Getting a boy to accept responsibility

[dan]

I think doing nothing would do more harm.

You have 2 scouts that came up to you and tell you what happened. Doing the right thing is not easy, these 2 lived up the the scout oath being brave.

 

I do like the idea of a service project, where he can use the time doing the service project to reflect on his actions.

 

I think a SM conference first followed by the service project.

 

I would not bring up any names of who informed on him. What good would this do?

 

 

[Eamonn]

I'm not going to talk about chipmunks.

Of course anyone who sees some one doing something that he shouldn't be doing, should in some way try and stop him or prevent him from doing damage or harm.

Just as I would hope we would try and help anyone who needed help.

There are times when a group might have to share responsibility for doing or not doing something.

We have had Patrols return from a camp out, who have not returned the equipment the way it should be returned.

Everyone seems to want to point the finger or appoint blame. While the Patrol Leader is where the buck stops, the Patrol is to blame and the Patrol should share the task of putting things right.

Some years back a Lad from our Troop stuck an ax in a tree. The Camp Warden (Ranger) seen the tree and the damage done.

I was embarrassed the very idea that one of "My" Scouts would do something so stupid, upset me.

It hurt my ego.

As it happened I knew the Warden very well.

He asked to talk to the entire Troop. Which he did, he explained how the damage could be life threatening to the tree and how this behaviour just wasn't acceptable.

He then dismissed the Troop and asked to speak with the Patrol Leaders.

He informed them that his first thought had been to send the entire Troop home (Over 80 Scouts).

But he realized that punishing 79 or more Scouts for the stupidity of one wasn't fair.

He then asked them if they would take care of the Scout's Own Service the next day.

This was back in the UK. He asked them to use the English Scout Law which reads:

A Scout makes good use of his time and is careful of possessions and property. As a theme.

The SPL took charge.

Tony the SPL was a very clever Lad, he had the Scout who had done the damage read the bible verse:

Then the trees of the forest will sing,

they will sing for joy before the LORD,

for he comes to judge the earth.

 

Boys of Scout age have a very strong feeling of justice. To go ahead and punish one for something that he sees as not being his fault or he perceives as being wrong, does unrepairable damage.

Some people seem to think that punishing an entire group builds team work. I think it builds resentment and shows lack of understanding and leadership.

Back when I was at school someone had damaged the bathroom by the gym. The Games Master wanted to find out who had done it. No one came forward. At first he threatened to slipper the entire class (Whack them with a gym shoe) But he settled on keeping everyone in detention.

The reason no one came forward was that the damage had been done by someone from another class!!

While of course we weren't happy, the damage done to his standing in the eyes of the students was at an all time low.

I'm sorry but I see this blaming everyone as a sort of bullying.

It isn't fair, it isn't friendly, it isn't kind.

It just seems like an easy out for the person in charge.

Eamonn.

 

[evmori]

Accessory is the term. It can require jail time. It is part of the real world. And aren't we supposed to help prepare these young men for the real world?

 

If I am with another person who shoots someone, I am an accessory. It is my responsibility to try to stop that person from shooting that someone & if I can't it is my responsibility to turn the shooter into the proper authorities. I didn't pull the trigger but I am just as responsible as the shooter if I do nothing.

 

Do nothing is never an option. A lot of young boys don't understand this. They think they will get in more trouble if they lie or say nothing.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Eamonn]

I still see this as two different issues.

" all of those in the tent were responsible. Even if they did nothing, they let it happen & shouldn't have."

Is not the same as reporting what was done.

Only the person or persons who did the damage should be held accountable for the damage.

The others might well be guilty of poor judgment but they are not guilty of damaging the tent -If they didn't do it.

I fail to see how anyone could blame, let alone punish someone for something that they didn't do.

While being an accomplice might be one thing.

If however you are standing in the 7-11 and a guy comes in with a gun to rob the store and you have no part in the crime.

What are you guilty of?

If being there and doing nothing and allowing the guy to rob the store is a crime?

It's news to me.

Eamonn.

[Venividi]

Eamonn,

 

You are moving off on "what if" scenarios that are far removed from patrol members holding each other accountable for their actions, and scoutmasters holding the patrol members accountable for their non-action. A stranger coming in to 7-11 bears little resemblance to 2 scouts on a troop outing. The scouts have a responsibility to each other. The consequences may or may not be the same depending on the circumstances. Raising specific "what if" examples and suggesting that by extension that the proper response should apply to all situations is not realistic.

Veni

[evmori]

If however you are standing in the 7-11 and a guy comes in with a gun to rob the store and you have no part in the crime.

What are you guilty of?

