Lisabob

Just to clarify, in the last 3 years the SPLs in my son's current troop were all in 10th, 11th, or 12th grade. My son was SPL in his former troop as a 10th grader. So I did not mean to suggest that older boys can't be active (as SPL you need to be able to commit to a very active scouting schedule. If you can't, then you shouldn't seek to be SPL, in my view.)

But not all boys have the time or desire to be SPL and live & breathe scouting, despite enjoying their time in scouting. And even for those boys, what about AFTER they're SPL?

I work in an environment where "adults" (college students of varying ages) sometimes are called upon to present their work and defend their conclusions in front of others, as capstone/honors, master's, or dissertation defenses. My advice to nervous adults in these situations is to understand that usually, by the time they get to that point, they've already been deemed "worthy" by their mentors and instructors, and that the folks interviewing them have a stake in their success, too. And that they are likely to be the single-most knowledgeable person in the room on the topic of their own research! Still, many are so nervous that they feel ill, can't sleep the night before, stumble for the first few minutes, flub a softball question or two, might need to stop and take a slow drink of water before continuing, etc. These are adults.

Now, turn to the typical 14 year old EBOR candidate.

While we adults may know that the BOR is primarily a formality (in most cases), the boys often do NOT know that. And even if you tell them so, by virtue of their age, they have far less experience in their reserves to draw upon, to maintain a reasonable perspective. For many, Eagle will be the first significant accomplishment of their young lives. Of course some of them will be nervous about going before a board of strangers that has the power to render judgment on their "worthiness."

I don't think mock EBORs are a great solution, but I certainly do understand why some folks might do it.

(By the way, in my district there is one guy who has been known to get kids real twisted & panicky about religion, then hangs them out to dry as potential agnostics when they don't have clearly-enough articulated beliefs. As if very many typical 14 year olds can articulate a coherent and internally consistent statement of their beliefs - heck, I doubt many adults could do that! IMO, it's a BOR, not the Spanish Inquisition! But the likelihood of changing this guy's approach is about nil, and he's quite influential in the council. Consequently, a lot of boys from troops in the know get advice from their SM about how to handle this guy's questions.)

SMT I admit, now I'm really curious. Could you give a couple of examples?

Here is another thing to keep in mind. Scouting will mean different things to kids at different times in their lives. Just like our hobbies and interests as adults wax and wane, the same is true for scouts and our kids. They might need a breather from time to time, or legitimately be really, really busy at some points in their lives, yet still want to feel welcome in "their" troop. What you need is a strong sense of identity, not an arbitrary threshold.

My son and his friends are good examples. His patrol are all late high school or just graduated. They've been the "leadership patrol" for the troop in the last few years, producing 4 excellent SPLs in a row (while helping to bring along younger fellows as PLs, ASPLs, and other troop leadership positions) and helping revive a troop that was previously in serious decline. With the exception of a couple of boys who joined for the first time as 15-16 year olds, the whole patrol will make Eagle, and all of them will age out of the program (a sign of success, in my view).

But in the last year or so, those same kids have been taking 3-4-5 AP courses each year, taking on leadership roles in other aspects of their communities (captain of swim team, captain of football team, lead role in community theater, etc), have jobs, etc. A couple are dual enrolled in college courses and must put more time into school work in November/December and March/April than most high school kids at that time of year. Oh, and they've also started a Venturing Crew.

Over the last year or so, several of these boys might not have met the % criteria your husband is proposing. Should they have quit scouts? Would they, or the troop, have been better off, if they had?

Hello jjansson!

I won't dive into the "is AHG a Scouting program?" question, but I do want to clarify something you wrote. You said:

"They make no apologies on being Christ-based. Girl Scouts was too, by the way, until the 1970s. Boy Scouts still is."

In fact, Boy Scouts is NOT a Christian organization. This is a common misperception, particularly in areas where the main sponsors of troops and packs are Christian churches (some of whom expect more religious training of troop or pack members, than others). The actual BSA policy does not espouse or require any particular faith tradition, except that members must have some kind of belief. What this means can vary widely, but it doesn't have to be Christian (or even monotheistic) in nature.

