Lynda J

IMHO the only time a boy or an adult fails if when they don't try.

I don't know a single boy that tied a double half hitch right the very first time. Does this mean he failed. NO. If simple means that he hasn't learned to do it yet. If he quit trying to tie the knot it would mean that there was failure on someones part. And not necessarly the scouts.

I heard a leader at a skills event tell a scout he was stupid because he couldn't tie a knot, he did this in front of a group of other boys andleaders. I pulled this guy apart from the group and let him know that in no uncertain terms was he to ever call a boy "stupid". Little makes me madder than hearing an adult tell a kid he is stupid and especially in front of others. Kids aren't stupid. They just haven't learned everything. After talking to this guy I went and talked to the Director of the event.

Come to find out this is a leader who after two years has yet to take anything but SM basic. Seems he doesn't think he needs training since he was a 1st Class scout growing up. The membership in the troop is dropping off and parents are complaining about the amount of yelling he does at the boys.

So this is a unit that is in trouble because the leader doesn't see the need for training.

I require Kevin to contact me in the same way any other scout would. By Phone. I expect his to do the same work, no more, no less. (Well maybe I do expect more. Simple because I know what he is capable of.) Do I want to counsel all Kevin's merit badges. NO. He needs to experience other counselors. Just from the concept of how other people do things and the experiences and knowledge of others.

He has gone outside our troop on badges that I counsel. That is a good thing.

Grow outside your troop. There are some great counselors out there that love working with kids.

Don't take the "EASY" road. Push yourself to achieve more, to go higher. Reach beyond what you have close by.

AND DO THE PAPER WORK!!!!

Our last SPL was 1st Class. Did he do a good job?

You darn right he did. Rank has little to do with a boys leadership ability. I know Star scouts that do not have good leadership abilities. I know Tenderfoots that do.

SPL is an elected position, elected by his troop. Not names by the leaders. If the boys feel any scout in the troop has earned the right to be SPL it is up to them to elect him to that position. When we do elections the current SPL will ask for nominations for SPL. When a boy is nominated he is ask if he would like to run for that position. If he says yes he will be voted on. If he choses to say no he isn't. But the final decission is up to the troop. I would not want to put rules on this.

Before we set our cooking policy we had a patrol that planned no hot meals for one camping trip. It was in March and it got very cold. THey were complaining about not having hot food. I ask them who planned their meals and of course they said they did. They ate cold meals the entire trip. I didn't step in and "cover their rears". I would never allow boys to go hungry, if they simply don't plan enough food, but they planned their meals they ate them. The next camping trip they cooked every single meal. Including lunch which we almost always will allow sandwiches.

We always take lots of trash bags. If a scout does forget his rain gear he can come and ask for one, but I don't furnish it without his asking.

So many times, as adults, we want to make things easy for our kids. We don't want them to "fail".

But failing is part of succeding. Unless we fail we do not understand the value of succeding.

If a boy gets wet he gets wet. Most of mine could care less.

My wonderfully wise Gran use to say, "we should raise our children like the birds do. Have them, feed them, teach them to fly and push them out of the nest and make them use their own wings." She was a very wish woman and over 40 years after her death she is still my hero.

Our older boys are doing High Adventure. In council this year but next year going out of council. Also have these boys staffed at summer camp? We have three boys that will staff this year. All are Star or Life. One thing you do have to do is let them decide. But there are lots of challenging adventures out there for older boys.

Kevin just turned 12 and has a sign on his bedroom wall. 16=Eagle. He will complets his Star in June and wants to complete Life before he is 13. He said that gives him three full years to complete Eagle. I honestly think he will be Eagle before 15. But that will be up to him.

It always astounds me when parents think they are helping their kids by makeing things easy for them.

No BOR is not a retest of his skills. But you can quiz him on things. Ask what the responsibility of the patrol cook is.

Have you expressed your concerns to the SM. What about his Scout Master Conference? It is really up to the SM to sign off. But it will catch up with him. Especially if he ever goes for an Eagle BOR.

As have an agreement in our troop. I don't sign off an any of Kevin's rank requirements and the SM and other ASMs don't sign of on their sons. It just makes it easier that way.

There are some very nice programs on ScoutXing.com

At any training I have ever taken of helped teach I would prefer to have a leader there without a uniform and get trained than to have a leader not come because they simply can not afford to spend over $100 on a uniform.

I can no longer wear my old BSA pants. They fall off. I do not intend to buy a new pair until I have reached the weight I want. Then I will buy new pants.

