"Scouter Stress" (1/2)
settummanque, or blackeagle (blkeagle@DYNASTY.NET)
Fri, 3 Apr 1998 01:58:09 -0600
This posting is in two parts. I could not get it downward to meet our 200
line limit so I broke it up into two parts.
"Scouter Stress"
As I have mentioned several times before, I enjoy getting and reading
personal email
from Scouters. I try as hard as I can to answer their questions, to resolve
their concerns, and to be a sounding board for their ideas and changes they
want to do with their units and their youth. I also feel that I am helping
them reduce the amount of stress on their bodies by giving them someone to
correspond with and "talk Scouting".
I get a lot of email that demonstrates what I call "Scouter Stress". Stress
is a response of the body to any demand made on it. Scouter Stress is how
your body deals with the demands of being a volunteer or professional
Scouter. Much of what you do to relieve this stress depends on your ability
to resolve yourself in being the best Scouter you can be, and not to be
totally consumed on being the next "Norman Rockwell Scoutmaster" or James
West as portrayed in Rockwell's many Scouting paintings.
See if you can place yourself in one (or several) of these situations; I
know that I can:
*Finding out that a District or Council-level meeting in which you are
interested in is occurring the same night as one of your "boring, mundane,
inactioned unit meetings or committee meetings.
*Sighing heavily as you leave your home for your unit's weekly meeting or
before "the gang" arrives at your home for a unit meeting.
*Worrying constantly about whether or not you have "met all of the
prerequisites" for your unit's participation in summer camp or a weekend
camp...you spend hours on the phone with an experienced Scouter, or the
District's Executive or other professional, or with the parents of each and
every member of your unit, insuring that "everything has been turned in" and
"everything has been done".
*Fear of doing anything "outside of the position you've had" for years
because you feel that you are not "ready" or "capable" of doing those
things. This fear in some cases has so encircled you that you feel that you
will have to turn down the offer -- even though the offer represents a "step
upward" for you or a "move forward" in your role as a Scouter
*Volunteering for almost every significant task that comes up within the
District or Council, in great part knowing that if you or one of the others
in "your circle" doesn't volunteer to get the task done, it will not be done
and in the bottom line, will impede the ability for the event to "really
work the way its supposed to".
*Once returning from a Scouting meeting or activity, the "high" you received
when you first starting returning home is replaced by worry, doubt and
resignation that "oh well, another meeting is down". You're tired and you go
immediately to bed or you sit and try to watch TV or listen to the radio or
read your email and fall asleep. You choose not even to discuss the meeting
or activity with your spouse or co-worker.
*Pounding headaches toward the end of the day when you are to "do Scouting";
or upset stomach, or tight neck and shoulders, or eyestrain. Or any of
these during or after unit meeting or activity or on your way toward a
meeting or activity.
*You are concerned about doing everything the way it has been trained to
you, the way that it is portrayed in the Scouting literature, the way that
you've "heard it work" or "seen it work on video"; and when you cannot get
it done "that way", you are consumed with worry and fear that perhaps
"Scouting's not what I'm good at".
All of those instances are taken from actual postings sent to me since I've
been online in 1989. There are lots of variations on those themes, but it
basically comes down to four main issues that I'll discuss here:
The first is the fear that "I'm not doing it the way the BSA, my Council, or
the people who trained me says it must be done." "I could be ruining these
boys' chances for Eagle or Arrow of Light or some Exploring honor if I don't
do it exactly as written in the books". Many Scouters expressed a fear of
their Commissioner or professional because "if he sees that I'm not doing
things exactly as the book says, the Troop or Pack or Post can be taken away
from me...."
Yes, if you are running a "junior hate club", a "prostitution ring", or a
"junior NRA
(National Rifle Association) program" as your unit's program, you can bet on
the BSA coming down with both heavy feet and removing you and your youth
from each other and from the BSA. The BSA has some rather definite rules,
rules which are spelled out, and easy-to-understand rules for ALL of its'
units. We all know those rules...no criminal behavior, no gambling, no
military-type activities, no gang-related activities as part of the program
of a Cub Scout Pack, Boy Scout Troop, or Exploring unit.
What we are NOT so clear on, and what the BSA's literature is very foggy on,
are those questions concerning task organization and roles. Do you HAVE to
have an Assistant Senior Patrol Leader?? Do you HAVE to have a Scribe, a
Quartermaster, and a Librarian?
