To protect or to serve?

[Eamonn]

Training and teaching the parents of the Scouts /Youth we serve/ protect? Can be and sometimes is a real chore.

If there is a magic formula? I know that I haven't found it.

 

I have found that going to the home of a new member as soon after he or she joins and having a drink (Coffee!!) helps a lot. Not only do I get a better idea of what the Scouts home life is like, it also gives me the opportunity to lay my cards on the table and inform the parents where I'm coming from and at least some of my expectations.

Each and everyone of us do care about the kids placed in our care. I don't think we'd be doing this if we didn't!

I think that there is a difference between caring and fussing over.

I'm not going to do anything to ensure that a Scout moves his bowels, but if a Lad comes to me saying he has a tummy ache, one of the first things I'll ask is "Have you had a BM?" (OK, I might use different words.)

The biggest complaint I seem to get from parents is that when their son /daughter comes home from a weekend away that they are over tired.

As a rule I tell the parent that I'm fine, but maybe because that's because I wasn't up half the night talking!

Sure when I was a CM and I took little Lads away I marched them to the showers, I asked all the right questions, going so far as telling them to go comb or brush their hair.

Please don't tell anyone but in many ways I enjoyed having these little fellows as some kind of extended family!

I'm not going to do that for boy Scouts or Sea Scouts.

Eamonn.