Gotta say that half the posts here are pretty ill-informed when it comes to working with Scouts with disabilities. We have a boy who is higher functioning autistic and three kids with Aspergers. I wish I had mroe Scouts like my autistic kid. He is polite, always says "hi" and really works hard. Yes it is a bit like herding cats with him but his friends in his patrol really help him. The Aspergers kids are the same way. Yes they are a handful at times but never more so than any other "normal" kids we have.

I think the person who said earlier that putting labels on a kid makes you look at them differently has it spot on! Whether the kid is "normal" or has a disability, the monitoring of, and discipline system for these kids should be the SAME. It should not make a lick of difference if the kid has Aspergers or not. If the kid is doing stuff at Scout events that warrants punishment then serve it up fast and make sure the parents are involved. Explain what happens if it happens again or while under "probation". HOWEVER, you need to guard against scapegoating too. All too often kids with such disabilities are treated differently and alientated by the other Scouts. We assigned Guides to help our Scouts with Aspergers and met with their patrols to discuss what to expect and to heavily suggest they keep an open mind and help the guys. Too many times the kids with difficulties are demonized which leads to further aggressive behavior.

You may not be a mental health professional, but I bet you were never a canoeing expert, survival expert or marksman in the military either...and yet you developed those skills to help teach your Scouts. Knowing how to handle kids with a special needs like this is just another skill as a Scouter you will need to learn. Like WFA, knots or any other skill you wanted to learn to be a Scouter, this is just another skill. Whether you WANT to learn it or not is up to you.

I agree with Krampus ... to a degree. The term "disability" is too loosely used.

I've had excellent experience with scouts that have some level of asbergers, autism or a disability. They are excellent scouts. I've also had scouts that come from broken homes or with parents in jail. We can work with them too. To be honest, I'm confounded when people talk of the category of asbergers as some type of really bad diagnosis. From what I see, they function fine in families and in society.

The category I have had little success integrating into the troop is "EBD"... i.e. significant / severe emotional behavioral disorders. Oppositional. Defiant. Strong anti-social behavior. Meanness. "I believe" (not a clinician) those fall into the term severe or significant "emotional behavior disorders" ... "EBD". I'm at the point that when I see it demonstrated, we may or may not give a warning and/or a 2nd chance. The result is separation from the troop.

If the scout is willing to work with us, great! We accept them. But if they want to bring meanness, oppositional, defiant or strong anti-social behaviors into the troop, they need to move on ... and very quickly move on.

As the Occidental Philosopher Harry Callahan once said, "A man's got to know his limitations",

Well fred and krampus, I am one of two active adults in the troop. We have a 10 to 1 ratio.....

Our Troop does not have the resources to babysit or chaparone an unpredictable scout.

While you find it personally rewarding to help this one boy, I have a troop full of them abandon, no or single parent home, raised by grandparents, no father in the picture. Most of them have add/adhd issues on top of it all. This isn't your rosey suburban picture of a two parent home with a white picket fence, two new cars and a dog.

Now your going to throw a mildly autuistic scout in the mix?????


I am a bottom line kinda guy........I don't have the time or interest in having or getting the training for this, your comparison to WFA is a bad one, WFA benefits everyone on the trip as does rangemaster training, My spending hundreds of dollars and countless hours getting trained for one autistic scout doesn't make sense........Call me lazy or any other name.


Krampus,....guesiing your son is autistic?

It is absolutely the forums business as to where you are writing your perspective from...... From your response the answer is probably yes.

BTW what is your scouting resume......again seein who we are talking too.

Mine, current SM, only 6 month, ASM 4 years, tiger, wolf, bear, webelos den leader, ACM, CM. Pack oudoor chair, District Day camp program director and CC...... I live and scout in a poor urban area, most of my scouts are from single parent, grand parent homes....Rarely is their a father figure involved. I have a troop committee of 8 60-70 year old Eagle scout life time troop members. and one other ASM in his 40's.

Far as the Eagle who smokes some weed......I would have suspended him and refused to sign his applicaiton. But it wouldn't have made any difference council would sign it any way. Compassion, no......I hold him to the same standard I live by......In the other thread I poked them about it being illegal, because in my lifetime it won't be.....

Worth the time, I don't have any more time......If I have to chose between a patrol of boys vs one autistic boy.......Guess who loses..........That is my reality, so unless the the Scouter Fairy delivers me 4 or 5 full trained ASM as volunteers it ain't gonna happen.

Well BOR with CC, 2 CM's, SM, Problem Scout and mom last night. Scout was read the accusations against him, read the quotes from the scouts who quit and relay the incidents witnessed by those in attendance. He was given his moment to speak and address his action and then was suspended for 30 days. I followed up with my feeling about him putting his patrol mates at risk and his behavior in public is an embarrassment to our unit.

