I am grateful for the scouts I have reached. Whether they were only Cubs, if they joined the troop one year and left, or if they stayed long enough to earn Eagle. Everyone walks a different path. Everyone has lessons they need to learn. They all take something from the program, no matter how long they stay with it. The more you give to scouting, the more you get out of it.  This is the right attitude. Realize that families are different, sports are different... There are lots more activities and stresses taking up kids' time than there was 20 years ago.  We are not going to have as many kids jumping from school, to sports practice, to scouts, back and forth like they used to. Even though there are less kids in scouting, I find the ones who choose scouting are more focused than ever. Develop a quality program and they will find you.

LOL, thought you were talking about council/district events.  Training is another matter... (Even so, training is not a unit mandated thing... those are mandates on individuals.) Disagree Sure, but if a PLC decides they do not wish to participate in these events, you should support their decision.  For example, our Scouts choose not to go to many of these events because they are tired of WINNING!!  For most competitions, it isn't even close.  It just isn't fun for them to whoop everyone's behind.  So, they only attend these things about once every three years.  And we adults are fine with that. (If those events do not coincide with a unit event, we do encourage our Scouts to run stations or judge events... which they often do.) We have the capability and experience to plan and execute our own program, thank you.  Most council/district events are tailored for units with little time or experience.  They need the program support.  We do not. And, for the record, we would operate fine without any council overhead here.  We can even (and have) run our own summer camp. That is up to them...  Perhaps they see those events as more value-added to their program than your council events.  To each his own.  I side with the units on that one.

It took a while, but I stopped letting overly demanding sports programs, and over the top coaches, get to me.  I tried to make the youth understand that there are myriad choices in life, and making them is part of the "growing up" process.  Ultimately, they need to choose, hopefully with focus and balance.  Too many chose the overly demanding sports road, but with luck may have carried a small piece of the tenets of Scouting with them.  A few, returned and refocused on Scouting.  We never know.  One of the good things about contact with the troop family over decades is that on occasion I see the result in the now adult.  

When our troop was 100 scouts strong, I would say 50 percent of those scouts were in sports and other outside activities that demanded some of their time. But, it was seasonal. I average troop meetings between September and December averaged about 60 scouts. 100  scouts January through March, then 60 to 80 scouts until June. We took 100 scouts to summer camp and then the cycle started over again.  I agree that parents understand the value of the scouting experience better than their kids, but, I also think if the troop has a good (fun) program, the scouts will attend when they can. They will come to meetings late after practice and arrive at campouts after their Friday night or Saturday games. The parents are big part of that because they have to take up the slack for getting their kids to scouts. I remember one scout showing me his schedule to be the elected SPL in two years. It was impressive to see on paper, but I also remember it included the time on the high school swim team. And he did it. Of course, I'm learning that families today are different than when I was a scout leader 20 years ago. But, that was our experience. Don't sweat sports. You just need to make sure the program is worth coming back to. Barry

This has always been the situation during my time in scouting. What might be a little surprising is that even some two-parent families look for programs with male role modes to help develop their sons. I'm not sure if the reason is because the culture is anti-male and they are looking for reinforcement of masculine behavior, or the father is out of the picture a lot from work. But our troop had several scouts in that situation.  Looking at this further, I wouldn't be surprised that families would be looking for the experiences for their daughters since the evidence also shows that girls suffer greatly from single-parent lifestyles. The GSUSA probably has some statistics on that.  Yes, I believe this to be the situation as well. Barry