Eagledad

My wife asked this very same question this morning, so it must be on the minds of a lot of people. It's the same concern a normal parent would have about they teenage son or daughter camping in the same tent with scouts of the opposite sex. Fact of the matter it is all about sex at this age and if a scout is sexually attracted to anther scout, that can be cause for concern. We live in a litigious world and I can see traps all over this. I guess we start with how other countries deal with it. Barry

Ah Merlyn, you're on a boat without a rudder at the mercy of moralities turbulent waters. No better peace than your hand on a tiller to navigate yourself around the guys the big sticks. The BSAs answer to your direct question is treat others with the same chacater as god. In this case, trust, loyal, serving, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave clean, and reverent. That is the direct answer to your direct question and peace in the world. By the way, I have a rudder you can borrow. Barry

The BSA doesn't use "a" god, it uses "your" god, Merlyn. What does your god say about your food cravings. Barry

>>]"Without some untouchable source of moral direction, there would be no platform to build a program of moral decision making." The BSA DOESN'T USE ONE.<< Sure they do, it's god. And the BSA gives guidelines to interpret god's morality, Oath and Law. Barry

>>In my opinion, BSA should become inclusive of agnostics and atheists, but should not let them off the hook about this "Duty to God" thing. << They already do as you stated later in your post. Just about any scout willing to listen can stay in the program up until he says "I tried but can't do it". The issue is allowing atheist adults who already made the choice. Great post overall. You said it best with "character and morality are taught and formed by the family, community and faith, and reinforced by the choices we freely make in life. This is at he core of the scouting program". Without some untouchable source of moral direction, there would be no platform to build a program of moral decision making. Barry

