Action needed - how to proceed?

[oldsm]

A situation occurred near the end of a camping trip this weekend that calls for action. I was not present, but as SM have been placed squarely in the middle of the fray. There are several issues. This is going to be long, but the details are important to the situation. I apologize in advance.

 

1. Scouts behaving poorly. While one scout was giving another a piggyback ride, he apparently and accidentally kicked another scout who was on foot. Concurrently, another scout was running with a stick; he tripped, and the stick struck the scout who had just been kicked. (The victim is one of the younger scouts and is quick to play the poor-me card.) The ASM and another parent were some distance away, having allowed the scouts to move ahead on their own. Based on reports from the ASM who was on site, as well as corroborating reports from several scouts, I do not believe that malice was involved it was a case of boys being boys exercising poor judgment. The principle scouts are 12 and 13 years old.

 

2. Parent overstepping bounds. The parent of the scout who was kicked arrived shortly after the incident occurred. (This Dad had arrived early to pick up his older son for a church commitment the younger son was scheduled to return later with the rest of the troop.) Victim son immediately ran over to Dad and complained about being kicked and beaten with a stick. Dad went ballistic on the boy who kicked (during the piggyback ride), and the boy who beat his son with a stick. He essentially held his own inquisition and threatened the stick scout with comments like How would you like it if I beat you with a stick?, berated the boy for dishonoring the scout uniform, and demanded to know what parts of the Scout Law he had violated. At the very least, this was a non-registered parent bullying a couple of scouts. Dad told son he was going home with him right then and there, but SPL (who had been on the other side of the parking lot), intervened and told Dad that he could not take his son without first talking with the ASM, who arrived on scene a few minutes later.

 

SPL told me that the parent had no right to talk to any scout the way he did, that he should have talked with the adults. I agree, and credit the SPL for confronting the Dad.

 

The dad sent me an email with his side of things explained, conveniently omitting the threats. I have not responded to him yet because I want to be fair but firm, and this parent is one who is very forceful a my way or the highway type. I have known him for several years through other venues and we generally have a good working relationship.

 

The parents of the stick scout are very angry at the other parent. Their son is afraid to go to any meeting where this parent might be present, and is talking about dropping out (hes been a really good scout and a real asset to the troop). The parents (and I) want a quick resolution to avoid having this escalate to a parent vs parent confrontation, which could get ugly.

 

What to do? Ive talked with a Committee member (The CC is out of town and unreachable).

 

I am tempted to involve the PLC with the scout violations: running with sticks, kicking, piggyback rides, etc., and see how they want to deal with the issues. A potential problem is that the PLC includes the brother of the victim and the two boys who were doing piggyback. It does not include the stick boy, who definitely needs to be heard in the interest of fairness.

 

The parent issue I think needs to have the backing of the Committee/COR. My inclination is that Dad should be banned from any contact with scouts other than his own sons, and must wait in the parking lot to pick up his sons after meetings, instead of being part of the parent gauntlet that accumulates at the door at the end of meetings. I also will not be referring scouts to him for MB counseling at least not until he retakes YP and I get assurances that another adult will be present for all MB sessions. This may result in the loss of 2 scouts, but I would rather see that than lose a bunch more for not dealing effectively with the issue.

 

Thank you for your suggestions.

 

[packsaddle]

Where were the adult leaders during each stage of this saga? How did the angry dad slip into the boys to have that confrontation without the adult leaders' knowledge?

[oldsm]

The adults were still in the campsite, about a 7-10 minute walk away, but out of voice range. The boys were in the parking lot on their way to visit the adjacent swamp to see what could be seen.

 

The dad was expected to pick up his older son, but got there about 30 minutes early (that in itself is of no consequence). This camp is a small "wilderness" camp with a small parking lot, 3 virtually unimproved camping areas, 1 latrine, 1 water source, 1 light. No tent platforms, no shelters, etc. It's a great place to camp!

 

The adults were intentionally following the boys at some distance to let them function on their own, so they arrived on the scene shortly after the SPL intervened.

[Beavah]

Yah, yeh don't worry a lick about da kids running with sticks thing. Let the PL deal with that in his own time. The issue for you is the adult's behavior.

