A Patrol of difficult Scouts

[mk9750]

Well, here's an update, and it isn't pretty.

 

We just got back from an annual event we do where we invite Webelos and their dads on a campout. The youngest guys in our Troop develop hands on presentations on Scout Skills, the middle age guys act as coaches / mentors, to make sure the presentation is correct, interesting, etc. The first purpose of the weekend is to give these guys a chance to hone their knowledge by teaching the skills. But we make no bones of the fact that this is also a recruiting weekend, so we try to make sure we put our best foot forward.

 

All of the scouts decribed above, plus one boy a year younger, were in a cabin together. Three dads were also in the cabin, but we had a number of Webelos dads in the mess hall shooting bull Friday night, and all three of the dad's were there, and not in the cabin. One of our oldest Scouts was walking past the cabin when he heard screaming that seemed out of control even for these guys. He walked up to the cabin, and tried to walk in. they had the doors locked, but through the winddow he watched them lighting and throwing matches at each other! They refused to open the door for this Scout, who went back, got the SPL, and the two of them got a key from the campmaster to open the door. They spent almost an hour trying to deal with these guys themselves, and decided that the situation would be dealt with by assigning these guys K.P. for the rest of the weekend. The SPL did not tell any adults about this until late Saturday night.

 

Right behind this cabin was where the demo for woods tools was done, so all of the Troop's axes, hatchets, and saws were in the cabin. During the day, as the SM and I wandered from demo to demo, seeing how the guys were doing, checking to see if the Webelos were enjoyng themselves, etc., we noticed a CD sized chuck hacked out of one of the trees near the cabin. It was a fresh cut, and obviously done by someone at our activity. We are certain it was not a Webelos, because the demo did not allow them to actually handle any tools (they passed axe handles without heads around), and the coach secured the tools when not out for the demos. It is quite obvious, though not provable, that one or more of the the guys in the cabin did this. All denied, although one guy pointed the finger at one of the other guys.

 

After dinner Saturday night, we ask our CO's Pastor to come out and celebrate Mass with us. We told whoever wanted to go to Mass to attend, but if you didn't want to, we'd appreciate helping with K.P. A couple of non Catholic older guys helped out, but four of the five guys from above (curiously, all Catholic) decided to skip Mass and work in the kitchen. We have a COH after Mass, and moms usually trek out to camp for the COH. My wife and older son got there during Mass, and rather than come in through the front of the dining hall, interupting Mass, they came in through the kitchen. When they walked into the kitchen, they saw our famous #1 holding a carving knife at the back of one of the other guys. He was obviously joking, my wife said, but she didn't realize that when she first saw it. She thought for a few seconds the kid was serious.

 

On Sunday, breakfast was over at 7:30. By 9:15, every cabin, every demo site, every latrine, and the mess hall, were cleaned and ready to be inspected. We pride ourselves on the fact that campmasters love us being at camp, as everything gets cleaned far better than their standard requires. The last cabin to be inspected was the cabin these guys were in. One of their fathers had advised us it was ready to be inspected. As I understand, the campmaster walked in, and his head just dropped. As I hear it, there was mud just EVERYWHERE! Not just on on the floor, which neither should have ever been there, as we all are supposed to have inside shoes with us when we're in cabins, but it also should have been cleaned before this if it was there, but there was mud on the walls, and muddy footprints on the ceiling! There were matches, and sucker sticks all over the place. One kid's dirty socks were sticking out from under a matress. And from what the campmaster says, they used every bit of wood in one weekend that was intended to last over a month.

 

On the way home, one of the ASMs had the boy who is a year younger that was in the cabin with him. The boy described a list of easily 15 things that these guys were doing that he was uncomfortable with, ranging from mocking most of the adults in the Troop to playing with matches and firestarters in the cabin. He talked about a game they played, Love Bug, that is inappropriate to describe here.

 

We plan on having a meeting tonight between the SM, the ASM who heard the litany on the way home, one other ASM, and me. We plan to document all of the things we can verify that happened, and call a meeting this week of the parents of all of these boys. We have already discussed informally that these boys will be required to form a service detail to volunteer at the camp for at least a full day, maybe more, before they will be permitted to attend any further activities. I will be suggesting that a parent accompany their child on every over night event for some period of time (6 months?), and tent with their son, to divide these guys up. I'm sure there will be other suggestions for how to deal with this. But I think in the informal conversations I've had with these adults, we all agree that there WILL be commitment to change from both the Scouts and their parents, or they will decide for themselves not to come back.

