work on Scoutcraft, read books and generally have a good time.

 

The Scoutmaster typically talks to the SPL the night before and finds out what time he is planning on getting up just in case his alarm fails. The same as you would do for anyone you are working with. If the SPL does not get up at the agreed upon time the Scoutmaster goes over to his tent and gives him exactly one wake up call.

 

It is then up to them. If we are going to be getting back late the Scouts have to call their parents and let them know when we will be arriving.

 

So far that has worked for us. After ever camp out we have a pros and cons session. If there was anyone who really stayed in the bag too long I am sure it would be put in the cons category. Nobody likes waiting on someone who is doing nothing.

[gwd-scouter]

Scouts wake up their patrol members. SM or assistant wakes up the SPL. He then wakes the PLs. It's up to the PLs to make sure their guys are up and ready to go. The night before, PLs remind those cooking breakfast that they must get up first, especially if they're planning something in a dutch oven. Cinnamon rolls are a very popular breakfast and it's taken some time to get these boys to understand that it takes much longer than just rolling out of the bag, starting up the stove, and cooking eggs.

 

We still have issues with this but it's getting better. We have two guys in particular that are always the last to get up. It's much worse when they tent together. New PL's solution on a recent campout was to pull out their tent stakes and tent poles and let the tent drop on them. Led to an interesting roses and thorns session.

 

Ah, they're still learning.

[Buffalo Skipper]

But what if it is the PL or SPL who does not get up?

[Trevorum]

A few years ago, we had a group of adult leaders who were under the impression that it was their campout. They tended to want to wake up the Scouts themselves and get the troop moving. ("We're burning daylight!") Boy-led was a difficult concept to transition towards.

 

If the scouts have planned the campout, they should know what activities are planned (or not!) and what the day's schedule should be. If the schedule goes awry, well, it's their campout. Maybe it takes several months before a sleepyhead SPL is replaced by new blood. The important thing is for all of the Scouts in the troop to really understand and know that the adults are NOT there to lead the troop and that if something goes amiss, it is up to THEM to fix it.

[scoutldr]

"But what if it is the PL or SPL who does not get up?"

 

Time to have a SM Conference and remind them what the "R" in "POR" means. Being a successful leader means that you do what you need to do when you need to do it.

[SctDad]

I read this and think about one of my scout parents and his son. It seemed like for the past few campouts, he would always wake up just in time for breakfast to be served. We used to always poke fun at him and he took it in stride. Imaging our faces when he walked out of the tent at 0630. I almost choked on my coffee.

 

We all looked around and asked who was done cooking.

 

We look at it like this. You can get up on your own, but anytime after 0700, there will probably be a lot of noise in camp.

 

As for how to resolve the issue with the SPL/ASPL. Get a bugle. You don't have to know how to play, and if you don't it may get teh out of bed earlier.

[Eagle732]

"LAST ONE UP AND DRESSED IN FORMATION CLEANS THE LATRINE!!!"

[Twocubdad]

This is one of those situations where the herd takes care of itself. Sometimes it's less than Friendly or Kind. After sufficient calls, tent shaking and threats, the next tactic is usually dropping the tent on Sleeping Beauty. A cup of cold water will be coming next. Somewhere along there is where an adult gets involved.

 

If we're in a situation where sleeping-in only means Sleeping Beauty misses breakfast or an activity, then who cares. If sleeping in only effects the one Scout, we're probably not going to hear about it anyway.

 

But I'm not going to read a book and smile knowingly while the entire troop is put seriously off schedule by one irresponsible kid. The truth is the consequences to that kid will rarely equal the inconvenience and problems he causes to dozens of people if we are significantly late returning from a campout. Letting one boy ruin the program for the others is not Scout-led -- it's Scout-led-off-into-a-ditch. Neither the method of youth leadership nor the idea of controlled failure requires that we allow an entire program to go south so that one kid can learn a lesson.

 

Many times with adolescents the real issue is the struggle for pecking order. In my experience I've had three boys were this was a chronic problem. All three were fairly typical misfits, for some reason or another. I'm convinced habitually sleeping in was their way of letting the others know they had control over the group. That's probably another thread, but again, one Scout's need to mark his territory doesn't trump the good of the group.

