Reviving a Dead Topic ...

[MomToEli]

(This got posted in the wrong place - the topic I thought I was replying to was about younger scouts not listening to older scouts, which morphed into poor leadership skills/bully leadership).

 

Came in looking for ideas on overcoming this very issue. We are a small Troop - 7 active boys - three 16-18, two 13-14, one 12 and one new scout, 11.

 

What I have observed is a learned pattern. The older young men aren't mean spirited, but they treat the younger young men like pesky little brothers. They don't teach them. They cherry pick tasks on campouts and stick the younger ones with the more menial tasks - or worse, standing around watching the older young men doing the task, such as lashing, for instance, rather than teaching them. They talk to them like pesky little brothers, too. And we have some rather discouraged younger young men.

 

So, we've split them into two Patrols. One group will get to enjoy the experience of doing for themselves while the other group will get to experience doing everything for themselves. We've also established an adult patrol so the adults won't do for either group and will *model* what a Patrol should look like and how they should work together.

 

I'm seeing the cycle start to develop in the younger young men, who I notice that same attitude - now see themselves as the top dogs who have earned the right to be waited on and talk down to the others - creep in. I am trying to figure out how to break this pattern before it gets full blown in the youngers as well as, hopefully, get the olders to see this isn't the Scout way.

 

Any suggestions on what sort of team building or age diversity activities we might do to overcome this. Just saying stop it isn't effective in the long run.

 

And it is going to get very interesting when one of the youngers is elected as SPL ...

 

(This message has been edited by momtoeli)

[qwazse]

It's very hard to correct older boys' attidude.

 

Separating the adults from the boys is a good idea on so many levels. Hopefully the adults will cook up a storm, hussle with thier clean-up duties, and have plenty of time left over to enjoy their outings.

 

Patrols of 4 boys is kind of lean, so encourage them to recruit, recruit, recruit. Have a recruiter prize. (Special patch, dessert at adult's campfire with the newbie, etc ...)

 

Contests that advantage younger boys include stretcher carries (build a stretcher carry your heaviest boy 100 yards in it). Crawling obstacle courses. And nearly any trail-to-first class skills simply because it will be fresher in their mind. But even blindfold tent pitching may come easier to whatever group performs best as a team vs. which team has the best experience.

 

Your older boys may have caught on that SPL is a lot of work, so they may not mind putting a youngster in charge. The SM will probably assign the oldns' back to PL or give them JASM patches. The challenge of JASM is helping SPL and PL hone those leadership skills.

 

Have the older boys made OA? I've found losing that election to be a wake-up call for a lot of boys.

[Stosh]

How many boys are actually taught appropriate leadership and how many are voted in and have to try and figure it out on their own.

 

There is a reference to appropriate leadership in the PL handbook, but it is often glossed over in light of today's management instruction vs. the more historical leadership instruction.

 

I have never had a problem with appropriate leadership in my troops and was eventually replaced by the parents because the boys were having to do too much leadership.

 

Obviously appropriate leadership is immediately recognizable in that one of my "over trained" boys, graduates from HS this spring, and after receiving an application without being requested, has a job at the scout camp as assistant director of high adventure. Not bad for a boy's first job, with no experience...

 

Your mileage may vary

 

Stosh

 

 

[JMHawkins]

Add another vote for recruiting. I think having a second patrol might help foster more of a leadership role in the older boys because then you can have competitions between the patrols, and the older boys will probably figure out that if they teach the younger boys real skills, they'll have a better chance of winning.

 

As it is, they don't see any value in having the "kid brothers" hanging around. You have to find a way to make those younger boys valuable to the older ones. And not just as the kitchen cleanup crew, but as members of a real team.

 

Good luck.

[Beavah]

Yah, interestin'.

 

I actually go the other way on this, which will no doubt get me called a heathen .

