A leader parent is an involved parent. Every Eagle Scout I’ve known has had a parent/guardian at their side supporting, encouraging, motivating them along the path to Eagle. Doesn’t have to be a registered parent as a leader, but a parent that cares enough to see that they succeed. Involved parents are not just leaders, but the parents that check on their kids status, talk to leaders, ask questions, and make sure requirements are being met.    The parents that just dump their kids off often have no clue what their Scout is doing or how well they’re doing. Some probably couldn’t tell you what rank their kid is. When parents don’t care, the Scout won’t care. Often times they are only there for socialization with friends. 

All good points. I’m just not feeling enough parental presence to even gather them to have a discussion.  Mine are hoping to do NYLT in the winter, so I’ll need to get them ILST. I just feel like I’ve been sticking it out forever.  I’m definitely not a quitter, but I’m just getting a vibe. Our cubscout pack is completely opposite in terms of our adult leaders putting time in and working together. (Answering texts even!)

Not really. The parents just sit in the other room. Scouting is the main topic of discussion but I either get the sense that they don’t think there’s a problem, or if they see it, they don’t want to help. CC(on his way out) and SM can say they welcome change as much as they want, but if they don’t support/back me up, the others just think I’m trying to take over. 

I asked my dad, but it was the generation before him that experienced the change so his experience was pretty much like mine... at this point you really need a historian, the people who lived it are almost all dead now. I did find out that during his time, our troop was a sea scout ship. They spent a lot of spring meetings readying the boats. We still owned some of them when I came through, moored at the same dock. Even though we were a troop we did learn to rig and sail gigs, probably because the troop used to be a ship!

Totally agree! We actually work with the local multicultural community center in town. We are starting our first, hopefully not last, pack yard sale with all proceeds going to the center to help support their after-school and summer programs. In turn, hopefully we have enough exposure to recruit some of those youth that go to the center. If not, oh well. That was never the aim anyways.