We allowed parents to appoint another adult, if the parents c/would not attend. We had some limits though. For example: the DL has plenty to do already and shouldn't be the default approved adult. We also didn't want any one adult responsible for more than a couple of kids at a time. And we had one boy who was only allowed to attend with an adult dedicated solely to him (because he was a handful and required strict attention).

Those sorts of expectations need to come from the den or pack level - shouldn't be imposed from higher up, in my view, because each den is going to have different situations. In our case, most of the boys had been together since Tigers, slept over at each other's houses, knew and were known by each other's parents, etc. The parents frequently watched each other's kids already so it wasn't a big deal for Mr. or Mrs. Smith to take responsibility for 2 of the boys (son & son's buddy) on a Webelos camp out. Other dens might not have that kind of parental depth, or they might have other issues to balance.

This has been camp tradition at every camp I've ever worked at or attended. Among other things, it can help boost campers' (or staff's) energy levels on days when they're dragging, and it helps the kids who are not so sure about camp crack a smile and be part of the group. It also helps deal with the excess blasts of energy that almost always exist in a room full of squirrely kids. Think - if they weren't chanting, what else might they be doing to release excess energy??? Chanting is probably the least objectionable outlet.

As you are unlikely to be able to stop other units at the camp from engaging in this rather harmless behavior, the most likely outcome of any attempt on your part to stop your troop from participating will be that everybody else views you as a bit of a stick in the mud. Your boys might obey, but they'll also probably resent it.

Then don't be a part of it. You're welcome to that opinion, but you aren't required to support scouting. And even if you continue to support scouting (despite your opinion), if you think the organization is a waste of time, then why do you spend so much time posting on this board?

Actually I think scouting does teach a lot about responsibility, but a) it isn't an instant lesson and b) you can't expect an organization that spends, roughly, an hour a week with your kid to have a greater impact on his life than you do.

Yikes. Cbus is having a rough month. Though from the sound of it, the explosion didn't do much damage to anything other than the tracks and the train, and nobody was seriously hurt (amazing).

SP I applaud your desire to help boys see the broader picture of scouting. However, I must say, this proposed badge sounds exceedingly boring.

Honestly, I don't see a lot of difference either. And I am really surprised that folks pay for these flag "services!" Not something I'd want to be a part of.

You just aren't going to reach some parents. You might, possibly, reach their kids. That is actually pretty fun to watch, when it happens.

The kid whose parent packs for them will eventually be embarrassed by that and tell mom or dad to let him handle it for himself.

The kid who has a huge tote of electronic gear should be "allowed" to carry his tote of gear, himself, all the way to the camp site. Then let him discover that there isn't an outlet for miles. (If there is an outlet, think about making your campsites less convenient in the future!) If space in the trailer is truly an issue, let the boy figure out how to repack his three totes into one, before you leave the parking lot. His PL may wish to assist him. Have somebody distract mom or dad while he repacks on his own (surely, there's a form you need the parent to step ---over here--- to re-sign.) Then the boy delivers the extra stuff to mom or dad to take back home.

The kid who has the candy store? Well there, I might draw the line because I don't really want to invite the Raccoon Family Robinson into camp, not to mention other critters. But I know that the boys tend to enforce this pretty well, especially after an annoying experience or two. One summer my son's tent mate at camp had a bunch of junk food and by the end of the week their tent got overrun with ants. After that, my son became much pickier about who he would share a tent with, and what behaviors he'd put up with.

One mom in my son's troop has, in past, sent a case of pop to her boy mid-week as a care package. The leaders lugged that thing all the way back to the campsite for mail call, and weren't completely thrilled when they learned what was in the box. Next year, they laughingly announced **TO THE BOYS** at the pre-camp meeting that anybody who received very heavy care packages would be in charge of lugging them back to the campsite, themselves. Guess what, the boy in question asked his mom not to send pop this year. (I hear she did, but only one can instead of a case, and more as a joke!)