 

So to my mind yeh have an up-front question to ask yourself. Is your good working relationship with the dad enough for him to listen to yeh and think things through and come around to acknowledging his inappropriate behavior (including an apology to the parents of the "stick boy"?). If yeh think it is, then you call him up, meet for coffee, bring along one other adult of your choosing, and have that conversation. Yeh hear out his side of it, and then you convey the seriousness of threatening someone else's child with a beating, da fact that it amounts to assault against a minor, how it hurt the boy's willingness to participate in the program, etc. etc.

 

If the fellow is appropriately thoughtful and mortified, and steps forward to make his apologies to the others, then all's well that ends in the well. Yeh just let him know on the side that it absolutely must never happen again.

 

If the fellow doesn't respond appropriately, or if yeh don't think that you can trade on your relationship to get him to listen, then yeh kick it up to da COR (if yeh have a "real" one) or IH, with a note to the SE. In the mean time, yeh let him know that yeh have to ask him not to participate in any events until the COR/IH have a chance to consider his status.

 

Realistically, you have to be ready to lose this imprudent dad and his son from your troop. Pullin' off the hat trick (keepin' the dad, his son, and the other boy) is a pretty hard shot.

 

But yeh absolutely, positively, must not ignore that kind of behavior or allow da rest of the boys and families to feel their son can be assaulted on a scout outing by an adult.

 

Of course yeh have one extra duty here too, yeh know? You have to do somethin' special for that SPL of yours. The lad's got guts and character, and deserves a full heapin' helping of your respect and gratitude.

 

Beavah

[CalicoPenn]

Beavah has laid out a great go forward path. A couple of things though:

 

Was the older brother a witness to any of this? Does he corroborate his younger brothers version of things or the other Scouts? If he's with the other Scouts, that sounds like something to mention to Papa Bear.

 

Does giving piggy backs rides really rise to the level of Scouts behaving poorly? I consider it Scouts having fun.

 

Is running with sticks (a hiking stick perhaps?) really a matter of Scouts behaving poorly? If the Scout was walking and tripped, would we be characterizing it as behaving poorly? I doubt it. Now deliberately hitting others with sticks? Yeah, rises to the level.

 

Did the Scouts who accidently kicked and hit the younger Scout apologize immediately? If so, then they acted very Scoutlike. If not, then they may need a reminder that in polite and civilized society, we apologize even if our actions are accidental. I'm guessing, though, that the Scouts said "Gee, Johnny - sorry about that - it was an accident" right away.

 

 

 

 

[gwd-scouter]

Scouts behaving poorly? Not sure about that. I see nothing wrong with piggyback rides, and running with a stick, while not wise, doesn't warrant any kind of discipline. At least that's my take on it. You can certainly use both things as examples in a talk with the Scouts about how their actions, even those that just seem fun and not harmful, can lead to accidents.

 

As far as angry Dad goes. Been there. I tell my new parents and remind others periodically that before they go nuts when little Johnny comes home and tells them about some abuse he suffered on a campout, to give me a call, tell me what they heard, and give me time to find out the whole story. I remind them that little Johnny may not always tell them everything that happened - especially if he played some part in the incident.

 

An example: A few years ago new Scout complained to his parents that older Scout took his shoes and wouldn't give them back forcing new Scout to walk around in his socks all day. The truth? New Scout was throwing his shoes at other Scouts and older Scout (my son) caught new Scout's shoes and kept them and asked New Scout to sit in his tent for five minutes - a timeout. New Scout did not sit in his tent to calm down as asked, but ran around the campsite. Yes, without his shoes. At this point, older Scout came to me to intervene which I did.

 

Once his parents were told the truth of the event and new Scout fessed up that he was indeed throwing his shoes at the other Scouts, parents calmed down. Unfortunately, new Scout's behavior caused so many of these types of conversations that after two years he quit Scouts.

[evmori]

Based on the original post, it seems that this is a case of boys being boys and that the boy who got kicked and poked was nothing more than an accident.

 

Since it seems you have a good relationship with the ballistic dad, maybe a phone call to him would be in order. I don't think I would go into his threats and such. Sounds like this was a reaction to his son ending up at the wrong end of the stick (pun intended).

 

I would involve the PLC in this but not for any Scout violations. To me, there were none. The PLC involvement should be how to prevent this from happening in the future.

 

It seems the adults are the ones who dropped the ball. A 7-10 minute walk away is pretty far away. Gotta ask why so far away?

 

A parent meeting is what's called for. I would include the SPL since he stood up to ballistic dad for his perspective on the situation. I wouldn't make this a Q&A session but more of a "this is what happened & here is what we are doing to prevent this in the future" session.