As far as electronics. I hate having them at trainings. But understand. The last outdoor skills training I took was about a month ago. There was one guy had PDI. He entered loads of information in it. So in some ways for adults it isn't a bad thing. But we do not allow electronics on any camping trip with the troop, except for the leaders cell phones.

Each of our patrols have a cook book that I made up. It has lots of different things. Some are the same type of meal but use different methods of cooking. The rule is that they can not cook the exact same thing two campouts in a row, except for breakfast. Sorry they love breakfast tacos and they are quick and easy if we are at a camporee of something like that. Now of troop camp outs they have to do something different for breakfast.

Guess what. They love trying different things.

One patrol loves using the cajun microwave that I made. THey have roasted a chicken and done a potroast. They have done several box oven meals.

And of course the old stand by of dutch oven cooking.

But they try different foods.

We did one called "Rescue Chicken" You take one bottle of French Dressing, one jar of apple reserves, onions and green peppers. Mix the dressing and preserves add to chicken after browning onions. Dutch oven cook for about 1 hr.

Serve over rice. They took 1st place in our Cookoff Camporee.

If we allow kids to take the easy way out they will if we challenge them to reach higher they will.

I don't know. Two years ago two of our boys and the SM went on a horse trek in West Texas. They went with another troop. They had a ball. Both boys would have been about 13. The main requirement was that they have a knowledge of horses. Both had helped at Camp Carter which is the Y camp here and both had worked in the horse program.

I got my first horse when I was 3. Was breaking and training by 10. My daughter was on a horse at 6 months. And was riding on her own at 2. So age has little to do with someones ability to ride. It is experience.

WE LET THE BOYS DO IT. We do work with the SPL and PL so they understand what is expected of them. That it is up to them to plan and do. If they make mistakes they will learn from them. We had a partol plan no cooked meals for camporee. Well guess what it was cold. They were complaining about not having any hot food. I ask them who planned their menus.

they made do with what they had planned. Guess what the next camping trip they cooked every single meal. Didn't even do sandwiches for lunch.

Last night our SPL didn't get things moving as soon as he should have. They goofed around for about 15 minutes at the first of the meeting. Normally we do a break somewhere during the meeting. There was a lot to get done and he had all the paper work that needed to be completed so we could turn in our summer camp registration today. Well guess what. When it came time for the break the paper work wasn't done. And the boys couldn't break. One was complaining about it. One of the newer boys commented "everyone took their break at the start of the meeting so we don't get one now." Want to bet that things get started earlier next week.

They learn.

We try to make things to easy for our kids. We don't want them to have to struggle. Well guess what. With out failures we can not appreciate the sweetness of success. You only fail if you do not try.

Our PLC made a rule that the only thing that comes on any camping trip that requires batteries should be a flashlight. There are so many other great things to do on camping trips other then sticking your nose in a computer game. So many things that are so much more productive. Know something not one of our boys complains.

Haveyou thought about asking the coach to be a Merit Badge counselor for the Sports Merit Badge?

we were having a problem with a band director once and I went and ask if he would be the counselor for the Music Merit Badge. He said YES. Well guess what suddenly he realized that scouting and band could work together. He would let the boys in scouts out 15 minutes early from practice every other week. So everyone benifited

Since you think there should be a forum just for scouts why don't you start one.

Please God do not make me so narrow minded that I judge a persons ability to be a good leader by his or hers appearance. I am 58, have worked as an adult in scouting (both BSA and GSA)for close to 40 years. Never did I consider what a scout or scouter weighed into their ability to be a good scout.

In a society where we put so much pressure on kids to "be thin" that we have kids sticking their fingers down their throats to be "thin" I think we worry about weight to much.

I am by all standards overweight. My blood pressure is great, I hike, swim, canoe. I eat healthy. I can keep up with most of the boys in my troop. I also work hard in a very physically demanding job.

Do I set a good examply of a leader for my boys, I hope so. But the quality of my leadership has little to do with the size of the pants I wear. It had much more with the size of my desire to give and the size of my spirt to teach boys to be good leaders.

Our SPL is invited to Committee meetings. If there are things that the committee need to discuss that he should not be involved in then he is invited to come 30 minutes later than when the meeting starts. The SPL does not always attend committee meetings. There are times there is simply nothing for him to go over. He does attend at least once every three monts just to give a report on what is going on.

Kevin loved doing merit badges with me. Do I let him slide on anything? NO. Do I demand more of him? Maybe a little, because I know what he is capable of.

