Eagledad

This is going to be a difficult change for you and its normal for most new adult troop leaders. The parent side of us hates the watching one in the group being left behind. As we raise our kids, we parents take up the slack of our kids weaknesses so that we dont suffer our childrens struggles. We just hate to see our kids hurt. If you really want to understand what Im talking about, consider that the one scout you are talking about is your son. What would you be inclined to do with the rest of the group so that your son isnt left outside the group? Boys learning from their experiences is the foundation of scouting. It is what make scouting so powerful, if the adults are willing. As I like to say, scouting is real life in a boys size. The troop is one of the few places left in our society today where our sons can learn from hard lessons and have fun in the experience. Real life isnt going to be so kind. But you will have to be willing to let them struggle. Easier said than done. LOL What we know in our heart but are afraid to confront is that struggle, stress and failure are where we humans learn the most and the fastest. Success strangely may feel good, but it doesnt force us to change our habits or behavior like failure, stress or struggles. The adventure of the outdoors and the the experience of leadership provide the average boy with the opportunites of growth. In your situation, the scout left behind either will be intimidated by the group leaving him behind and feel motivated to catch up, or he might be confident himself that he has plenty of time to catch up. Either of those attitudes are healthy. Where the mentor (you) come in is guiding the scout when he is confused and not sure how to handle his struggles, if he has one. You guide him to look at small steps that lead him toward bigger rewards. You want to guide him to learn habits of maturity. That is the growth you are looking for. To be a good scout leader, you need to learn how to not take each scouts failures personally. Dont get upset with Their failures, just get ready to mentor them if they come to you. This is what we do. If we do it well, then our scouts will grow to be mature moral decision makers who will lead good lives as husbands, fathers and community leaders. They will learn that serving others willingly is their greatest reward. They will learn how to confront hard work successfully and how to grow from failures. However, for you to be a good scout leader, you will have to humble yourself that you need to learn more and faster than the scouts just to keep up with them. Your adventure is just beginin. By the way, this is why I started encouraging Webelos Den leaders to award their scouts their activities pins at each Den Meeting. Then I would recognize them at the Pack Meetings in front of everyone by presenting them their cards. The boys get used to individual instant recognition and the Pack still gets to see their accomplishments at the Pack meetings. Worked very well. Barry

I brought a box of Tootsie Pops suckers on each campout and sat it in the assembly area. The SPL explained to the scouts that they could have as many as they wanted so long as they only took one at a time and a wrapper was never found on the ground. The box only stayed out about 30 minutes the first few campouts. Barry

We do what Boomer Scout suggest, payment on time and participation. And usually, someone has to bail for some reason or another. Hasn't failed yet, but I'm sure we will be in your shoes one day. Barry

>>You are on the right track wanting to interact more with the other leaders in the pack. This sounds obvious, but it actually is quite hard for us to do:

>>Do I see BSA eventually offering the Eagle Scout to a co-ed program, or fully integrating regardless of gender? I do. Eventually.

Ignore The man behind the curtain Scoutfish, "Retest" is one of scouting's silly politically correct terms to scare adults away from a learning a Scout's progress in the program. I wonder if we could call it helicopter leading. Anyway, right over left, left over right, is just a fast visual aid. Same goes for knots using the rabbit running around the tree. Study the mechanics of the knot and learn what it should look like, that way you don't care how the scout gets there. And remember it's just as important the scouts know the purpose of each knot. Personally I always start there. Barry

>>But it looks like that's OK with AHG; its site makes it fairly clear that it was started for parents. As far as I'm concerned, that's not Scouting.

My gosh, does anyone here know how to relate to scouts? From Badon Powellspeaking of Scoutmasters He must have the boy spirit in him; and must be able to place himself on a right plane with his boys as a first step."" I once had an SPL who wanted a few scouts to act better during the Troop openings, so he rewarded good behavior with candy. You think Im going to throw water on my SPLs proactive effort because instant gratification rarely works in developing the character trait of respect and patience. I knew we would have discussions in the future as he tried other ideas, but I was very proud of the SPL's initiative as am I of the SPL in this discussion. The SM in this discussion is encouraging mediocrity and I think we have had enough of that kind of encouragement in todays world. >>Come on guys... we're really going to get hung up on an SPL calling his peers "guys"... sheesh!

Most Scoutmasters think of the SM Conference as one of the highest responsibilities of their Scoutmastering. The reason is the conference for most of us expresses the foundation of our purpose. We may build the program around our vision, but the SM Conference is the one time we verbally expose ourselves to the higher purpose we want all the scouts to reach. I say all that to point out that it takes a Scoutmaster a while to develop his or her own personal SM Conference style. As you shape your program around your vision for the scouts, you will develop a better understanding of what you really want to accomplish with your Scoutmaster Conferences. My vision for scouts was to develop servant leaders who use the Oath and Law to guide all their decisions. So I use the ranks as stepping stones toward that goal. The ranks up to First Class was getting the scouts in habits of setting goals, setting timelines to those goals and learning how to reach those goals in their timelines. Learning the scout skills does that very well. Of course that is a very basic look at what I was trying to do, but I wanted first class scouts who were confident to survive in the woods by themselves and who also knew how to move forward with a plan. The rest of the ranks for me were more introspective for the scouts as far as serving others through leadership and followship. Character is a big thing for me. The Eagle for me was getting the scouts to understand where they served in the big picture of life. It took me a few years to understand all that, so you have some time to develop your own vision for the scouts and understand the foundation to reaching that vision. You will hone down your conferences to where maybe, if you are lucky, the scout will seesjust a glimpse of their best possible future as you envision it and become even more motivated. Everyone here has given some great advice. You cant really go wrong when the intent of the outcome for your conference is for the scout to leave wanting to do more scouting stuff. Scouting is fun, each scout should see scouting as fun. I believe the Troop experience is the real world challenge scaled down to a boys size, so each scout should like themselves more from the growth of their personal challenges. Scouting is a life experience like no other and each scout should see themselves doing something most boys their age are missing out. No matter who they are outside the troop, each Scout should like himself when he is in the troop. The SM Conference is a great place for that to happen. Good luck and have fun. Ifs your reward for taking on the job. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