 

Good luck.

[BrentAllen]

7 - 10 minutes is too far away? I don't guess those Scouts will ever go on a Patrol outing, on their own - even a simple day hike.

[Roadkill Patrol]

I agree with BrentAllen. As leaders, we shouldn't hover around these scouts all of the time. On various campouts, we have encourage the scouts to explore without adults as long as the SPL is there. We have set up geocaches for them to find while us adults wait at camp.

[Lisabob]

I agree with Brent too, unless there are reasons to expect trouble in advance. I've seen a few fellows who really require an adult shadow to stick to them, or they start to pull all sorts of crazy behavior. But it doesn't sound like that was the case here.

 

Oldsm, some parents really have a hard time dealing with other people's kids, especially when it isn't clear (to the parents) what the community standard of behavior should be. So I think that's where I would start, is with this parent who went ballistic. Ask him for his thoughts on the situation and what his reactions were. Let him do his venting to you. Then help him understand that he scared another kid so much that now, that kid is unwilling to attend events where he is present. I bet he didn't mean to do that. Then lay out a path for him. On future camp outs, here is how we handle problems like this...

 

And kudos to your SPL, by the way. Help him learn from this, too, that just because people are adults they don't always react correctly and yet, we should all cut adults some slack, too. In other words - help the SPL to see this as water under the bridge (provided it doesn't happen again), because mid/late teens can be very judgmental in their thinking.

 

 

 

 

[BrentAllen]

oldsm,

I think part of the way you deal with this is setting up some new ground rules for parents on trips. If a parent has a problem with a Scout or the way something is being handled on a trip, he/she is to find a uniformed leader and get them to deal with it. Parents are never to step in, unless there is a health or safety issue.

 

We had a similar (though smaller) problem on our last trip. One of our Scout's dad (parents divorced) was visiting from out of state, and went on the trip with us. The weather was pretty rainy, but we had missed most of the really bad weather. About 2:00 AM we started getting some lightening, not really that close, but a lot of it. The rain had increased and I decided to get the boys into a building. The dad was helping me get the boys up and out of their tents. One of our older Scouts thought he was supposed to pack up his sleeping bag and pad. The dad didn't appreciate how long it was taking, and dropped the F bomb, telling him to hurry up. The Scout, to his credit, replied, "Well, you don't have to use that kind of language!"

 

Once inside, the dad came up to me and quietly said "you have some very well-behaved boys in your troop." He went on to explain what had happened, and I told him that we (the boys and I) don't care for bad language. He apologized and everything was fine.

 

I'm pretty sure none of our ASMs or CMs would use bad language with our Scouts. I've only had one other instance similar to this one (funny thing, it was the same Scout on the receiving end, though he did absolutely nothing wrong) and, again, it was a dad (at a meeting), not one of our leaders. We are trying to walk that fine line of letting the parents see a little Scouting, without having them interfere. It can be difficult.

[oldsm]

Thank you to all for the answers and suggestions thus far.

 

Last week the SPL did an excellent job reviewing the boys' code of conduct (which basically elaborates on the Scout Law) with the entire troop to help everyone figure out how things happened and what, if anything, needed to be done to prevent future problems. The basic outcome was that this was a case of boys being boys and they just need to be aware of what they're doing. There was no apparent intent to hurt anyone, so they decided that the no consequences needed to be imposed on the Scouts. Involving the entire troop was appropriate since most of them witnessed the incident anyway, and not all of them are part of the PLC.

 

I met the dad at the door and told him that the boys were going to address that incident, and that it would be better if he were nowhere around. He agreed and mentioned that, since he'd had his say in the email presenting his side, he considered the matter closed. I told him that we would talk later (knowing that no one else considers it closed).

 

I spoke individually with the principle boys and several others. The ones at the center of the issue have made and accepted appropriate apologies and say that they have put this behind them. Several of the other boys corroborated what I had learned from other sources, except that I also learned that the dad was cursing at the boys, dropping the F-bomb several times, along with a couple of G** d***s. Two of the older scouts told me that they were so angry at the dad that they were almost ready to punch him.

 

A couple of parents approached me out of concern. I managed to assuage their concerns by letting them in on how the issue is being addressed. At least the boys talk with their parents - yay!

 

Several scouts are genuinely afraid of this dad now. I assured them that, as they had resolved he issues that the Scouts could control, I am addressing the adult issue.