>>Existing boy-led troops have a huge asset that they may not recognize they have. They have a natural way to teach incoming youth (and adult leaders) how a boy-led troop runs – a self-sustaining process. I am still having trouble getting this going.<< I really like your wording here, a Self-Sustaining Process (SSP) is one of the great virtues of a successful “boy run†program. In fact it’s probably a good measure of a successful boy run program. The main obstacle for creating a SSP type program is the adults not really trusting that the scouts can do it. Adult fears are the biggest contributors to limiting growth of a boy run program. The way we tried to get past that mindset was by following the philosophy of the adults training themselves out of a job. Scouting isn't so much about just training scouts to just be independent, but developing them with a level of skill and character that the adults can trust them to be safe. While watching your troop at the next troop meeting, ask yourself if you think the scouts could run the meeting without any adults attending. Could they lead a five mile hike? Could the SPL lead a PLC without any adults? If your answer is no, those are places where the limitations of scout independence can be expanded. Create a program where the adults don’t have to show up for the scouts to have a program. It may be that while your scouts are following the motions of running the program, the adults are still filling in enough to keep the program moving forward. The result is the scouts aren’t truly relaying on each other to get from A to Z. You won’t get a self-sustaining process until the scouts start looking ahead to improve their performance or at least maintain the program in the future. We adults tend to look at training younger scouts to get them ready for leadership months or years down the road. Does your SPL do that? Does he fill small leadership responsibilities with inexperience scouts with the purpose of developing them for the long future? Does the SPL use leadership training to fix deficiencies in the leadership corp? By giving scouts independence in their responsibilities, they learn the weight of responsibility and develop pride in the accomplishments of hard work. Their pride doesn’t want to see their hard work wasted, so they try to continue their performance by replacing themselves with qualified mature scouts. Another big problem I find with most troops that can’t get to the SSP program level is that the adults don’t expect or train the scouts with good management habits to run meetings and control the groups. They get only enough training to get by with the help of adults, but not enough to perform completely independent of the adults. In most cases, the adults just don’t know the skills themselves and get by with intimidation of being an adult to control group behavior. You will find that scouts in a SSP troop are taught skills of controlling behavior without using intimidation and practice basic fundamental management skills to maintain high performing activities and meetings. You only have to let a new SPL lead his first PLC meeting without adults in the room for 15 minutes to understand the importance of those skills. Also, don’t ram a boring program on the scouts, be creative and make it more fun. If scouts consistently dread some part of the program, change it. Our SPL leads a PLC every week 30 minutes before the Troop meeting because we found most scouts are more attentive for 30 minutes every week than 2 hours once month. Adults too. Your older scout problem is very common and indicative of your problem of trying to build a SSP program. It is my observation over the years that the main problem with troops that have bored older scouts is the program isn’t mature enough for them. I believe 70% of all troops are boring for older scouts because their basic program is wrapped around first class skills development and advancement. Oh sure they include a few non-first class skills activities like rappelling through the year, but on the whole the weekly, monthly and yearly programs are themed around a first class skills and advancement. Older scouts have the maturity of young men that require adult level mental and physical challenges to be stimulated and feel satisfied with their decisions. Physical and mental challenges for most troops end around 13 year old scout maturity. No wonder older scouts quit at 14. However, adults don’t see this problem and feel older scouts should still enjoy the program because of the camping and adventure. They also expect the older scouts to teach the new scouts first class skills because it’s logical for the older scouts to teach the younger scouts. And they are right, but when the older scouts keep repeating the same activities of first class development, they find themselves without any challenges to stimulate their intellectual and physical growth. They need adult level challenges in the program. That doesn’t mean high adventure. The main cause of boring programs is that the adults still view young adults as boys. We have to start treating scouts as adult equals, not as boys or even sons. I remember one of our 16 year old scouts who drove strait from work 30 minutes after the meeting start frustratingly challenged one of our adults saying “my ASM dad comes in late from work all the time and the adults don’t hassle him about itâ€. He was right. We were treating the mature scouts differently than the rest of the adults. That was very profound and made an impact on us. We strived toward an adult attitude change of treating scouts as adults. We challenged ourselves to quit focusing on self- discipline of follow rules and instead give work toward giving scout the independence to challenge themselves in the program. We were a boy run troop, but I could see we were trying to push adult dreams on the scouts. We tried to make a paradigm shift to pushing scouts to follow their own dreams. And that is when it seemed our troop growth accelerated in all areas. We started thinking of scouts as equals and treated them as such. The SPL was given a key to unlock the doors for our troop meetings and lock it after everyone else left. If he didn’t show up, the meeting had to go on outdoors. Our Troop Quartermaster owned a set of keys to the troop trailer and storage room, which could only be open by him even if an adult has a spare. Do you really need adults at the PLC meeting? If you think you do, than your adults haven’t matured to the level the program is capable. The older scouts know how to do it. Independence is key to a SSP program. That’s easy to say, but it is very difficult in this culture when adult fears prevent the scouts from practicing true independence of their ideas and decisions. It takes practice for the adults. It takes time and thinking out of the box, but once you start down that path, your program will mature to the next level toward a program with a Self-Sustaining Process. Sorry this is long, it’s kind of hard to explain in a few words, but I hope you get the point. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

>>I have not heard of one that was highly attended and had a great program being shutdown.

>>Major corporate supporters have withdrawn financial support. and this impacts my Pack, Troop and Crew in exactly what way????

I think the big difference of the 60's was that we couldn't play cowboys and indians for hours on end seven days a week. That's what kids do today. I think it also hurts membership in scouting. We played in all kinds of weather in the 60's. You don't see them hardly out at all today. Barry

>>I don't believe personally that violence in movies and video games has much to do with it. One of the main reasons we didn't have those problems back then is that guys like the ones in Sandy Hook and Aurora were locked up back then. Same reason you didn't have a lot of homeless people wandering around mumbling to themselves. But they got rights and we got shooters.

Union gatherings aren't welcome on my side of town, that's why the meeting was on your side. Now I know why. Barry

>>Clearly the BSA has become more conservative and National much more autocratic than in my days in scouting.

