Parents MB Counseling their own youth

[Hunt]

One of the methods of Scouting is Adult Association, and urging a scout to work with MBCs other than his parents promotes that method. This is what's wrong with the mother advising a large number of merit badges--I'd say it's also the problem if a troop uses just one or two advisors to advise a large number of badges--while there's no rule against it, and the scouts can certainly do all the work, it dilutes the adult association benefit that comes from using multiple advisors. What's more, starting parents off as MBCs is a good way to get the more reluctant started helping with the unit--if the SM advises all the badges, you lose that adult leadership recruiting tool.

But I continue to think that the best way to deal with this is for an alert SM, perhaps with the help of the Advancement Coordinator, to say, "Jack, how about doing Citizenship in the Community with Mr. Jones instead of [me/your dad/Mr. X]? He needs the experience!"

[clpagel]

I am a MBC for our troop. Not the only one by any means. We live in a rural town of 3500. We also have two troops in our town. I have only led one merit badge so far, my son came up last spring. My son hates working with me! I'm much tougher on him (he thinks, maybe true) than the other boys. Partly, that is because I know what he is capable of. And I was den leader for some of the other boys and know of their various learning disabilities and take that into account. He is much happier when it is not my turn to lead a MB. But as counselors, we try to offer different badges, so that the boys have more experiences. They also go to different places to earn merit badges. Alpha Phi Omega at The University of Texas offers a merit badge university in the spring that was great. He earned badges that none of us are qualified to teach.

[busylady]

FScouter, would I love to have your problem! Unfortunately, we (like most other youth organizations around here) have a small, dedicated pool of volunteers for a group of Scouts that's ever growing.

 

Thinking out loud myself, I wonder if there's some way to categorize the MBCs you have into "working groups" with a leader for each group (such as "animals", "machines", "crafts", etc.). That way you have a pool of people who can help make Scout/counselor matches.

 

Too, we all have to learn to work with all kinds of people at some point in our lives . . .

[Bob White]

Actually busylady the organizational process you describe is the one laid out in the Advancement Committee Policies and Pocedures manual for how the Districts and Councils are to organize counselor recruitment and management. It is important to point out that these responsibilities are the district and council's job not the units.

 

Also, adult association is not about working with adults other than your parents. It is about youth having opportunities to meet and model themselves after positive adult role models. Certainly many parents of scouts would fall into that catagory, and using the methods of Scouting to strengthen the family unit and promote healthy family interaction does not fly in the face of any scouting method or aim.

 

BW(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[FScouter]

I misspoke earlier when I said "700" counselors. Many counselors are qualified for more than one MB. The number of individual counselors is closer to 175.

 

Still, I don't think any Scoutmaster should be expected to evaluate the qualifications of counselors. That is the function of the district MB coordinator. I know our coordinator and trust that he has approved counselors that are competent in the subject matter and that work well with boys. Who am I to second guess? I don't believe Scoutmasters should be nixing counselors based on their personal preferences.

[KoreaScouter]

John's original question was whether or not our Troops have written policies about parents counseling MBs.

 

We stumbled upon a great policy, which we use to administer the MB program. It works like this (I'll discuss the parent question a little further down):

 

- A Scout gets a signed blue card from his SM (me). I assign a counselor from the approved MB counselor list. The Scout, with someone else, meets with the counselor, then begins work. When he finishes the work, the MB counselor signs the blue card, the Scout brings it to me, I sign it, and give it to our Troop Advancement chair. She makes the rest happen. We found it in the SM Handbook, on page 125.

 

Now, about who to assign as the counselor. I look at the Scout's age, his address, my knowledge of the Scout, my knowledge of the counselor's preferences, and if any other Scouts are currently working with the same counselor on the same badge. For example, I know that some of our counselors prefer to work with just a couple boys at a time, while others are perfectly at ease with larger numbers at various stages of completion -- and they can keep it all straight. Or, I try to assign a Scout to a counselor who's within walking distance of his house if transportation's an issue. And so on, you get the point.

 

I pay absolutely no attention to whether or not the counselor is related to the Scout. If impartiality, or lack of it, were a concern of mine going in, that person wouldn't counsel ANYONE in my Troop -- I assign the counselors, remember? And, that's the key point here in my opinion. The internal control many are looking for is already built into the system -- you just have to use it!

 

If you think you're painted into a corner because you only have one counselor for a particular badge, and it's a parent, recruit a second counselor.

 

I'll tell you something, I just don't understand the drama surrounding these situations where someone is lamenting that a Scout skated through his advancement because he used one counselor for all his MBs. He didn't assign himself to that counselor 21 times, his SM did. And if the SM, and the committee, and the CO, and the MB counselor, are all in cahoots, then you have three choices as I see it. One, suck it up and drive on. Two, a discreet phone call to the District Executive or whatever level of the organization one thinks will be impartial. Three, change units.

 

KS