 

I don't think it's reasonable to expect older lads to behave like good leaders without having seen an example of good leadership. Talking about good leadership or reading books on good leadership or discussin' management theory of good leadership ain't goin' to do it. Boys have to see it.

 

So if yeh have a troop where yeh have this dynamic, separating the adults just isn't the way to go, eh? The only good leaders are the adults, and by separating 'em you do two things: 1) you take away the boys' opportunity to learn from good leaders in action and 2) you demonstrate that what the best leaders do is leave weaker campers on their own while they do their own thing.

 

That's not what yeh want.

 

So in this case what yeh need is more adult mentoring, not less. Yeh start that with a TLT campout or series of campouts, just for the PLs, where the adults lead. Somethin' hard and high-adventure-like, where the PLC lads aren't automatically good at it, so they get to feel what it's like not to know or be good at something, and get to see what a good leader does to support them and treat them right.

 

Then yeh maybe use an adult as a functional PL with a youth APL for a while (though you'd call 'em an "adult assistant" and "PL"). So the youth all get to see what good leadership is like, and the PL has a model to live up to.

 

Then, as each PL starts to "get it", yeh fade the adult out and trust the PL on his own, and just meet frequently with the PL to troubleshoot and talk frequently with da patrol members to see how it's goin'.

 

Then, when they're ready, yeh fade back to real patrol method and youth leadership. The best PLs move up to SPL/ASPL and help train the next generation, and it becomes mostly self-perpetuating on the youth end. Just like young fellows will learn bad leadership from watching bad leaders, they'll learn good leadership from watching good leaders.

 

Beavah

 

[GKlose]

Let me second what The Beav says. Our troop has been in exactly this situation. Without effective youth leadership and patrols, the troop had lapsed into an adult-led advancement-oriented troop method type of troop. When I joined, I saw firsthand (at boards of review) that several Scouts were getting free passes on almost everything. The biggest two kickers were a case where two no-show scouts both got credit for being patrol leaders, with an inactive patrol. When one was listed as an assistant patrol leader, I asked the rest of the board why he was being given credit (well, they thought he'd been functioning as the PL). Then the other Scout also got credit for it. Another case -- a Scout was credited for passing 1st Class, even though I'd seen him twice fail the summer camp swim check.

 

It took multiple steps to correct these problems. The first of which was a new advancement chair that understood the issue. Boards of Review stopped being a free pass, through "gentle correction" and reminders beforehand. And yes, one dad did a shouting match (a one-way shouting episide) at a committee meeting, because it was suggested that his son would be the first to not immediately get credit for being a no-show.

 

A second step was the weekend training idea. Our Scouts had no idea what their role was to be in leading the troop, so we took a small group away for a weekend, and tried to teach them step-by-step. The natural leader of that group -- a Scout that I would have thought to be the chief troublemaker and hooligan -- stepped up his game. He really wanted to be SPL. He lives directly across the street from the advancement chair, who will shortly be named our next SM, so there has been a lot of one-on-one mentoring. This other adult and I have twice met the SPL for coaching sessions, and at the last troop meeting, the SPL asked me when we could meet again. He has single-handedly been revamping the other youth leadership of the troop, and has been holding patrol leaders to their expectations.

 

Of the patrol leaders, one went to the council's Brownsea program (the 1976 "All Out for Scouting" syllabus, one of the few left running this). Another patrol leader is of the "old guard". He thought he'd get a free pass, and doing nothing, because he is also involved in school sports. The new SPL is not letting him get away with that, and it's a struggle.

 

Our youngest Scouts, though, are starting to see youth leadership in action. I think that if we keep working with them, older Scouts will age out, and then we'll have the program rebuilt to some extent.

 

Guy

[sherminator505]

Beav, you aren't a heathen, you're a heretic. A very realistic heretic.

[SeattlePioneer]

The Brownsea Program is described in some detail at:

 

 

http://www.pinetreeweb.com/brownsea.htm

 

 

 

Those interested in a troop development plan might find ideas for that in the Brownsea program.