Eagledad

By coincidence, there is an article this morning about schools being sued for hiding a student's trans name and not telling the student is behaving in a trans lifestyle. There is no doubt that trans folks and their parents are becoming known as victims of their environment, and they are lashing out at whoever contributed to that environment. The main issue with schools is that they are keeping the students' trans identity secret from their parents. There is no surprise; a teacher on this forum admitted this was going on in a trans discussion several years ago. I understand the compassion for these youth and their struggle with their behavior, but the BSA should not have put unit leaders in the position of making these kinds of choices. Now we're learning that councils are defying national guidelines and continuing the practice. Unit leaders are unknowingly in harm's way. The trans issue is really just one of many issues that unit leaders have to face when scouts ask them to hold secrets from their parents. Our SM was threatened with litigation for holding information about the scout's behavior from the parents. He had been warned by the more experienced leaders. about the practice. But he continued because he felt it built a trust that he could leverage to change a scout's wrong behavior. The idea is noble, but misused. By the way, I found in my SM training classes that most scout leaders agreed with the idea; after all, we are in the business of building character. However, many leaders, including our SM, learned the hard way that the trust of the parents is just as important as the trust of the scout. What many folks, teachers, scout leaders, coaches, and so forth forget is that parents have the ultimate responsibility of raising their kids. They dictate what their kids learn about life for their future. Everyone the parents entrust with responsibility for guiding their kids through life's lessons and skills is just one resource to help them develop their kids into the kinds of adults they want them to be. I used to teach in leadership training to imagine the character of a youth as a puzzle. Each piece of the puzzle is part of the team that parents use to help develop their kids' character. Each puzzle piece is a teacher, band leader, coach, piano teacher, scout leader, and other influences. But, in most cases, one piece isn't more significant than the other. So, while the Scout Master has a great title and a lot of influence in the unit to change a scout's character, the reality is the SM is only one person among a large team that parents use to help develop their kids' growth into adulthood. The parents are the team leaders, and there has to be trust between the team and the parents. This idea goes for a lot of situations that unit leaders find themselves dealing with. Trust me, scouts are very creative in making bad choices. But a trusting relationship with parents actually gives scout leaders more room, not less, to work with the scout. I can't remember how many times I told the parents of an issue, only to be followed by asking them to give us a couple of weeks to work with their scout. If that didn't work, then it was time to get the parents more involved. My teacher son uses the same approach with his students. Sorry for the long post, but a leader's trust between scouts and parents is very important for me because I have observed many leaders finding themselves in a mess, simply because they wanted a one-on-one trust with the scout for leverage to influence the scout to change. Scouting is hard. Open dialogue and trust between the scouts and parents make it a little easier. Have a great weekend. Barry

Well done. Barry

I can't tell the motive, but Inquisitivescout points out rightly the risk of being all things to all scouts in this culture. Especially in a program where camping is the arena. What I find fascinating is that both sides of the cultural spectrum believe theirs is the best approach for the growth and maturity of youth going into adulthood. Barry

What if the youth wants to be in the other gender program? Barry

What are you doing if the parents disagree with their child? Barry

Standing up for all youth is not giving in to cultural (political) ideals where adults allow, condone, or dictate the sociological development of prepubescent youth, which are counter to normal physical and biological instincts. It is a form of child abuse, so how can a council prevent abuse if it supports it? Barry

It's just prideful political temper tantrums. And, more litigation for the youth organizations as young maturing adults realize they were steered toward accepting being a trans person. Doctors and hospitals are already being sued, but eventually they will go after organizations that encourage the youths to continue a lifestyle that led them away from their biological origin. Schools are already in the crosshairs. This is the child abuse of our present culture. And, ironically, women's equality. Barry

