Boy Lead Patrol coming from an adult lead troop

[SPL1Warwick]

A question for SPL's and SM's

I am a SPL and i am partically NYLT trained. I've tryed so many times to let my scoutmaster know that he needs to back off when he is getting to involved. But when i tell him this he goes he off on me, threatning to quit and all that good stuff. For Example, at summer camp this past year. He called for a "Uniform Expection", out of natural curiosity i asked him why he was doing that and he says "Dont ask why just do it". Was this appropriate for a SM to say to his SPL? So i went up to him and asked all near scouts to leave for a second and i told him that he should not be calling a uniform inspection that is the PL or SPL's job. Adults are there for guidence and health and safety not to call for uniform inspections. So then he said that it was okay if we dissagreed as long as we did it his way, and then i replyed that we will let a commitee vote upon that, and he went off on me. Swearing up and down F that F-This and threated to quit and just was horrible experience for the entire troop to be there. Next time how should i go about letting him know that he needs to back off or that what he is doing is not his job?

 

YIS

 

SPL1Warwick

[moosetracker]

What is the state of the ASM's in your Troop? How involved is your Committee Chair, Council Org. Rep our Unit Commissioner?..

 

A SM swearing at the scouts in his troop, even yelling agressivly for the purpose of wrestling the control away for the SPL who should have the control would be grounds to be replaced.

 

I guess I am asking if there is there any ASM that could replace him if the troop took him up on his offer? Because if a scout came in with this story to the COR or CC I would think they would take him up on his offer, unless there is fear that no one can replace him.

 

If there is no one to replace him, he at least should get a stern talking too. After which the others should keep tabs on his improvement by asking you and other scouts how he is behaving.

 

This is totally not the right attitude or personality for a SM.. Since you have already earned your Eagle, I take it this was not the SM that has been in place while you were moving through the ranks, because you would have either left, or have already been accepting of his ideas that the SM is the head of the troop. Since you know how it should run, you got taught the correct way from someone.

 

As Eagle, I suppose you can leave once your term is up, but that is unfair to those scouts left in the troop, to not try to fight to correct the situation for them.

[SPL1Warwick]

I have had a SM before this one, but even that one was all about the "adult lead troop". I always thought that that was the right way untill NYLT and reading up on the way a troop should be ran. The problem is that the CC is his wife. Is that right that the CC and SM are spouses? and my Ass SPL is his son. wat is going to happen when i leave. I am 16 and earned eagle when i was 15. I think i know what is best for the troop and i want us to get there. I like my SM, he is a chyll guy and he is always there to help any scout i need. At my eagle court of honor, i awarded my CC, my SMs wife, with the mentor pin because their family and mine get along so great. I dont want to get my SM "impeached" but i need to know how to deal with the situation with the least amount of drama possible. If worst comes to worst i will contact district and get him out but i dont quite want to go down that road yet

[thriftyscout]

I can only answer from the SM side but here are my thoughts.

 

Boy led is somewhat unnatural for adults, especially if they are parents. Training is often needed to overcome our natural tendencies. Is your SM trained? Does he acknowledge that PM and boy led is a goal for the Troop? As far as threatening to quit, would this be good or bad for the Troop?

 

Ultimately you cannot control your SM but you can control your actions and reactions. Actions speak louder than words, your best bet is to take the initiative and make sure your Patrols are ahead of the SM when it comes to the kinds of things that are important to him. Take uniforms for example, how did the Scouts fare on the inspection? If they all looked good, it is easier to make the case that you have the situation in hand. If they were a sloppy mess, it is more difficult.

 

Sometimes you have to pick your battles. People can be stubborn, once he called for the uniform inspection, it was going to be almost impossible to stop. Creating a cofrontation isn't going to help the situation. My suggestion is to sit down with your SM and talk about how he thinks the Troop is doing. Are there areas he feels need work? Offer to help on those areas or ask his advice on improvement. Show that he can accomplish his vision for the Troop by working through you. Share your vision of the Troop, are you headed in the same direction? Most of all create an atmosphere of being on the same team, not at odds.

 

Good Luck

 

 

[SPL1Warwick]

I understand your point of view to an extent, but wether or not the scouts uniforms were messed up, was it appropriate for the sm to call a unifrom inspection, without talking to his youth leaders?

[thriftyscout]

No, in my opinion it was not. I have found, however, that being right or wrong is usually not the critical thing in these kinds of situations. Do you want to work with this SM or not? Insisting that you are right and he is wrong is not going to be helpful. Find common ground if there is any, and work from there. If there is no common ground, then you are probably in for a tough time.