His response was the one line mom taught him and mom quoted the line as well. Here is the hitch, the CC asked for a Diagnosis from the Physician because it was not noted on his current BSA physical on file with the troop. According to it he is completely normal.

Mom left in a rage and is going to call scout office and have our jobs......I am ok with that.


I contacted the youth that used him as the reason they left the troop. I will see next week whether they return or not.


The overall experience has left me flat.

We lost two scouts because of this youth.

The scout and parent involved are not taking the suspension and BOR seriously and threatened the troop leadership.

The scout will not take this moment to reflect on his behavior.

Parent and scout have the attitude that the troop leadership are out to get him.

After all that I wonder if that hour of sitting with the scout and mom was worth it.
I wonder if we just should have dismissed him from the troop.
I wonder if the suspension is going to make a difference in his behavior or life.
I wonder if he will return or not.

I did not leave the room with a warm and fuzzy feeling and to be real honest I was sick to my stomach.

I take it you documented the reason for the Board of Review and how it was received. You did the right thing. You talked to the boy and mother, he and his mother were presented with the issues and how the issues were being dealth with


You did the right thing, take some comfort in that

BD....looks like you got re-affirmation on how trying to deal with these kinds of people can be an excercise in futility.

A few things from my experience.....

1. Took a class with BSA university of scouting several years back on "Dealing with difficut scouts". One thing I clearly remeber and want to share with everyone was an experience from an unfortunate troop and scoutmaster somewhere (I relate the story they provided, I have not taken the time to reseach to verify it myself).....A scoutmaster somewhere who had an extremely difficult scout in his troop finally at some point made a casual verbal note (In a kind way) to one of the scouts parents that they might need to consider some professional assistance. Parents did seek professional assistance and it was diagnosed the kid had issue and recieved treatment or therapy or meds or whatever. parents then proceed to hire a lawyaer and eventually the scoutmaster is sued for the costs involved since he was not trained in phsycotherapy and had no business making the initial recomendation ! That right there told me that having difficult kids in he troop is a growing liability potential and if they end up gone from the troop most all would be better off.

2. My own 2 boys have had pretty extreme mood disorders, it hasn't caused an issue at the troop as we paid for professional diagnosis and medication that got the issue under control...except at home where dealing with them can many times be very difficult. I have worked with phsycoligists because of this an know that even them with years of training, education and experience that dealing with people with issues is trying, not an exact science and very difficult and many tiems impossible. This is from very good pros on the subject. For Krampus to casually suggest that a volunteer scouter should simply get training to deal with such scouts and to suggest that accomplishing this is as simple as LNT or YT or safeswim training is ridiculous.

The first really serious situation I had with a scout was one I "inherited" from the previous SM. Kid pulled a knife on another kid and threatened at summer camp, was to be booted but the grandmother pleaded with the previous SM to keep him as the troop was this kids only hope(She was right). In the next year he tried to fight other scouts, intimidated the younger ones, pee'd on a tent, peed in a kids water bottle and other things I have since forgotten, on top of all the ussual stuff (Never helping at campouts, running around at meetings, damaging troop and other kids stuff etc etc). I had other majr issues intthe troop at the time but when I got them resolved this kid had to go. I had others who would not go to campouts if this kid was going and some considering switching troops to be away from him. We tried suspensions etc but nothing helped. I did have one ASM that really wanted to reach this kid but even he knew after about 6 months we were gaining no ground with him and were potentially lsing good scouts. He was told to find another troop at recahrter, having been suspended from all troop activities the 6 moths prior. The drama was gone, the other boys happy and the kid in question we last heard became a drug addict on the streets in a city in California. We did our best but we have 2 dozen other boys to serve, we aren't mental health professionals.

Kid 2 came to us with a known bad history from cubs, the other nearby troop got 7 Webelos crossovers, many of which we MIGHT HAVE GOTTEN....they found where the difficult kid was going and went to the opposite troop. I taked to all thos families and 5 saidpoint blank they preferred our troop but since scout X signed up with us they were going to the other troop to avoid this kid. From our experience withthe first scout I described, I was in no mood to live through the mess again. Kid went to summer camp and was a problem begining to end. Was a constant problem at every troop meeting and camput he went to. We started swift and sure with the warnings, ultimatums etc. Scout was soon getting suspended from campouts by PLC decision and held to agreements which predictably caused protest by the parents. We stuck to our guns and they quit in protest relatively fast. Troopo continued to prosper without the drama, distraction and non productive stuff.

Botom line for me...there were many kids with minor issues we would coach and help but thre extreme problem kids are going to screw up the troop, waste your time and energy and potentially expose you to problems. We are amatuer voluntters with our own lives, we have no obligation to be proffesional therapsts for lost cause kids with frequently, disfuntional families attached.