 

I've never been so embarassed to be associated with a Scout in the 12 years I've been in Scouting. This time, there are a handful of Scouts I am embarassed about.

 

Sorry to take so much of your time while I vent.

 

Mark

 

[evmori]

Mark, The only thing I can think is "WOW"!

What a disaster! If this happened on one of my Troop's camping trips, the fire bugs would have gone home, everyone MUST attend mass & the Scout or Scouts who lied about harming the live tree would have also gone home. This might have only left 1 or 2 Scouts but I think the point would have been made that this type of behavior is NOT acceptable and WILL NOT be tolerated.

It's like a double whammy that this happened while the Webeloes were there. Not a very good example.

 

Ed Mori

1 Peter 4:10

[Bob White]

Mark

I am sorry to hear what happened. If I could offer some suggestions, Its great to have a Webelos Den go on a troop outing. It is probably one of the best recruitment tools we have. But these are still cub scouts camping and they are required to be under the supervision of a parent or guardian. Have the parents stay within sight of their kids at all times.

 

The junior leaders need to understand that certain things always get brought to an adults attention, safety hazards is a good example.

 

Making fire bugs wash dishes makes them better dish washers not safe with fire. First thing I would have done is taken whoever the SPL saw throw a match and sent them home. Call the parents and say your son was throwing lit matches in a locked cabin filled with other peoples children, come get him. Take whoever locked or refused to open the door and send them home. Tell the parents what they did, they will understand. This was a SERIOUS problem, it deserved a serious response.

 

At the next meeting have someone from the fire dept. Police Dept. and the local hospital burn unit show up. Explain the hazards of fire, the physical torment of serious burns, the criminal consequences of arson.

 

Let the scouts know in no uncertain terms that any individual not acting like a scout does not go on campouts with scouts.

 

Let the people on the duty roster do the dishes. Teach the scouts about fire safety. Insist that scouts live by the law or stay home on outings.

 

[EagleInKY]

Bob had some great points. All I'll add are our guidelines on discipline.

 

On an activity, if a Scout has a major discipline problem (safety issue as you described, fighting, etc.), he would be sent home. His parents would be called and asked to come get him, even if it was half-way across the state.

 

On a lesser infraction - such as fighting as a result of horseplay, or safety issue due to stupidity - he would probably be punished in some way (KP, sitting out of activity, etc.). His parents would be notified of it after we returned. He would also be warned that a future situation could result in him being sent home.

 

On the situation of finding out afterward, I've had this happen recently. I had a conference with the scout. I let him know in no uncertain terms that the behavior is not allowed, and that if I had caught him or heard about it at the camp, he would have been sent home. I also gave the same message to the parents.

 

Our escalation process looks something like this:

1st occasion - appropriate punishment, parent notified.

2nd occasion - sent home, parent and troop committee notified.

3rd occasion - sent home, recommend removal from the troop (w/COR approval)

 

Luckily, we haven't made it past the first step yet.

[mk9750]

Ed and Bob,

 

Thanks for the sympathetic words, and valuable advise. I especially like Bob's line about boys who don't act Scoutlike not going on events for Scouts. That one will get repeated, with your permission.

 

To clarify, all Webelos in attendance had their dads there. Once in a while we get a DL who calls and asks if one boy can come without his dad if one of the other dads takes responsiblity for him, and we say yes, but this is a Father / Son campout. And this year, every boy had a dad.

 

It was not the SPL who witnessed the match throwing, it was another older Scout. The SPL has been in the loop about how the adults are handling the situation, and he has been instructed about how to handle issues with these boys. We never considered he would have to deal with saftely issues of this magnitude, or you can bet we would have instructed him to inform us immediately. He did what he thought was his best to handle this on his own. The SM has already planned a sit down with him to go over how it could have been handled better. This is a tough one. If the right thing to do would have been to try to deal with this himself, without help from adults, he did a really great job. Ineffective, yes, but considering who he was dealing with, he really did well. But of course, this should have been turned over to the adults.

 

My thought was exactly what Bob's is concerning doing K.P. - punishmnet isn't the answer. But the SPL's decision to have them do K.P. was at least partly based on having them do something that kept them supervised during times they could find themselves in the cabin without adults. Believe me, there was a punishment factor involved. I've not found a kid yet who, while in a position of responsiblity, won't resort to punishment when most every other method they have been taught has failed. But he had a coherent reason besides punishment for the assignment.