Pretty cool program, but more of just another after school club. I couldn't find anything about how it fosters morality. Barry

Good post by Kahuna and Beav. Barry

OK, I submit this for balance. ""Police say they were there for a Union meeting. Wright and Kilmer had an argument outside. It ended with Wright "pistol-whipping" Kilmer with his gun."" http://www.newson6.com/story/20651880/emsa-paramedics-arrested-after-getting-into-a-fight-in-okc However we must consider several points here. They were at a union meeting and maybe the problem is the union driving their members into violent tirades. Or consider that the paramedic didnt shoot the pistol, but instead used it as a blunt instrument for defense. In this case the pistol was safer than a large caliber knife or concealed baseball bat. Ive heard that both idiots will lose their conceal carry license as a result of being intoxicated while in possession. They drink a union meetings? Burt (This message has been edited by eagledad)

Believe it or not, the bureaucracy problem is 10 times worse at the Cub Scout level. Bureaucracy is probably not really the best word, but it fits in the way this discussion is going. Less than 50% of Webelos crossover to the troops. That means the BSA has looses around 50% of all its 10 year old scouts. That is just the 10 year olds, what if we add the average losses of the younger scouts ages. The BSA could be loosing maybe as much as 75% of the Cub families before the scouts reach the Boy Scout age. I know there are several contributers to the losses, but it basically comes down to bureaucracy. We have to understand that most boys at the cub age do what their parents tell them to do. If the BSA looses the parents at the cub age, they lost the kids forever. And while I agree that liability is a big driver of bureaucracy at the troop level, membership is driving it at the cub level. Tigers alone requires three times more volunteer time to manage than any other age group because of scout's maturity. That is not including the required participation of parents. Experts say that volunteer organizations can expect an average of 20 months from their volunteers. That is less than two years and the Cub program is five years long. Scouting is hard and bureaucracy is a major contributer. As much as I hate the requirement for adults at Patrol campouts, it's moot if the scouts are driven out of scouting before they even reach the troop program. Barry

>>BDPT00, that line of thinking (aka Camels Nose under the Tent) is a classic logical fallacy. Try again.

>>I confess I was a bit embarrassed by the string of accidental shootings across da nation that coincided with "Gun Appreciation Day". Really? How hard is it to unload your firearm and secure it properly before puttin' it in a case for transport?

>>but till then I view myself as a better owner than a nutter.

>>I've seen the opposite. Only about 1 in 5 of the boys who came into the crew from outside of scouting (or even outside our troop) got anywhere near as involved as the boys from our troop.

The challenge with older boys (14 and older) is they by nature hate change. They are motivated by activities that challenge them physically and mentally. I never had much luck with boys who were not in scouts before age 14 because the administration part of the program like PLC, troop and patrol meetings was boring to them. They didnt really see how administering to the whole program applied to the things they wanted to do like camping, hiking and rappelling. They were bored and eventually left. However, I have seen a very high success rate with older boys joining Venture Crews because they can do the adventure part and willing to endure the administration because they could see how it directly affected them personally. The troop program is designed to use the maturity of all the ages to support the basic structure of growth by observing and serving. Younger scouts learn best by watching older scouts. Older scouts grow from the responsibilities of serving. The design works very well when managed correctly. The Venture program doesnt have the multiple maturity differences to administer and as a result administration is much closer to the each scouts personally. Long way to say that I think Venture Crews is a better way to go for this young man. Barry

>>The only instructions I EVER got from the top brass was to tell them the honest truth.

>>So da notion of "government monopoly" is just a fiction, eh? An alternate reality. Da fact is government-funded research has a high degree of oversight from folks across da political spectrum, and tends to be far less biased overall than private sector research, particularly on sensitive topics.

Now is the time. January, February and March. This gives you enough time to get a few camp outs under your belt to develop some routine of running a troop before summer camp. Summer camp is important because it is a week of intense scouting that bonds both the scouts and scouters together into a functioning troop. Then you have the fall to recruit for the next set of new scouts to come in January and February. That gives your present set of scouts one year of maturity to work with the new scouts. I wish you the best of luck and hope we can help with your future questions. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

Well as I read it, it's giving more control of our lives to Obamacare. Pretty clever really. I wouldn't have thought of that except a friend last week was told to find a new doctor when she refuse to answer his question of whether she had guns in the house. Obama is making the doctors into our personal behavior police. Barry