Don't worry BD, if they make life hard on you because of this problem family, I find the pay is the same if I am employed as a SM or not.

>>After all that I wonder if that hour of sitting with the scout and mom was worth it.<<

I think so, its not a scout problem anymore, it’s the parents problem. You made her responsible for the future of her son in your troop.

>>I wonder if we just should have dismissed him from the troop.<<

For every one parent I dealt with in your situation who didn’t care, five did care. You are giving the family and yourself another chance.

>>I wonder if the suspension is going to make a difference in his behavior or life.<<

No it will not, but this is about the parents, not the scout. I personally don’t care for suspensions because all they really do delay the inevitable. Either the family will agree to terms, or not. I usually knew within a week.

>>I wonder if he will return or not.<<

I wonder if mom will come around.

I think you did good.

Barry

The sad thing is.........The guilty I feel hoping he never comes back.

I don't believe there is any way to help this young man or mom from with in scouting, He will continue to use his disability, real or imagined, as an excuse or crutch. He will continue to be an issue inside the troop with the youth.

Here goes. I hope my comment doesn't evaporate in the ether.

I think:
(1) If a boy is consistently "mean" than that is an issue that needs to be addressed--I would advocate a Troop "time out".
(2) Parents need to be upfront and part of the team; helping out the Troop as much as possible. I understand how tempting it may be to "dump and run" when you are emotionally exhausted with some of these kids.
(3) Scouters need to be patient with the fact that some boys will be slower getting their skills up to speed than average. So they have to wait an extra year for the big trip? Happened with mine but now they practiced the skills better than average once they got them.
(4) Incorporating some difficult scout training into the Scoutmaster training would be helpful but even I would balk at an additional requirement. Better yet to develop some better support materials and point people to them.

>>The sad thing is.........The guilty I feel hoping he never comes back.<<

Yes, I’m sorry that I have no consoling words to help, but I think guilt is a reflection of a good person trying hard to do the right thing in a hopeless situation. Some years later I still reflect on the scouts that didn’t come back. Most were very troubled and I pray they are doing OK as adults. But I have far more success memories to keep my sanity balanced.

What you are doing is hard and it pulls on all our emotions. There were many nights I couldn’t sleep. Some nights I smiled and laughed myself to sleep, some nights I cried. It’s a hard world out there and the SM sees more than his fair share because the title alone assumes them to be more trusted than the average person. Some parents expect us to perform miracles, some just want us to babysit.

But what you are doing is noble and it requires courage to stand up against the constant waves of strife we see in these kids. Our own families suffer and our sole takes a beating. Sometimes we are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and we become an outlet for the single mom who feels hopelessness in how to raise their son into a man. But in the end, the rewards make it worth it and even motivate us to hurry to the next activity hoping for another day as good as yesterday. For every step backward, we go two steps forward.


It’s hard to get it right every time, but I promise the skills you learn from this situation will be needed again.

I love this scouting stuff.

Barry

I posted this in another forum but it seems it is appropriate here too, so forgive the double post. There is training out there to be had to deal with ADD/ADHD and austism spectrum Scouts and is offered through at least one Council. Maybe your Council can incorporate it into your region's training if there is a need. Given 12% of kids are being diagnosed with this it might make sense. Food for thought.

http://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2013/03/06/add-adhd/

About basementdweller's situation ... a few comments


Talk with the parents BEFORE the scout is involved in a formal meetings or discipline.
---- Zero surprises.
---- Early and up front communications


You need to remove the scout from the troop
---- if the scout won't own the issues
---- if the parents won't agree on a solution
---- if the troop leaders don't believe the situation is fixable


Make sure the troop leaders are being honest with themselves.
---- Red flag phrases.
--------- "If any kid needs scouting, ..."
--------- "It's our duty to ...."
--------- "Isn't this why scouting was created ..."
---- Troop leaders are responsible for the health of the WHOLE troop.


I'd NEVER put a scout in front of an adult disciplinary board or even a youth version.
---- Don't hold a trial or a punishment committee.
---- Deal with the scout one-on-one
---- Have at least two or three adults present, but one is the key player.


Follow the techniques a manager uses for a problem employee meeting.
---- Think of it as coaching
---- Pre-plan. Be specific. Use examples.
---- Listen to the scout
---- Make sure the scout owns the issues and agrees to fixing things.


IMHO ... scouting is not about punishments. Having to debate punishments means something is wrong. Might be the troop. Might be the specific youth. But something needs to change.

At this point in my SMship I am not comfortable with suspending or dismissing a scout.....I will let the CC do his BOR and suspend the scout if he feels it is necessary.

I have had conversations regarding behavior issues with scout and mom. CC was calling scouts who did not recharter and that is when this all started.

I feel much better about it now and wish it had happened sooner.