We don't own any books..does this mean I have to go out and purchase merit
badge books for my Scouts?? Does every Scout HAVE to have a Scout Handbook
and Fieldbook? Can we get away with wearing bluejeans for Troop meetings
and Courts of Honor or does EVERYTHING we have HAVE to be "official BSA"??
The Girl Scouts of the USA's literature is likewise foggy in places as well.
Be assured that if you are TRYING to emulate the basic program of the BSA or
GSUSA, nobody should complain about it if you only have ONE Assistant
Scoutmaster or co-leader for 43 youth. If you are working the basics of the
program with "what you have", don't worry about if your program is "stacking
up to the standard". Worry instead on whether or not those youth in your
unit are enjoying the experience, if they are advancing, and if they are
feeling that the time and energies expended are worthwhile.
That's taking the program to them.
Scouts-L talks about many of these issues, and for every one of those issues
(and related ones), there are equally some folks that will recommend that
you "do it the way the books say" and others that will say "if it works for
you, then it should be fine with the BSA". Remember that the books and
other literature aids, as well as those people who have trained you, are all
GUIDES to how the program should be organized, should be implemented, and
should be evaluated upon. Again, while the books and other items tell us
all some things we MUST do in order to have a quality program, the fact that
you have three Assistant Senior Patrol Leaders instead of one or that you
allow everyone including all adults to wear jeans during Troop meetings
instead of the issue slacks has little bearing on your ability to work with
youth or their ability to lead and be of service to others.
Be consistent in what you do. That's the key, and that is what the program
is patterned to work out....
Second, the frustration which comes from trying to do things the way that
the books suggest or the way it was taught or the way that others I've
talked or corresponded with electronically says it should go...and failing.
Everyone fails. The beauty of Scouting is that nobody is going to dock any
pay from you for your failure or the failure of your youth leaders. From
the outside, who knows except you and your youth leaders, that you have
failed?? The word is constant. Don't give up on having your youth leaders
to take responsibility for the Troop program and activities just because "it
didn't work" the first month.
Jessiann (my wife) tells me that some medical study proved that "it takes 28
days to break a habit". She keeps reminding me of that when I forget to take
the trash out, or when I slip and forget to take my binder with me
somewhere. The point is that your youth leaders have to be in the HABIT of
running the show, and not as "an experiment to see if you can do it", but as
a PERMANENT CHANGE. Once they see that you're not going to "change your
mind again" and take their roles back from them, they will see that it is
truly up to them and they will try harder.
The same goes with overnight trips and summer camp. If your Scouts see
themselves as the leaders, the organizers, the ones REALLY "large and in
charge", they will soon make themselves ACT that way...and that's what you
are wanting to do: modify behavior.
Many times, we Scouters want to insure that "everything is going to work the
way its supposed to" and we over-extend ourselves "covering all bases"
because "otherwise, it won't get done and our event will be a wash!"
Don't beat yourself (or anyone else) up for the lack of "a perfect program".
It doesn't exist. In my many years as a primary Scouter, I have yet seen a
"perfect program" except during training courses, and even then, those units
are NOT perfect either. Someone substituted a leadership role for another.
Someone couldn't make it and therefore another person had to take over and
he or she didn't really know what the absent person's plan was. We all try
to make Scouting somehow become a "cookie cutter" program: pre formed
cutters in the shapes of characters, animals, numbers or letters are used to
cut and shape the cookie dough. Different sizes of cutters are used
depending on how much cookie dough is left over. The rest of the dough is
discarded since nothing could be made of it. When we cannot "place" our
program into one of the "established shapes" or designs, we want to reshape
the program or discard it since nothing could be made of it. That's
wrong...you're wasting resources and time.
Even a small unit can reap the benefits from a good program. As a matter of
interest, the smaller the unit is, the more potential it has to become a
larger unit. Do the best you can to carry out the established program. If
for some reason it doesn't fit your "cutter", instead of reshaping, how
about continuing onward with what you do have. The result may be that
you've stumbled onto a new concept in delivering the program and the Promise
of Scouting to youth...and you didn't even know it!
(more in the followup)
(c) 1997 Mike Walton ("no such thing as strong coffee,...") (502) 827-9201
(settummanque, the blackeagle) http://dynasty.net/users/blkeagle
241 Fairview Dr., Henderson, KY 42420-4339 blkeagle@dynasty.net
kyblkeagle@aol.com or waltonm@hq.21taacom.army.mil
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