Your idea isn't new; the BSA has made these kinds of promises since the creation of the program. I do agree that at this age, cost isn't as much of an issue as the cub program, but a results-based program is very subjective. And most of the time the adults go the easy route of Eagle for their results-based program. However, youth at this age aren't advancement-driven. I found that most Eagle-driven programs lose 70% of their scouts by age 15 because advancement gets boring. Adventure-driven programs thrive because they are fun in the outdoors, and because independence in the patrol method drives more maturity in their growth. Go look at units where scouts age out, and you will find they are more scout-run with adventure. Also, adventure-driven programs typically have a high number of Eagles because the scouts are in the program a long time and earn the Eagle requirements by simply participating. Barry

Putting on my Membership Chairman hat. Almost 95% of scouts in troops come from the Cubs. If the youth aren't recruited in Cubs, the troops will have to recruit from other sources. When National added additional requirements to the Tiger program in 2000 (increasing meetings to every week, an adult required for each scout), many units were unable to meet the new demands, and the Tiger numbers dropped significantly. That drop became obvious in 2005 when the troop membership suddenly dropped. If you don't get the Cubs, you don't get the crossovers. Barry

Are the fees the same for Cubs? Young parents have many program choices during the Tiger and Wolf years, and costs drive many of their choices. Barry

Yes, Fred is right. It depends on the adults and the program and if the program fits you. I did study some of this stuff when I was the District Membership chair. In general, programs are based from the level of passion by the adults who manage the program. That can be good and bad, but in typically the top 15% of the programs managed by the most passionate adults, and have gift for selling the program. You have to visit the unit to see if it is a good fit. Barry

Many of us have been active and have developed reputations on this forum long before this discussion. Barry

Hard to tell; there were, and still are, BSA haters on the forum who were glad to push facts and unproven statements to make the BSA look bad. Barry

Parents are the most challenging part of Scoutmastering. National should create a course to prepare for how to respond to them. It takes practice. We had a few families leave because we didn't budge on our program philosophy. One mother took her new tenderfoot son out because I wouldn't delegate him as the Patrol Leader. But we lost several scouts because of our approach to Eagle. And, the parents of the ones who stayed despite their parents' wishes would never speak to me again, even when I ran into them at the grocery store. Barry

This is the normal response from new leaders because their parenting nature is reacting to the situation. Most new leaders have to be retrained in a scout-run program. We approached this in several ways, including having the scout read and use the Scout Handbook. When I taught Scoutmaster Basic back in the day, the two most asked questions were discipline and uniform. My answer to the uniform question was the Scout Handbook. If the scout knows the uniform policy, they also know when they're not following it. They are making a bad choice. Don't hound them about proper uniform; ask them if they made the right choice. But really, it should be the PL who asks. Honestly, I wanted to see how the scouts dressed. Often, it shows a state of mind. Often, it shows a scout struggling at home. Another way we got new adults used to the scout run program was by restricting the adults from putting up the scout sign to get the group's attention. Adults rarely need to get the group's attention in a Scout Run program because they are in the background. However, if an adult is being used as a resource to explain a skill and needs to get the group's attention (because they are boring), then the adult asks the nearest youth leader to get the group's attention. Likely, the scout will put up the sign, and the adult will follow in support of the youth leader's direction. There are other ways to train adults to let scouts make their own decisions, but honestly, it is a matter of mindset or a culture that respects scouts as equals to adults. Adults wouldn't treat other adults as some treat scouts as youth. The faster adults start treating scouts as equals, the faster the culture of trust changes. And the results are amazing. Scouts have to get used to it also; they have been led by adults all their life, so they just can't turn a switch to change. Trust comes from continued actions by both the adults and scouts. Practice. Barry

Well, this is very cool. Our experience with similar situations is that leadership will struggle for a bit until they get their feet under them, which is OK because we humans learn better in our struggles. But, you might team up with your Eagle and monitor the patrols to see if an ad-hoc training session might help in an area where the patrols are struggling. I found that a 15 minute training moment at the PLC meeting can often be an AH HA moment for PLs. After reading your post, I smiled at the memories, and I remember why I love this scouting stuff. Barry

This occurs in units where the youth leaders are not contributing to unit performance. Most of the time the adults are assisting the leadership to the point that they are preventing bad decisions from interfering the activities. Ambitious Scouts will rise up into leadership positions in units where the scouts are held accountable for program performance.