 

I think it was KS who helped the most with the post he made suggesting that there is only so much we can do before we ask the Scout and his family to consider whether Scouting's values match what they want for their son. We're at this point now, I am certain. I hope that the boys, and their families, take it upon themselves to work within whatever plan is devised to prevent behavior like this going forward. But there WILL NOT be behavior like this from these guys again. I think that it is more likely that these guys will no longer be Scouts. That saddens me tremendously.

 

Ed, BTW, from what we can tell, we dodged the bullet as far as Webelos and their dads seeing this play out. You never can tell if people are being polite by not saying anything, but we make the rounds during breakfast on Sunday asking all the guests their impressions of the weekend, and no one mentioned this stuff. Maybe we got lucky in more ways than one.

 

Mark

[mk9750]

Ed and Bob,

 

Thanks for the sympathetic words, and valuable advise. I especially like Bob's line about boys who don't act Scoutlike not going on events for Scouts. That one will get repeated, with your permission.

 

To clarify, all Webelos in attendance had their dads there. Once in a while we get a DL who calls and asks if one boy can come without his dad if one of the other dads takes responsiblity for him, and we say yes, but this is a Father / Son campout. And this year, every boy had a dad.

 

It was not the SPL who witnessed the match throwing, it was another older Scout. The SPL has been in the loop about how the adults are handling the situation, and he has been instructed about how to handle issues with these boys. We never considered he would have to deal with saftely issues of this magnitude, or you can bet we would have instructed him to inform us immediately. He did what he thought was his best to handle this on his own. The SM has already planned a sit down with him to go over how it could have been handled better. This is a tough one. If the right thing to do would have been to try to deal with this himself, without help from adults, he did a really great job. Ineffective, yes, but considering who he was dealing with, he really did well. But of course, this should have been turned over to the adults.

 

My thought was exactly what Bob's is concerning doing K.P. - punishmnet isn't the answer. But the SPL's decision to have them do K.P. was at least partly based on having them do something that kept them supervised during times they could find themselves in the cabin without adults. Believe me, there was a punishment factor involved. I've not found a kid yet who, while in a position of responsiblity, won't resort to punishment when most every other method they have been taught has failed. But he had a coherent reason besides punishment for the assignment.

 

I think it was KS who helped the most with the post he made suggesting that there is only so much we can do before we ask the Scout and his family to consider whether Scouting's values match what they want for their son. We're at this point now, I am certain. I hope that the boys, and their families, take it upon themselves to work within whatever plan is devised to prevent behavior like this going forward. But there WILL NOT be behavior like this from these guys again. I think that it is more likely that these guys will no longer be Scouts. That saddens me tremendously.

 

Ed, BTW, from what we can tell, we dodged the bullet as far as Webelos and their dads seeing this play out. You never can tell if people are being polite by not saying anything, but we make the rounds during breakfast on Sunday asking all the guests their impressions of the weekend, and no one mentioned this stuff. Maybe we got lucky in more ways than one.

 

Mark

[KoreaScouter]

You know, I heard somebody say once that if a group of people were sitting around a table, and we could throw our problems up onto the table, we'd all take our own problems back...gladly. This is a perfect example. I tear my hair out when a Star Scout forgets a mess kit at a campout...

 

You guys have the patience of Job. If this happened around me, either they'd be gone or I'd be gone...you pick.

 

KS

[Eagledad]

>>They spent almost an hour trying to deal with these guys themselves, and decided that the situation would be dealt with by assigning these guys K.P. for the rest of the weekend. The SPL did not tell any adults about this until late Saturday night.

[mk9750]

Here's the latest update:

 

We have a meeting scheduled for tonight with the parents of the guys involved in this weekend's mayhem. Suggestions will be solicited from the parents for ways to correct this kind of behavior once and for all. My bet is that none will be offrered, but I'm trying not to go into this with preconceived notions. But if none are offered by the parents, here is what we have decided to put on the table:

 

1) A letter of apology to the camp caretaker and the Scout Executive written by each Scout

2) The very strong suggestion that the PL work with these Scouts to develop a service project for the camp

3) Exclusion from the next event

4) Zero tolerance for similiar acts, to be dealt with by calling parents to pick up their son

 

One of the Scouts, the boy who is a year younger than the rest, just e mailed the SM and me to admit to using the axe on the tree. As disappointed (and suprised) that this Scout had done this, we were quite happy that at least one of them owned up to their mistakes. A 5th idea origianlly planned, construction an appropriate birdhouse to cover the damage on the tree, will now be his responsiblity alone. However, this guy is also going to get a healthy amount of praise for taking responsiblity for his actions, with the hope that it will be an example to the rest, and their parents.