 

Tonight I am meeting with the Troop Committee to solicit their support. I've already spoken offline with some of them, and I'm pretty sure that they will concur with the recommendations that the ASM's and I are proposing. That will include banning the dad from all scout functions and meetings except Courts of Honor, no contact with any scout without additional adult supervision (such as MB counseling). I also believe that he needs to apologize to the entire troop (and to the boys he verbally assaulted), but not until such time as the boys let me know that they are ready to hear an apology.

 

I am not sure how long banishment should continue. Should there be a time limit? Some precipitating event (such as an apology)? YP trianing?

 

 

[Beavah]

I also believe that he needs to apologize to the entire troop (and to the boys he verbally assaulted), but not until such time as the boys let me know that they are ready to hear an apology.

 

Yah, if I may suggest... adults do that sort of thing poorly. While in some ways sauce for da goose should be sauce for the gander (we often do make boys apologize to the group), I think yeh might get better results and a better reaction if yeh supervised the man apologizing to individual lads or small groups. Just a gut sense. He should, however, apologize to the committee.

 

I am not sure how long banishment should continue. Should there be a time limit? Some precipitating event (such as an apology)? YP trianing?

 

Here I think yeh have to leave it open. I definitely wouldn't put a time limit of any kind on it, though I'd leave the possibility of a relaxation "down the road" open. If the man comes clean in all the right ways, then after a few months I think yeh ease off slowly, beginning with using him as a helper for setup and that kind of thing - stuff that doesn't have contact with the boys. If that seems OK, with none of the anger issues, and he does YP, then yeh slowly test the waters at meetings. But yeh definitely want to leave the initial "banishment" in place long enough that the boys settle down and the other parents relax.

 

Beavah

 

 

If the fellow makes excuses, doesn't come clean, or isn't pretty near perfect

[Thomas54]

 

Ah the SPL and PLC come out on top.

 

The PLC is in my experience more objective and rational than a committee of parents. Scouts are usually more in tune with their peer's true intent. Was it malicious or an accident? In this case an accident. The SPL remained calm and tried to diffuse the situation. The parent cannot see past his own legacy standing in front of him and loses it.

 

Don't be surprised if this guy is forming his own coalition within the committee to thwart your banishment. The drama will not end tonight.

 

 

 

 

 

(This message has been edited by Thomas54)

[oldsm]

Last evening I met with the Troop Committee to review this whole incident. All 6 TC members present except one have sons in the troop (the other one's son aged out about 25 years ago). They had all heard bits and pieces from their sons. I filled them in on the events that occurred, read the dad's email, and presented my findings. My recommendations were that the dad be banned from all scout activities except Courts of Honor for some indefinite time, possibly a minimum of 6 months, and have to complete YP, after which we would consider reintegrating him into the parent community based on our observations and our sense of the boys being comfortable with him around. The committee opted for a review after 4 months. Dad was present in the building (although not with the scouts), so I brought him in to the TC where I explained the committee's deliberations and the decision. Although dad was not happy with the consequences, and says he was not aware that he used profanity with the boys, he did say that he accepts the decision and will abide by it. Everything was civil. We were careful to identify his behavior as the problem - not him, not his sons who I hope will continue to be active in the troop. This was difficult for me because the dad and I have known each other since before scouts.

 

A TC member asked if we need to report this farther up, such as to our CO or the Council. I haven't checked the G2SS yet, so I'm not certain - will check that later today. The dad is not registered with the troop, but is registered as a MB Counselor. I do intend to alert our District Advancement Chairman.

 

I also communicated the action to the parent of the lad who bore the brunt of the dad's outburst; he says he's comfortable with the action. I also shared the result with the PLC, along with some counsel about the implications of having that knowledge and how to use it responsibly (kind, courteous, etc.) so that rumors don't get started.

 

Looking back over the evening, I was struck by how good the relationship is that I have with my TC. They were absolutely 100% supportive, not as a rubber-stamp (they asked some very good questions), but as a truly interested group of concerned adults. I feel blessed to have a TC that does their job well, doesn't try to do mine, and supports the program as best they can. (I even got a late-night phone call from one TC member to see how I was doing - she realized that it was uncomfortable for me due to the long-standing relationship - and to let me know that she and the committee felt that I had handled the entire situation in the best way possible.) It doesn't get much better!

 

Thank you all for your advice and observations. They have been most helpful.