MBCs have a lot of room for how the interpret the requirements. I trained our adults and scouts to discuss the requirements together at the first visit with the counselor so both the scout and counselor were on the same page. If the scout didnt like how the counselor interpreted the requirements, then that was the time to look for another. As for the counselors, if they were reasonable with their interpretation, council ist going to say anything. Since it was my job to give scouts a list of approved counselors, I usually interviewed my scouts about their counselors. Unless they were way out there with how they worked with scouts, I gave them a lot of room. Asking for written reports is not only reasonable, I think it is preferred because it requires the scouts to practice several personal skills he will need as an adult. I know the discussion was pretty much in the atmosphere of being among family and friends, but I personally would probably have a discussion with my kids on the social etiquette of the moment. His respect for your official position and as a parent was a little out of line. Barry

My cubs spent most of the meeting jumping, cheering, yelling, singing, and laughing. After the meeting they helped the Webelos put the room back in order. It takes a little practice, but watch your meetings and when you see the scouts getting bored or not participating, change that activity to something that keeps them engaged. Your meetings will be more fun and go a lot faster. Barry

Most of the problem is solved when the scouts go door to door asking for donations. The folks dont spend the extra few seconds looking for expired food items while the scouts are waiting at the door. Collections will go up because most folks will find something in their pantry as apposed to just throwing away the bag left at their door. Going door to door is better for scouting too because the public meets the scouts face to face as does the scouts get to practice bragging about their scouting program. Our Council doesnt do SFF anymore because of city politics (nothing scouting), but when we did, I managed to change our districts policy of dropping off bags the first weekend and picking them up the next weekend to just spending one weekend (Saturday morning) going door to door requesting donations. Our district had by far the most donations and we didnt spend two weekends of everyones time doing it. Barry

You can blame Rambo for the restrictions, or perception of restrictions. Fix blade knives were a somewhat accepted, if normal piece of scout equipment before the movie. But they got much more popular and bigger after the movie. They weren't more dangerous, just more in the publics face during a time when scouting was trying to loose the military persona. So units started restricting the bigger knives, but as these things go, the restrictions got carried away and here we are. Of course as technology improved, it was found the meek lazar gun was even more dangerous than the mighty fixed blade sheath knife, but that is another story. Barry

20 adults? Wow, I'm not sure that we ever had even half that. If we had 10 adults, it was probably because we needed the drivers. No, we did not do the adult patrol. We just never worried about having too many adults because we were seperated from the scouts. Barry

>> guess if the patrols are 300 feet apart, and the adults are respectful of the patrol method and of the youth leadership, then it really doesn't matter if "too many" adults show up?

>>Can we all agree that the simple presence of an adult alters the boys behavior?

I made my own awards to show how proud I was of the scouts. You can never know what the scout think about the awards, but I saw many of those awards displayed later at the scout's Eagle Court of Honor. Barry

Hi There was a discussion just a few weeks ago here on the subject with some good information if you can find it. As to your question, use only 2x4's. The rest is way too heavy and over kill for what you need. Barry

>> I repeat my earlier words, which I think are burnished in wisdom after the last several post

The mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law. We adults are given a direction to reaching that mission with the Three Aims of Scouting: Growth In moral and character, Participating citizenship and Development of physical, mental and emotional fitness. The adults are guided and tought that the Eight Methods are how the scouts work toward the Three Aims are: Advancement Ideals Patrols Outdoors Adult Association Personal Growth Leadership Development Uniform The Boy Scout Handbook and Scoutmaster Handbook clearly state how adults and scouts should wear the uniform during scouting activities. The Scoutmaster Specific Course talks about Uniform in three different sections of the course. None of those sections teach how not to wear the uniform. You guys who disparage and belittle folks who are just trying to keep their head above water by following the BSA guidelines think you have any credibility because you say its for the boys? If you cant present your point without making yourself above it all and without the example of the cost of uniforms, then you aren't helping. Yes, it is for the boys. All eight methods are for the boys. The Scout Handbook is for the boys. The adult Handbooks are for the boys, and the adult training is for the boys. And, the uniform is also for the boys. Youve brought your own personal emotion in on the discussion and lost any real rational instruction for new leaders. You dont appear to be giving any guidience, just a bunch of chest beatings. YOu aren't helping the poor SM any more than you change the mind of the Uniform Police adult. You aren't helping. Put yourself in the Scoutmaster Specifics Instructor's shoes. Barry

>>why do so many leaders get their knickers in a twist over whether a boy or an adult is in full uniform or not?

>>Usually they all recite the Cub Scout promise. When the Webelos take their turn at recognition, they usually start out by saying the Boy Scout Oath.

>>Our second year Webelos recite the boy scout oath at pack meetings because they are supposed to. It's in their Webelos handbook. They are supposed to learn that as well as the scout law, motto, slogan, and outdoor code.

There is a popular debate in the motorcycle community right now about using brakes with the ABS (Anti-lock Braking System). Many experience motorcyclists believe that practicing and using the brakes without ABS correctly is safer than developing habits of relying on brakes added with a new complex computer system that could fail. I listen to folks on both side of the debate and wonder why so many folks think in terms of either/or? Being prepared is learning how to use all the tools available. A leader doesnt have to take away a scout's knife to teach him the safe and proper use of an axe. Barry

>>Another thing that units should do is have the treasurer be from a different household than either the CC or SM.