Our troop keeps a list of MBCs and a boy can look at this list any time he wants to. He can contact the counselor before he ask for a Blue Card if he wants to. Sometimes there are several people listed for a badge and sometimes one can't work with them on the badge at that time. Then he comes to the SM and gets a Blue Card.. This way when he fills out the card he has the counselors name, phone, etc. From then on it is between him and the counselor.

I expect boys in my troop to call me on the phone about working with them on a badge. This includes Kevin. Not they can call my cell phone from the phone at the scout hut. But I want them to learn how they should contact any counselor, whether they are from our troop or a different troop.

I carry two copies of the insurance form in my troop first aid kit. When we had a scout hurt at Camporee three years ago I sent that form with the SM to the hospital. The insurance covered everything related to the treatment of the boy.

When I was directing day camp for our district I had the insurance forms with the camp packet. That way if we had ever needed to use them they were there.

I have some problems with D&D. I simply don't like any game where you are killing each other.

But I do have a problem with this type of game being at camp. No place for it. There are to many SCOUT things that you should and need to be doing.

We do not allow any electronics at any scout activity. Any that are brought are taken up and locked away until the next troop meeting.

Same thing with cell phones. I know that some parents give them to their kids for safety. But when we camp each leader there has a phone. They are used for emergencies only. 99% of the phones that kids have have games on them. They don't need to be at camp.

Pint. I don't know where you are from,but in the United States it is against the law for anyone to sell or supply alcohol to a minor (someone under the age of 21). A business caught selling to a minor can lost their liquer license. They can also face jail time. In some cases where parents have allowed kids to drink at parties held in their homes they have been charged with endangerment of a child. In one case the parents lost custody of their children and faced crimnal charges for allowing other kids to drink.

It is against BSA policy to have or consume alcohol on BSA owned property. It is also against BSA policy to consume alcohol while you are in your Scout Uniform.

If I ever witnessed an adult drinking at a scout camp, I would immediately contact the Camp Ranger.

Now don't get me wrong, I enjoy a good drink or glass of wine from time to time. But NEVER NEVER would I EVER consider taking even one drink while I had the responsibility of boys.

Another training everyone that is going to be camping with boys should take Introduction to Outdoor Skills. It is a weekend camping outing and you work in a patrol of other leaders. They don't put people from the same unit together.

I have taken it 3 times and will be staffing the one in the fall. Boy talk about fun. You get to act like a kid. Cook, fire build, lash, everything you should be teaching the boys.

I highly recommend it.

Get as many people in the unit BALOO trained as you can. Here is my Cub Camping nightmare.

When Kevin started in Tigers the CC was a woman who was a total control freak. She told us that only the CC could attend Round Table. She was also the only person in the unit that had BALOO training. Well when Kevin started Wolves we planned a camping trip.

She and I didn't see eye to eye over lots of things. Training for one. She didn't push training. (Mainly because if the leaders got trained them they would have known that some of what whe did was wrong.) Well the Friday we were leaving to camp with the pack she called the Council office and informed them that she wasn't going to go camping with us. She didn't call anyone else. Well the DE called me, since I had volunteered to direct day camp. We had a dad that was an Eagle Scout. He took off work and went to the office and they did a quickie training for him so we could still go and the boys wouldn't be hurt.

The next week I went to the office and ask which trainings I needed to get. Within 6 months I had taken Fast Start, New leader basics and Specifices, BALOO, YPT. everything. I also took over as CC. But you need more than one person BALOO trainied in case one trained person can't go or somehting happens.

TRAINING TRAINING TRAINING The best way to make sure that boys have good leaders and a good program.

This almost killed our troop several years ago. There were several boys that left and went to another troop because it became obvious that the SM's son and nephew were the only ones were were going to make Eagle. Everyone else was being slowed down. With our new SM things are totally different. My Kevin just turned 12. He is working on Star and has completed everything except the time in a positon. The SM came to him a couple of weeks ago and informed him that on June 6 he would do his SMC and on June 13 his BOR. SM put him arm around him and said "this way when we get to summer camp you will be Star."

At that point he will outrank the SM's 15 year old son.

So not all leaders put their sons first. Most of us put "the boys" first. I feel that each and every boy in the troop is "mine". I am responsible in seeing that they all advance at the rate they are ready for.

My suggestion on your son would be if the CC does not help you I would suggest you contact either your Unit Commissioner or your Your District Advancement Chairman.

Kevin was elected to OA when he was 11 and did his Ordeal on his 12th birthday. I don't think it is about age. It is about drive, maturity and the ability to take responsibility.