[SPL1Warwick]

If another situation pops up where he is overstepping his boundries how should i go about letting him know that he needs to take a step back?

[moosetracker]

The uniform Inspection call from the SM if the troop is FULLY boy lead might not be correct.. But is normal for not only fully adult run troops but for those that are half boy lead & half adult lead.. (SM is trying but may not have full picture, or the boys have yet to take the reins the SM is trying to get them too.)..

 

Therefore the "pick the battle" suggested is a good one, if you want to change the troop to boy lead, picking the battle hill I want to die on as being uniform inspection should not be it.

 

The yelling, swearing at you and threatening to leave in order to control you are the issues I picked up on as inappropriate. Up until those last few sentences I saw a small issue of a pissing match between you & the SM, one that both of you had too much pride to back down from.

 

It is true that once called, it was unlikly he would back down, due to a feeling that he would loose respect of the boys. The thing is to work on it not happening again. As Thrifty stated, if uniforms are a big thing with him, now that emotions are calm you should calmly talk to the SM, find out where it came from. If the troop is no longer wearing uniforms as they should and this is a big issue for him, find a way to get the troop to improve on uniforms. If you can think of a better way to acheive this go for it.

 

If you think uniforms should not be a concern if you don't want it, that may not be. It should be a SM concerned about uniforms should have spoken to you and asked you to find a way to enforce adherence to the uniform code.

 

You also need to impress on the other scouts (Especially your PL's who will pass the goals to those in their patrols) what you are tying to accomplish so that they will work with you and hopefully your attempts to impress the SM that you can take care of things with out adult intervention will be not only you showing you can do run the troop but the PL's also working hard for the same goal. If you are all working to prove that you don't need the adults to interfer, then this will get through. Especially if the SM goes to a PL with a command and he politely reminds the SM that he should be taking orders from you, so in future could he direct his commands to you..

 

Although your UC is inbetween District & your unit, most will first try to work with the troop rather then get bring it to the attention of others at District level.. And if you do bring it up start out with what you stated in your first post, to state that you want to work with the SM and feel he does have good qualities before stating the problem. Start with the posititives rather then the negetives so he doesn't start out wanting to rip his head off. I would not suggest you go further then the UC (unless he is the brother of the SM or some other related member)..

 

There was another scout who was not an SPL but the friend of seeking similar advice for his troop a few weeks back. I believe it was started by Platapus.. If I find it, I will add it here, as some of that advice would be appropriate for you situation also.

[Eagle92]

SPL,

Welcome to the forum! Always good to get the "yutes" input.

 

You may be fighting an uphill battle. I've found that in our culture, people want to "baby" folks: from having parents call and complain about their adult child's college grades, to having 25 year olds being considered dependents for insurance purposes, etc. Heck one scientific survey stated that we are still adolescents up to age 25, maybe why insurance will cover up to that age shortly. Adults do not want to allow kids to grow and learn, to "take chances, make mistakes," as one of my kids favorite book and video series encourages. I have to tell my CS parents to relax and let my DC work with the Cubs.

 

Anyway back to your "challenge" ( "there are no problems in Scouting, only challenges and opportunities"). You have received some good advice in avoiding a "me vs. him situation."

 

1) Do you know what training your SM has? If he is fully trained: This is Scouting, SM Specific, and Intro to Outdoor Leader Skills, he should, stress should have a firm understanding of the PM. If he is trained and not following the PM, there is a problem. If he isn't trained, that is something that needs to get done by him ASAP.

 

2)How large is your troop and what kind of set up? Is it a large troop with multiple patrols, or a small troop with one patrol? If large, are they mixed age patrols or done by ages, i.e. NSP, 12-14 YOs, 15-17 YOs?

 

If you have a large troop and a good bit of experienced scouts in troop roles, I'd summon a PLC, and include those older scouts. Make sure to invite the SM, and if he cannot make it, do it anyway. Come up with a game plan to organize the troop. Start talking up the patrol method among your PLC, and I'd go further and read up on some of the older BSA literature on patrols. 'Green Bar Bill" aka William Hillcourt (the man who saved Scouting IMHO) was a prolific writer on the topic and did a series in BOYS LIFE once upon a time. GET HIS STUFF! (caps for emphasis, not shouting at ya). If the youth want it, and work at it, the SM should come around, esp since it makes his job easier ( Favorite patch has a SM with hands in pockets in an "I don't know" pose and the caption " Don't ask me, I'm only a leader.")

