Home schooled scouts

[CalicoPenn]

"* A two-finger "come here" wave at me as he looked at me and said, "Hey, come here a minute"." So how did you deal with this? I've had Scouts do that to me and I just looked at them, and with a smile on my face, said "I don't respond to "Hey" but I will respond to Mr. Scoutmaster and Please" then walked away and they figured it out (but it's also contextual, on hikes, when a Scout is looking at something exciting to him and he says "Hey, come here a sec", I'll come over and look at what they want to share with me).

 

"* Not being "hungry" during his patrols breakfast on get-away morning, but his dad needing to make "a couple of stops" one their way back home." I dont see this as being that unusual for a boy on his first campout when Dad is along - its the next campouts, when Dad isn't driving, that matter - if he isn't hungry then, whoever the driver is just doesn't make any stops at Mickie D's along the way just because the lad has suddenly gotten hungry - he'll figure it out.

 

 

"* When they were ready to leave and go home, him looking at his dad and saying, "Dad get in the car. Let's go." And dad obediently following direction." I have to say I chuckled at this one because I'm not sure this is really a bad thing - There were quite a few adults in my Scouting youth that were notorius for hanging out at the end of camporees jibber-jabbering away as most folks were leaving - my father was one of them - there were quite a few trips to district events where dad drove me and my brother home from the outing and we didn't leave until a couple hours after our Troop had already left - I sure wish I could have trained my dad to get in the car when it was time to leave :-) .

 

 

I don't think it's a matter of "breaking him" - I think it's more of a matter of him getting used to your Troops conventions, and you getting used to him.

[lrsap]

As far as the "two finger salute" he gave me, I simply raised my eyebrows almost to the back of my head and walked away. He got the message because the next thing out of his mouth was "Excuse me".

 

And I hope I didn't give an impression of the boy being a hellion. He's not necessarily bad, but he is most definitely the center of his own universe.

[Eagle732]

Currently 5 of 30 of my scouts are home schooled, I've probably had a over a dozen during the last 5 years. They have all been very polite and hard working. It appears they all come from stabile homes (mom and dad together) with strict upbringing. Parent were great too, always willing to help. In fact this current group has parents who are ASMs (2) and MCs (2). I'd take a whole troop of home schooled boys if I could find them.

Scouting counts towards their schooling somehow, maybe physical education?(This message has been edited by Eagle732)

[SSScout]

The Scout the OP describes is a boy with issues, not a "home schooled kid" with issues.

Home Schooling is a choice, and often a hard one for the parents. As home school parents, we did it for my now Eagle 18 year old because the county schools simply did not live up to the promised help for him. His reading problems needed more one on one than he could realistically get (even tho promised IN WRITING) from the public schools, which in this area are otherwise top notch.

Scouting served as a place where he could excell at his own pace in many different areas. And be rewarded for his success.

Many Merit Badges received academic credit from our HS advisor (we were members of a HS co-op, which garnered him a high school diploma), as did his work in 4H. His rabbit genetics study served as a science fair project and served as his biology credit that year.

Scouting is a choice for many HSers for the same reasons. I have been asked to talk to HS groups about the MB program as it relates to various academic subjects. Scouting is what it is, depending on the adult leaders. Deal with the boy, regardless of his other "credentials", the boy is our topic and his behavior or needs. The other boys will accept (or not) the HS boy on his own merits, not so much on how or where he is schooled.

Unless the boys have their own problems, but that is another thread.

[Callooh! Callay!1428010939]

It seems folks compliment our children's behavior relatively frequently. If they know we homeschool, they often attribute it to that. Maybe they remark because the children's behavior is remarkably good. But maybe it's just because homeschooling is different and if people know, it makes them more observant and more likely to remark on homeschooled children's behavior. Or maybe something like this happens to all parents, homeschooling or not.

 

Other contributing factors to behavior are genes, diet, exercise, family influences, family life, outside activities, etc. To the extent that homeschool is a factor, the fact that a family homeschools may not be as much a factor as how they homeschool - and even that may have little to do with the behaviors noted in the OP.

 

Homeschoolers' reasons for homeschooling, pedagogical strategies, and family lives vary.

 

Beware The Homeschoolers!

 

 

(This message has been edited by Callooh! Callay!)

[sailingpj]

I was homeschooled the majority of my school years. It sucked. I learned a ton of insanely bad study habits, did not learn how to relate to my peers, and was left with huge holes in my education.

 

Saying that, scouting helped a lot with that second problem.

[skeptic]

We have/had home schooled scouts, and also ones in private schools. Overall, the HS ones seem to be a bit more polite and attentive, as well as appear to be ahead of their peers in many subjects. However, a few have/had serious social barriers because of little intermixing with peers. This is somewhat mitigated today by HS groups that meet once or twice a week for interactive functions and parental sharing. However, some parents will not participate in these groups, and it generally shows in the child's social contacts.

 

The other issue with a few of the kids in HS is the parental inability to recognize the child may have real learning problems that need professional help. These are the ones that get brought to scouts to somehow overcome things most leaders and units have little experience with or ability to handle.

 

So, I surmise that while there may be some relationship between egocentrism in scouts and home schooling, it is more likely it is the parenting methods and that HS is just another way to not deal with realities of their child's personalities or needs.

[shortridge]

As a former homeschooler - the whole way through, K-12 - I can attest that the quality of homeschooling varies from family to family. Thus, the quality of the kid will vary from family to family. There are few other adults - like teachers - in their lives, so how the parents act is how the kids are going to act; the things the parents do are the things the kids are going to do; and the topics the parents teach are the topics the kids are going to learn.

 

As a fairly intense introvert, I found Cub Scouts to be very helpful in pulling me out of my shell. I loved Boy Scouts and thrived in it, because the self-directed program was just like the self-directed learning "system" we used at home. If I wanted to learn more about something, I read up on it and asked questions. That was the same way I could earn merit badges or Scouting skills! Amazingly cool - and easy!

 

Homeschooling is not for everyone. That is perhaps the most important point I'd make. It's not for every kid, certainly; while my daughter would love the self-directed learning approach of my parents, she would be bored to tears without any other kids to interact with. It's also not for every parent. Some otherwise great parents are horrible homeschoolers. They don't know how to teach, they don't know how to let their kids learn, they use awful curricular materials, they demand too much, they ask too little ...

 

My bottom-line advice would be not to judge a book by its cover, and especially not to judge every homeschooling family by any other homeschooling family. Generalizations especially do not apply here.

[shortridge]

[sorry, double post](This message has been edited by shortridge)