Now some kids aren't going to learn, either. Son was just telling me that one of the guys in his Venturing Crew took his new android on the Crew's week-long backpacking trek in the middle of nowhere (no service, no electricity, battery died on day 2) to use as a "flashlight." And of course he lost the darn thing! From what I hear, the rest of the group was not very sympathetic.

It doesn't pass the sniff test, for me. Does everything really have to come with a price tag? What's next, charging little old ladies for helping them across the street? $5 for every good turn done daily? Granny stays in the middle of the street til she pays up?

NJ, it was precisely the "on paper" part of the Personal Mgmt project that caused my scout to be impatient with the requirement. At least the Fam Life projects were real and he could readily see the value in planning and then doing them. He actually took pride in the projects he did for that badge. The "practice planning a project for the sake of practice" aspect of the Personal Mgmt just struck him as dumb.

It was pointed out to him by somebody (MBC? SM? not sure who) that it might have been more relevant, had he not waited until he was a week away from being 18 with nothing else to finish, to do this last requirement. So it was a choice, even if it wasn't a conscious one. But I don't think that's the actual intended lesson of this particular requirement.

(As somebody else mentioned his MBC happily accepted his Eagle project plan in fulfillment of this requirement. Since he'd already executed the plan before earning the MB, it really was a case of hoop jumping.)

"A super poor choice unless that Bear Den leader was a boy scout as a youth. "

Glad to know I was a "super poor choice" by way of my chromosomal make-up, basement. I think you paint with too broad a brush.

But few packs I know of have a method. Most are relieved to have options at all. And yes I can agree that the "anybody with a pulse" approach is probably disastrous more often than not.

If the current personal management MB is still to be required and unaltered, then I think it ought to be a required badge for Star or Life rank.

It was the final badge my son had to do and the very last hurdle between him and completion of Eagle requirements (besides SM conf. and BOR). He got to the end of it and came running down the stairs laughing hysterically...I'm wondering, has he cracked? No: he'd just read the requirement about planning a "pretend" project! After he'd just finished his actual Eagle project! What's the use in that?! (I just smiled and shrugged.)

When I used to work at (non-scout) camps, we had a lot of rich kids who would come to camp straight from boarding school. They'd stay at camp for 8-10 weeks and then go right back to school from there. I don't know if some of them ever went home from the time they were about 10 to when they graduated college.

Those kids tended to have a lot of nice stuff and a lot of world-wide experiences. Unfortunately, many had messed up family lives brought about by access to the many temptations that money can buy. They tended to have problems making friends, relating to "ordinary" kids, and taking care of themselves, too. As in, didn't know how to make a bed or do laundry, had never used a broom, were horrified to have to set the table/do the dishes/muck out the stalls (it was a horse camp). I remember the start of one camp season, just about falling off my (surplus army) bunk laughing hysterically, after one young lady indignantly ordered me to make her bed because that's what her nannies, maids, and butlers always did for her. The more she stomped her foot and tossed her head, the harder I laughed. Poor kid. She actually turned out to be pretty ok, by the end of the summer.

For some, it took them a while to appreciate the relative freedom and independence that we offered at camp, or the responsibilities that came with that independence. Some learned how to drop the attitude and get dirty with the rest of us. Some came to love it. Others might have appreciated it later in life, I don't know, but they were a right pain in the rear at the time.

On the flip side, we also used to get poor kids from NYC via the Fresh Air Fund. That's a great program but let me tell you, some of those kids were a right pain in the rear, too. Just for different reasons.

Teens being teens, all of them have a capacity to be brats. The exact nature of their brattiness might vary and our individual thresholds for various types of brattiness may also vary. The ones we help are probably the ones that we have the most tolerance for. I guess that's ok and is a good reason to have many different troops and many different adults in each troop. But all in all, I do think "rich" kids have more access to opportunities for help and "poor" kids tend to be thrown back on their own internal resources more often.