 

You are guilty of nothing! But if you walk in with the guy & he robs the place, you could be considered an accessory to the crime & just as guilty as the person who committed the crime.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Eamonn]

Venividi

I was trying to show by using Ed's scenario just how dumb it sounded.

I firmly believe that I and I alone am responsible for my actions.

I have read all the warnings about smoking.

I still smoke.

The guy at the local store knows when I go in to grab a carton. He is making a few dollars, but the choice is mine.

Two Lads get into a fisticuff fight. It takes two to fight, but the others around should in my view try and do what they can to brake it up.

On no account should they be standing around goading them on.

One year we took the Troop over to Ireland and a group went on a shop lifting spree. We caught them. A couple tried to use the "He made me do it." as a defense, I don't buy into that idea.

We had/have a Troop in the District who had an on going problem with their CO, a church. The church complained that the Scouts damaging the bathrooms and leaving the place in a mess.

The problem was on going, even after repeated warnings. In the end the church choose not to recharter the Troop. I supported the Church(Not the church that I belong to.) Sure in this case everyone suffered, but it was the best thing to do. No one seemed to know who was doing the damage, but it was being done week after week.

I have to admit to being surprised and disgusted at some of what I have seen done to the bathrooms at camp. I'm not talking someone leaving a mess, I'm talking out and out horrid damage and destruction.

Trying to prevent it doesn't seem possible.

As the bathrooms are open to anyone and everyone trying to blame the people who are in camp near the bathrooms isn't fair.

Someone had the bright idea that we lock down the bathrooms. There are a couple of the old out-house style bathrooms still in camp, but of course they don't have showers.

I know if I paid over $200 for a week at camp and found all the bathrooms locked I would be a most unhappy camper. But the Lady who came up with the idea was heard to say "That'll teach'em!"

Guilt by association?

Is a very tricky issue.

As we try to do what we can to help guide the Scouts we serve toward making ethical choices. I sometimes feel that we forget about the choice part of this.

While following the rules might be the ethical choice and to my mind is the right thing to do most of the time.

I'd far sooner see a Scout do the right thing because it's the right thing, not just because he is following the rule.

Going back to the thread.

To go ahead and punish all 3 Scouts, doesn't give the Lad who hasn't owned up the opportunity to do the right thing.

If? One Lad was not anywhere near the tent (Away doing his Ordeal?) what is he guilty of?

If two Lads cut the tent, they are indeed both guilty.

If one seen the other do it?

He has to make an ethical choice.

If we make the choice for him or go ahead and punish him, the idea of making ethical choices is gone.

In some ways it's like Barry said about cooking Bacon.

We can allow the Scout to cook the bacon and maybe he isn't going to do as good a job as an adult would maybe he'd do a better job with an adult watching over him telling him to turn down the heat, turn it over, take it off.

But the Scout will learn a lot more by maybe burning the bacon.

What's that they say about the journey being more important than the destination?

Eamonn.

 

[Beavah]

Whenever anybody does somethin' wrong, all of society suffers. Shopliftin' results in increased prices and unfriendly service staff and store owners. Drunks result in restrictions on social drinking. If a few goofs try to smuggle bombs onto a plane, we all suffer from delays, cancelations, and da TSA guy confiscating our bottle of Evian (yah, betcha never thought I'd drink one of those froofie bottled waters, eh?).

 

If somebody in your patrol does somethin' dumb and hurts himself, the trip for the whole group may be ruined. And yah, sure, if someone in your tent pokes holes in the tent, it results in restrictions or penalties for everyone. Just like it was a hotel room, eh? Even if you shared a room, you get the bill for the damage, whether you were da guy who did it or not.

 

Peer pressure is a powerful way of teachin'. To bring peer pressure to bear, the peers have to experience the impact that their neighbor's choice has on them. Learning that lesson through scouting seems OK to me.

 

Better than learnin' it when your friend next door who was storin' weapons starts firing rockets into the neighboring country, and your house gets bombed.

 

 

[Eagledad]

Looking at the discussion and how I worked with simular situations in our troop, the word that hangs me up here is punishment. I guess I've looked at our program growth in wisdom by experience, not changes encourage by fear of retribution. Not that there isn't punishment in the program because we all have to account for our actions one way or the other, that is life. But scouting is a place to change from our own self motivations, not from fear of someone else.

 

But in this situation and most like it, some are trying to hard to find a punishment for all the players when I feel what you really want is the scouts to understand the failure of holding each other accountible. If a scout misuses a knife and does some damage to equipment, he deserves to be held accountible by some kind of action. But the scouts around him, while didn't act to stop him, also need to be held accountible for allowing the act to take place in the first place. Problem is the motivation of the one lone scout is different from the others. Whether ignorance or hesitation, they are two different acts of making a wrong choice, so that required different methods of accountibility.