 

(This message has been edited by Twocubdad)

[gwd-scouter]

Twocubdad - your statement about boys marking their territory gave me a chuckle this morning. I envision young boys running around the woods, peeing on the trees. This is MY territory!

 

Like all the threads on this forum, we've read two divergent opinions about the oversleeping scout. One Scouter would sit and watch and let the boys face the consequences of being late for whatever - it's their program. Another sees a different consequence, that of angry parents when the troop returns late, and would step in at some point and get the guys moving.

 

For a while, I took the hands off approach. We indeed arrived home late from several campouts in a row. The boys called home while we're on the road to give their parents our new EOA. Problem was some parents started to wait until we called from the parking lot to come get their sons. The parents go used to us being late, so they figured there was no need to come until they were called. Our late arrival was discourteous to the parents. I got tired of having to wait around with Johnny Scout until his parents came to get him - sometimes quite a long time because parents decided to go out to lunch, to a movie, whatever, to kill some time.

 

So, yeah, adult intervention does take place when the guys are seriously running off schedule. OK, slap my hand, bad Scouter, bad bad Scouter.

 

 

 

 

[evmori]

Not up! Tent down!

[Lisabob]

After having some difficulty getting the guys moving on a recent outing, my son came to the realization that the reason behind "form ups" in the morning is not (as he previously supposed) so that the leaders can laugh at the sleepy-headed, half-dressed boys reluctantly dragging their behinds out of their tents, but instead so that the youth leadership can be assured that everybody actually is awake and functional.

 

This was a bit of a revelation for him as he is not exactly a morning person himself.

 

So he's re-instituting form-ups and he's the one who will have to get up first from now on to make that happen. Funny how things change when you're the one in charge.

 

[Gunny2862]

If you're cooking and you don't get up, your Patrol doesn't eat - the boys tend to ensure the cooks have gotten up.

If you want to get up just in time for breakfast, didn't have a cooking or cleanup responsibility, and can handle getting your gear together during the post breakfast personal time, then, that's your business...

If you aren't up by the time to have breakfast - then you miss breakfast.

 

After you've missed breakfast, cleanup/personal time has ended, and the Troop is waiting on you, the SM reserves the right to perform a Health and Safety Inspection of your sleeping quarters - which may include an prophylactic cold water wash-down (delivered via bucket) to avoid (the laziness)contagion spreading among the rest of the Troop.

 

So far the SM's son has been the only one who has received the courtesy of such an inspection. And since the SPL thought he should perform the actual Inspection - who am I to step on his toes...

[Twocubdad]

Yeah, GWD, that's what I usually call Dog-and-Bush syndrome.

[Stosh]

A wake-up call is given at 6:00 am. If anyone decides to ignore it, they are left behind. If they miss enough meals and activities they will tune in. Usually a sleeper is conditioned by poor responsibility at home. Such patterns are difficult to break and it's not the job of the PL to enforce responsiblity for personal habits. If a scout sleeps in, it's his way of notifying his patrol buddies that there is something going on that's more important than them. If the scout gets outsted from his patrol, there should be a conditional patrol available that has no leadership, adheres to no protocols and will eventually dissolve due to a lack of interest. Boys in this patrol need leadership they can ask their parents who have trained them in these processes to take over and extend their "control" over their boys so that they can get their "Eagle" for them as time goes on.

 

My boys know this process and are generally up and moving sometime between 5:30 and 6:00 am to make sure they don't miss out on anything. Those that don't care are left behind. Usually the cooks eat first and the laggards get left-overs if there are any.

 

This policy has been used for a year or so now and the boys sleeping in no longer rely on others to make them get up, they will do it themselves.

 

I have an SPL that requests the adults that they get him up at 6:00 am. We wake him and then forget about the rest of the troop, unless other specific requests are given. Adults assist the boys when asked, otherwise the boys run the program.

 

I generally go to bed at 10:00 pm and rise at 6:00 pm. Strangely, so do my boys. The only exception to this rule is when the boys stay up later at the campfire (which is always extinguished before retiring, they know that the practice is "tolerated" because they are responsible and trusted to do it correctly) or when the newer scouts want to go to bed earlier. We seldom have problems with this process and when we do it is minor. Sometimes when they miss breakfast the boys think it's a major issue, but the adults and patrol buddies don't.

 

Stosh