 

3) Meet with the SM and talk about what you learned at NYLT and about what the Leader's Orientation talked about. If he didn't attend the Leader's Orientation, talk him into going this year.

 

4) Talk to your treasurer and see if you can get your SM a Christmas gift: the 3rd edition SM Handbook ( it's 2 volumes long) It is THE definitive work on being a SM (OK Kudu and others may call me a heretic on this one, but it may, stress MAY, be better than BP's AIDS TO SCOUTMASTERS). It is a very good read, and while some changes to Scouting have occurred over the years, it is a foundation for the PM and everythign scouting.

 

 

 

[moosetracker]

Here is the link to the other thread. There was some very good ideas on it about working to change the Adult lead attitude that was address to another scout of similar age.

 

http://www.scouter.com/Forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=294225#id_294330

[ScoutNut]

The SM calling for a uniform inspection might not have been fully appropriate, but then your response, in the middle of Summer Camp no less, that you would get the Committee to vote on how the SM was doing his job was not appropriate either.

 

Not to mention that a SPL can not tell a unit Committee, or a council district, what they should do. You can NOT - "contact district and get him out". That is NOT THE JOB of the SPL.

 

While ideally, a Troop is run by its boy leaders, it is done so under the guidance of the Scoutmaster, who is ultimately responsible for the Troop's program.

 

You need to reign in your attitude as well. Negative confrontation will NOT accomplish anything. You might want to go back and re-read your notes/publications from NYLT.

 

Talk to a friendly ASM, and see if he/she can approach the SM about how he is dealing with the boy-run concept. At the next PLC talk to the SM POLITELY about backing off of his boy leaders a bit to give them a chance to grow in their position.

 

 

[SPL1Warwick]

Moosetracker,....

 

This uniform thing was just an example, not the only thing. Please dont pay attention to the uniform part of the story but to the adult steping on the youth leaders toes. If the sm keeps doing this the scouts will go to the SM with questions. that is my problem not the uniform... heck when he calls a uniform inspection thats less for me to do..... Moosetracker how did you know i was an eagle scout?

 

Eagle92,.... my SM is trained as far as i know. My troop is 1 patrol, 10 boys. A small troop so somtimes the "Patrol Method" doesnt go smoothly but thats the learning experience right...? With the adults steping in every little thing that starts to go wrong doesnt allow for me or other youth leaders to learn from their mistakes. So my question is...... What should i do when the scoutmaster or any other youth leader is overstepping his or her boundries....? I mean on the spot, should i give them a look, or pull them off to the side and talk to the? I need somthing that will allow them to relize that their actions are not complying with a boy lead patrol and that they need to take a step back and allow the boys to run the show. What should i do? Any SPL points of views out there?

[SPL1Warwick]

Scoutnut- really so the attitude of a scoutmaster should not be brought up to the district or the commitee.... cause i am POSSITIVE that that behavior is UNEXCEPTABLE in the Boy Scouts of America. I disagree, the SM being totally inaproppriate at summercamp is my job. In the SPL handbook it reads "Adults are respossible to to provide leadership to a BOY RUN TROOP. Rely on the SM to coach you from the sidelines and to give you plenty of space to step before the troop and to provide the active leadership the scouts expect from you" pg 12. Again this is not a one time thing, the uniform inspection was just an example. I do have the right to bring forth a complaint to district or my unit commitee.... Dont tell me otherwise! Now i dont want it to get that far, i am not the SPL that will just sit back and allow a SM to run a troop through me. Yes the adult is there to guide. Where is the guidence in telling boys what to do and jumping in and doing a scouts job. Where is it written that i cant go to district or to my unit commitee?

[Eagle92]

Ok,1, 10 man patrol. Don't try 2 5 man patrols as BP tried that and went with the 6 man patrol idea instead ( 2 5 man patrols and 2 6 man patrols on Brownsea Island). I believe GBB was the one who modified it to 8 man, but I digress.

 

In essence you are a PL. Best job there is IMHO.

 

You need to really sell your patrol on the patrol concept. You need to be organized and work with everyone. You need to use your powers of persuasion and reason to get folks involved and doing what they are suppose to be doing.

 

Also you need to have a friendly chat with the SM. You need to share your vision with him, you need to talk about how you want to have a boy led troop with the youth doing the work instead of him. Make it seem as if you are trying to BE a PL and make his job easier.

 

[SPL1Warwick]

Okay, i will have a meeting with the SM and ASM's. I will talk to them about my vision with the troop and ask them their. I will propose what i think the troop should be ran like and when they should and shouldnt step in. If we are still disagreeing what do i do then?