Yep. I'm convinced that those at National haven't a clue how to develop young people into ethical and moral decision makers. Has DEI killed the Boy Scouts? Leadership development in scouting is passive form of learning. Good leaders make good role models for good leadership. The folks at National are reacting the same as the Girls Scouts national leaders when they lost the understanding of how to build character. Like the BSA, they started promising leadership as a virtue of the program. They believe that giving a scout a chance to lead makes them a leader. Ironically, I believe that the GSUSA has a better chance of giving a patrol method program now because they don't have boys to dilute their program to make everyone happy. But, like BSA National, they don't know how to implement it. Barry

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I saw a discussion on another forum a few weeks ago about a troop at summer camp picking the SPL for summer camp. The troop was split into a boys program and a separate girls program. There was an assumption the troop would have 2 SPLs during the summer camp, but the SM picked only one SPL from the boys troop. I'm sure there was more to this, but you can guess how the discussion went. The SM was assumed to be old-school and out of touch with today's program. Only I stood up for a SM who would use a single leader to for the whole troop. Because the boys SPL was selected, the forum participants automatically assumed the SM was anti female. And they called him old-school because he refused two SPLs. They could’not, wouldn’t, consider the gender might not have anything to do with the decision. It took me years to develop the sales technique for selling parents the BSA patrol method program where their sons came home from camps a different more mature person. I can't even imagine selling that program to adults who are more concerned about equal gender presentation in a program where the Aims and Methods have nothing to do with gender. I watched 100s of really wonderful adults grow from our program. The program of scouts learning from the good and bad choices works. I'm thinking of changing my Scouter.com title to Old_School_SM, and wearing it with pride. Barry

Hmm, nothing like adults meddling in scouts business. Merit badge requirements are between the scout and the counselor. Also, when adults start talking about shortcuts, they are mentoring shortcuts to the scouts. We must be careful that we don’t teach advancement over adventure. Sounds like a great campout. I’m jealous. Barry

I’ve trained many scoutmasters of new troops and my First step advice is put down the SM Handbook and get the Patrol Leaders Handbook and SPL Handbook. Those two handbooks have the same information as SM Handbook without the adult baggage. They are fast reads and basic enough to layout a plan for the next few months of your program. You will find the scouts and adults will bond faster when everyone is working as a team with the same instruction guides. And get ready, you are embarking on the most confounding and rewarding endeavor of your life. i love this scouting stuff. Barry

I don't understand. It appears your troop is a lifeboat for this scout and scouts like him. Our troop averaged one scout transfer per month because of our program reputation. Many were friends of scouts in our troop. Council often referred out-of-state transfers to us . These scouts lack of skills can be challenging, but I always found them and their parents enthusiastic and great supporters for our program. I'm so thankful for your service. Barry

Not surprised, not a single person in the Pentagon was a member of Scouting America. Barry

Back in the day, when I was trying to save the world, I sought the commissioners' help in identifying issues that were undermining the program, such as losing over 50% of Webelos before crossover (the National Average). The short story is not just NO, but..... If the commissioners could visit a unit once every two months to just observe casually what the Dens and patrols are doing, then they could report their observations to the District Commissioner (DC). If the DC identifies a trend, the district can then approach a solution, such as training. Of course, that approach requires identifying levels of performance and methods for working below minimum performance. If judging unit performance is not expressed correctly, then yes, observing units will appear to be overstepping. I've been there. But it can work. One DC friend ran the UC corps successfully in the largest district in Minnesota. He addressed problems quickly and with compassion. A good UC corps starts with a good DC. In my opinion, the DC is the most critical Key Three position. They require a big-picture understanding of the scouting program and how the units fit in the model. Then, they develop a district program to help unit leaders enhance their unit performance within that model. Most districts take the first person that says yes to the UC position, but more often than not, they aren't qualified. First, the district needs to find someone who is a good recruiter; it's a skill. They will find a qualified UC. Barry