 

With some of the responses I have seen to the invitation to this meeting, I suspect it will not go well. Most of the parents have already been posturing to make the case that it wasn't their son's fault. It could get ugly.

 

Mark

 

[Bob White]

NEVER confront an angry mob. Problems such as this are best handled one boy at a time. Praise in public, reprimand in private.

[evmori]

mk9750,

You are doing the correct thing. The only thing I would do differently is NOT solicit suggestions from the parents. This is like opening Pandora Box! I like the suggestion you posted for the Scouts in question.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

 

[dan]

mk9750

You wrote

the boy who is a year younger than the rest, just e mailed the SM and me to admit to using the axe on the tree

 

This statement has my BS sensor on alert, it seems too convenient. Just make sure that he did do it and was not put up to the confession by the "older" scouts.

 

Good Luck.

[mk9750]

Three excellent points!

 

Bob, I and two of the three other leaders who will represent "the Troop" tonight would prefer to do this one family at a time. Unfortunately, the mass meeting was arranged before we could determine how we wanted to approach this. Not the best situation, but we'll deal with it.

 

Ed, The four of us debated this at length. On a split decision, it was decided that not allowing them to add their own ideas would be viewed as unilateral action and rejected out of hand by the parents. We'll see how it goes.

 

Dan, funny you mention this. I thought the same thing, but not like you did. I think that this kid may be taking the blame even though it wasn't him. His dad is the only one of the parents who has been reasonable, and we think perhaps his dad may have convinced him that admitting the wrong, even if it wasn't him, might make things go away. But we are aware of this.

 

I'll let you know how it goes.

 

Mark

[scoutldr]

Eagerly awaiting to hear how it turned out. You guys are saints for putting up with this for so long. I agree with KS...the negotiations are over. This has gone far beyond the point of "youthful energy." I would sit the parents down and tell them in no uncertain terms how it is going to be, and they are out of warnings. We operate by the Scout Oath and law, period. If their child needs medication or psychotherapy in order to fit in, that's not my problem, and if the program needs adjusting to accomdate them, there are "special needs units" for this in most Councils. We are not psychologists, psychiatrists or experts in emotionally disturbed children. We are experts in delivering the Scouting program and that's all we can do. They can take what we offer, on OUR terms, or take their disturbed delinquents elsewhere. And when a so-called scout does something that jeopardizes the safety of the group ON PURPOSE, he's out. Period. End of discussion.

[mk9750]

Here's how it went Friday night...

 

All the families were represented. The boy who chopped the tree (We've been calling him George Washington) had both parents there, including dad who had to take half a vacation day to be there (does anyone else recognize the irony in this? They only kid to accept his responsibity for the problems this weekend was the only one withn both parents there). The rest of the families only had mom there (one of the problems, as we see it, is that none of the dad's are involved with their sons), except for the dad of Scout # 1, who is an ASM, and was the Den Leader of these guys, hopefully you remember the story.

 

We started by stating we were not there to rehash the events of the weekend, that if the parents wanted to hear the list, we could repeat it, but it didn't really matter, that this past weekend was just the culmination of three years of problems. One of the moms kept trying to get us to talk about all of the positive things their sons have done, saying that if any progress was going to be made in "the leader's poor attitude concerning our children", then we'd have to find away to forget the few bad things their sons might have done and concentrate on the good.

 

The moms started to try to debate who was at fault. We wouldn't participate. After they realized we were not responding to their position (20 minutes), they finally stopped. We told them that the only acceptable attitude their sons would be permitted to have if they are going to continue in the Troop is one of personal responsiblity, or, in otherwords, adopting the virtue of stocism. we laid out what must take place over the next 6 weeks or so:

1) Boy who chopped at tree to make birdhouse to cover damage, after researching what type of bird would be appropriate to make the birdhouse for

2) Letters of apology from all to camp ranger and SE

3) Formal expectation to live up to Scout Oath and Law, including a class on what these expectations are

4) Must prove worthiness to attend West Point Camporee

5) All future issues to be dealt with by calling parents to come pick them up

6) Any safety transgressions to result in immediate removal from Troop

7) "Three strikes you're out" policy for all other issues. 1st is call home, second is call home and suspension, third is expulsion.

 

Suprisingly, as angry as all of the moms were over how we approached this, none said their sons were going to quit. We believe that as irrational as they are (believing their little Johnnys can't be at fault), they recognize that the Troop may be the only place were their sons have a chance to become men.

 

The ball is rolling. We'll see where it goes...

 

Mark