 

Our job is to teach the wisdom of the right choice in most all the actions of the scouts, and to be consistant. Eammon may be right in that a scout may have many reasons why he didn't stop the other scout and thus punishment could only make things worse. But the scout still made the wrong choice and there must be an understanding of that as well as the results from that choice. Punishment? Honestly, I'm not sure I ever used that word in scouting even for the worst of behaviors. I'm a big picture kind of person and to me the decision to allow the scout cut the tent was worse in the big picture than the act itself because the inability for the other scouts to stop the scout. For what ever reason, they didn't stop the misbehavior. Theoretically, the SM is the Master Scouter or leader of wisdom for the troop. It is this time when the scout must learn and understand why each scout failed each other. SCouting is a brotherhood and these scouts did not act like brothers. In the larger picture, if the scouts don't learn to act now, how will they learn it as adults in their community? HOw will they learn to stand up and say hey, that is wrong?

 

I found that in general, our youth are not taught or given permission to hold others accountible. Adults always take on the role of judement and givers of accountibility, be it punishment or praise. This is particularly a problem in boy run programs because no matter how much we tell the scouts they are encharge, in the back of their mind they are only encharge until the adults judge that they are doing it wrong and take it back over. I know it took three years before I felt the scout started to trust they the adults wouldn't step in and take it back over. But I find most adults do react by taking over. The problem here is we never really allow our youth to be our brothers keeper. Our children are waiting for the adults to takeover, just as they did in the case here. We have not given the youth permission to be a judge and to act on other peoples behaviors. We serve our children but we don't let them practice serving others. No wonder parenting is so hard, our generation today doesn't know how to say stop, that will hurt you. It took me three kids to figure out how to change behavoir without raising my voice. Thank goodness the girl came last because she is the hardest.

 

So is it really fair to punish the scouts who didn't stop the one scout. Is it fair to assume that one friend should have put his friendship on the line to stop the other friend when likely that scout never has been expected to act like that before. Do these scout understand the idea of serventhood all the time. We talk about the Scout Law a lot, but how many times do we talk about doing our best to God, county and helping other people at ALL times. The oath teaches us that serving others before ourselves is the only unselfish way to serve ourselves. It is a complete 180 turn from how our youth are raised.

 

Who knows what was going through their minds, but I as the SM, I have the power and ability to set a vision of expectation in the minds of all my scouts. Every scout should be set on equal footing to see the vision and understand reason behind it.

 

We adults need to give permission to be noble. The choice to stand up and speak against your friend takes courage and that action needs its rewards. But even more important is the action to acknowledge that the friend standing up to stop your action is right. There is nobility in being humble and that I think takes even more courage. The rewards of humility needs its own acknowledgement or it will always be seen a weak or foreign. How can boys understand this concept if someone doesn't set in the scouts minds and explain its virtues?

 

Does this dicussion change if we for the moment replace punishment with accoutibility or understanding? Punishment is retribution, accountibility is acknowledgement of understanding. The whole idea of scouting is encouraging scouts to change their behavior for the rewards of better character. We can't change their behavior for them, we can only show the wisdom in them taking charge and doing it. They have to make the change and the only way they will do that is to understand the cause and effects of values. THere is great value in being our brother's keeper and the lesson here shouldn't be missed.

 

Have a great weekend all.

 

Barry

[Dizzy ona cliff]

I have seen some boys so focused on messing with something that they would not even notice that they were causing damage.

I might try setting up the tent and recreating the situation with all the boys. Give them the scenario that at some point during the week one of them was sitting in the tent carving on something, and the knife slipped.

Or maybe one of them was trying to poke at a tick or spider that was crawling on the tent fabric, and they did not consider that in stabbing the bug that the point of the knife would also pierce the fabric.

Jeff

[Novice_Cubmaster]

I think Dizzy ona Cliff is on to something.

 

As to the 2 other boys in the tent - I would bet that they would have stopped the scout with the knife if he was intentionally or maliciously trying to damage the tent.

 

But when boys are goofing around, they don't always connect actions with consequences. I remember at age 12 throwing rocks with my buddies at a big bug on a wall - completely oblivious to the neon sign about 2 feet away from the bug. When this was pointed out to us, we felt like total morons.

 

It may not have occurred to any of them that the tent could get damaged. Its often easier to admit to misbehaving than

admit to being dumb.

[Aquila calva]

I just killed a big spider in my tent, with my scout knife.

 

It was really big and it took two stabs to make sure it was dead.

 

What holes in the tent?

 

Oh, oh!

 

[Eagledad]

>>Its often easier to admit to misbehaving than admit to being dumb.