What about this:

Scout plans for fundraisers to pay for project but comes up short (bad weather, lower turnout than expected at fundraising venue, small-town environment where folks are just tapped out, whatever).

Scout covers the gap in funds needed partly with his own money, partly with parents' money, either as a match, or as a loan.

Scout completes project on time as a result of having the funds he needs to purchase material.

Alternative would be for scout to have to delay work days to schedule and get approval for another round of fund raising, and maybe (depending on how close he is) to age out without finishing as consequence.

I'm asking, why is the former (scout carries out planned & approved fundraiser but also uses some of his own money with a bridge loan or match from the bank of mom & dad) less acceptable than the latter (scout jumps through more bureaucratic hoops to get additional fundraisers approved and learn to be a fundraiser extraordinaire, or else fuggedaboutit.) Is effective fundraising such a key component of a boy's Eagle project, such that a boy who doesn't fully fund his project via fundraising hasn't shown sufficient leadership in your eyes? Is a scout on a tight time frame just out of luck if his fundraiser isn't 100% successful the first time?

Curious to hear your thoughts.

For a while, I don't even think there was an Eagle Project requirement. My dad, who is an Eagle, mentioned to my son that when he earned Eagle, there was no such thing (probably 1961-62 or so). Dad was also surprised to learn that Eagles have their own COH now, he figured it would be part of the regular troop COH because that's how he remembers it being in his day - not some big hoopla almost like a graduation party.

scoutson just finished his project. Hours worked totaled about 125 but that excluded fundraising, planning, drive time (parents driving), picking up/delivering material and finished product, meetings with advisor, doing the paperwork, etc. So that's just 125 hours of actual physical work on building the project. I had no idea that other folks count all that other stuff - his troop doesn't, nor did his previous troop - so I guess I'll be taking those "averages" with an even larger grain of salt from here on out.

I think Brewmeister makes a good point too, though. Having watched his project unfold from an arm's-length distance, I now have a much greater appreciation for all that goes on "behind the scenes" and how a project that looks fairly simple when done, can still present plenty of challenges for a boy to handle when in progress.

My scout just came back from spending a week in the Canadian wilderness, where he climbed waterfalls, swam in rivers, hiked up mountain trails, encountered black bears...

The best antidote to the "loser" claim is to be able to point to undeniably awesome stuff that the scout can do/has done, that the non-scout will probably never get to do. Does your program provide those opportunities?

Basement writes: "Troop hopping is a result of someone putting their foot down. "

Yeah, basement, and sometimes that "someone" is the scout, putting his foot down on adult silliness!

Generally, I see about the same four groups mentioned by others:

1. Boys unhappy with the program being offered (too much adult direction, too much hand holding, not enough adventure, etc.)

2. Parents unhappy with behavioral norms in the troop (language, nastiness/hostility, treatment of younger guys, fighting, etc.)

3. Boys and Parents unhappy with standards for advancement (too easy/too hard) which might also be another way to say: differing values, especially when combined with #2

4. Behavior problems or immaturity on the part of a specific boy

In my son's former troop we lost a good number of crossovers each year. I was generally sorry to see most go, as they fell into the 2nd and 4th (immaturity, not behavior) categories. With a strong youth leadership and trust in adults to provide a caring but challenging environment, I think immaturity can be overcome. But not if parents of younger boys don't believe the older boys and adults have the best interest of their kid in mind, and not if parents or boys think the role modeling and behaviors of the older boys are offensive.

Some parents do take this a bit too far, but when you have numerous parents coming to you after their boys have left the troop, saying "here's why we don't want our boy around the older guys in your troop..." you should recognize that you have a problem. Similarly, when older boys who had been your youth leaders are leaving the troop and providing detailed reasons why, then adult leadership should pay some attention.

