Re: To get a discussion started. . .

OK, OK, I know I shouldn't respond....everyone else is doing it and the
thread is getting old, the flames are getting higher and nothing is getting
accomplished for all the grousing and griping we are
doing....BUT....somehow, my fingers seem to have a mind of their own, so
here they go!!!!!

I find it funny that your daughter thinks that Camp Fire and Girl Scouts
are "lame". Unless she has experienced both of them up close and personal
in more than one setting then she is basing her opinions on hearsay and who
knows what else!

I remember asking my Brownies several years ago what they would like to do
during that year. Too open-ended of a question! I got the camping and
sell cookies response... as well as the go to Disneyland response, but not
much else. They didn't have a clue as to what they could actually do.
It's up to us as adults to make sure that our kids experience more than
just "lame" programs. Just the same as 2 different history teachers in the
same high school with the same course outline and the same texts can be
"lame" and "exciting".

I remember the story I first heard when I became a Girl Scout Leader in the
mid-1970's about a young lady in about 11th grade that was a Girl Scout.
Like so many of our kids at that age, she didn't want to let her peers know
that she was in Girl Scouts. Then she was chosen to go on an international
Wider Op. When traveling on a Wider Op the girl must travel in full
uniform. In her case she had to leave directly from school and would not
have time to change so she had to wear her uniform to school. She was
teased, ribbed, and all kinds of typical stuff by her peers. Each time she
was asked why she was in uniform she explained that she was going to India
for a month and it was Girl Scout related. No-one believed her. A month
later, when she returned from India, everyone asked her where she had been.
Once again she told them India with the Girl Scouts... but this time she
had stuff and pictures to prove it! All of a sudden Girl Scouting wasn't
so "lame", and a whole new troop of Seniors sprang into existence at this
high school.

My own daughter has been teased about her involvement, but it didn't work.
She just turned around and asked them if they had been to the ocean that
weekend, or to Michigan for 2 weeks last summer on a bike trip, or
white-water rafting, or on a wagon train, or made a commercial for TV, or
been on 2 radio stations in one morning, or marched in too many parades to
count, or gone snow-shoeing on Mt. Hood, or gone mountain biking in north
Idaho. When her tormentors couldn't respond that they had done all those
things, she retorted that she had done all of that and more in Girl Scouts
and obviously they were jealous. Not the best retort, but not too bad for
a 14 year old.

Suffice it to say, a program is only as "lame" or as great at the leader(s)
associated with it. If life serves you lemons... make lemonade!

YiS,
Gail Branum
*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@
<branum@aone.com>
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Plains/3209/
"It is the spirit in which the law is carried out that really
matters. That is the whole essence of our success."
Robert Baden-Powell, 1933
*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@*@

• Messages sorted by: [ date ][ thread ][ subject ][ author ]
• Next message
• Previous message
• Maybe in reply to
• Next in thread