In my time involved with boy scouting, there are two boys I was glad to see the back of. One was in the habit of bringing weed to campouts. He eventually dropped out of high school and ended up in prison, charged with dealing. Nice kid, actually, but not the role model I wanted my son to be around and other adult leaders seemed to either be oblivious or were turning a blind eye on purpose. The other one chucked a hammer at my kid's head, out of the clear blue (even he admitted there was no reason for it, it was the first time he'd ever camped with my son and nothing had happened between them). He had some emotional issues that had a tendency to erupt in random violence like that. Always made me nervous.

There were a couple of others I'd like to have seen the back of, but they stayed.

I've written about this before so folks here may know that my son "hopped" troops about 2 years ago, after sticking with his former troop for 5+ years. At the time, I told him I would support him staying or going (I really didn't want him to quit, but I'd have let him), but if he stayed he needed to be able to not be miserable about it. He chose to leave. It was the right choice. Since then, he has said many times "I wish I'd moved sooner." On the other hand, he was telling me the other day about some outdoor skills where he thinks his former troop had the edge. So you learn different things from different experiences, and that's valuable to realize, too.

OK OK, it is probably clear - and I think you agree, 5yearscouter - that the best solution is for somebody to just say NO to this fellow. But if the only way that's going to happen is to fall back on playing the guy's game (where does it say in the "ruuuuuules?"), well then, here are some "rules" to wave around in the guy's face.

From the "age guidelines" and "family camping" and "insurance" sections in the current Guide to Safe Scouting:

Age Guidelines (skip to the last paragraph)

"If a well-meaning leader brings along a child who does not meet these age guidelines, disservice is done to the unit because of distractions often caused by younger children. A disservice is also done to the child, who is not trained to participate in such an activity and who, as a nonmember of the group, may be ignored by the older campers."

Family Camping

"Family camping is an outdoor experience, other than resident camping, that involves Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting, or Venturing program elements in overnight settings with two or more family members, including at least one BSA member of that family. Parents are responsible for the supervision of their children, and Youth Protection guidelines apply."

[My Note: "other than resident camping" meaning that boy scout summer/resident camp is not the place for non-boy-scout children.]

Comprehensive General Liability Insurance (last 2 sentences):

"Unregistered volunteers are provided excess general liability coverage. There is no coverage for those who commit intentional or criminal acts."

Accident and Sickness Coverage

"Accident and sickness insurance (also known as accident and health insurance) coverage for Scouts and Scouters furnishes medical reimbursement in case of death, accident, or sickness within the policy amounts. Information regarding unit accident coverage is available through the local council.

Who is covered?

All registered youth and seasonal staff are eligible.

Registered leaders and volunteer leaders."

[My notes: I'm not a big fan of trying to parse who the BSA insurance will/won't cover, but in this case I might ask the SM and CC to ponder what they think this means? Having an unregistered youth at camp is not criminal but it is clearly intentional. And it isn't completely clear to me that unregistered youth would be covered by the accident/sickness insurance.)

Somebody needs to put a foot down or else next year, your campsite will be full of little siblings and the MB sessions will include your neighbor's daughter's niece's cousin's 4 year old daughter, too. Tell your rule-pointer that enough is enough and allow no amount of wheedling to change it. (Maybe you need to have a private chat with the SM to help him relocate his spine, first.)

Again, look to BALOO (since these are cub parents, too). The pack camping info we got back then said pretty clearly, you had to have age-appropriate activities and proper supervision (NOT BY SCOUTS!) for younger sibs. Them's the rules. BALOO doesn't apply to troops, I know, but you could say "look, even in CUB SCOUTS they have this rule" and wave it in his face.

As for the $100/visitor thing. Well ok, as a visitor you don't participate in program. You don't use supplies from the leather craft area, for example. You don't take up the instructor's time and attention. You don't use equipment that a paying customer could have used, instead. Visitors might watch from the outer edges and eat a burger in the dining hall, but that's about it. Visits are also, by definition, TEMPORARY.

SecondClass, that's probably true. I don't have the stats handy anymore, but I believe the problem isn't just absolute numbers, but percent of youth served. In other words, we reach a lower percentage of "total available youth" than we used to.