MattR

Isn't it time for this thread to die? This SM is not working out for this scout. I agree with JoeBob, not signing the blue card is a good enough reason for me to leave. But that's it. Ever seen bad clergy? or a bad cop? or any of a number of other people we put on pedestals? Since when are SMs so wonderful that we've never had to deal with a bad one? Maybe he's stubborn and too proud and got himself boxed in and just wants to save face. He made a mistake. Maybe he is a jerk, but so what. Turn the other cheek. 14 pages of who knows what is only going to raise blood pressure. And if the scout is so traumatized by dealing with a bad apple then it's time he learns a lesson: Sometimes people that should be good crap on you and it's best not to hang onto grudges. Find him another SM that will look out for him. That will do him much more good then trying to fix the original SM. Move on and complete Eagle elsewhere.

I would absolutely hate to be the SM that has to deal with that protocol, @@Fehler. Any incident of bullying shall be reported immediately. Does that mean an adult has to be in every patrol at all times? If bullying is the repeated use ... then how many incidents are required before it's considered bullying, at which point it has to be reported? But wait a minute, part 4 implies that one incident triggers a response of throwing a scout out of an event. So what is bullying? Any stupid stuff kids might get involved in? And the adults have to deal with it. What if one scout is pushing buttons and another scout just wallops him? Is that a bullying incident? One strike and you go home? And what about all the scouts that just sit around and watch this spectacle? Any discussion with them about standing up for what's right?

This parent is upset about what happened before. That might be a good place to start. Figure out what happened and talk about what the response would be. For me, someone broke the Oath and Law. After that it's all the same. If this parent absolutely wants a protocol with 8x10 color glossy photos with circles and arrows and a paragraph on the back of each one, then you have an anal parent on your hands. It's not the protocols in place that make a safe environment, it's respect for the Oath and Law from everyone in the troop.

In my troop, if scout A is picking on scout B then it tends to come up. Scouts talk. I listen. I'll talk to scout B, then A, then ask them to get together. Then they shake hands. Then it's over. Better yet, one of the older scouts does this. That handles 95% of the problems. Everyone knows who scout A is and he starts making a name for himself. If it continues then typically Scout A loses friends and quits the troop. Besides, that's probably what the scout wants anyway. Every time I see a scout do incredibly stupid stuff and shows no remorse it's because he doesn't want to be in scouts.

@@Stosh, I just finally read this. As a scout I camped at that cemetery. The mountains were not so great around there, but the history was amazing.

I like it.

How about setting quality for each patrol, instead of the troop? If the PL needs a scout to do training to become the next PL, then it would be good for the troop to set that up. The needs of each patrol should drive the troop.

@@TAHAWK, how would you change JTE to improve the patrol method? This is not a rhetorical question. I agree with you that JTE doesn't help, but what would?

Unfortunately I think the BSA is hung up on SMART goals and so everything has to be quantifiable. Unfortunately, I don't think leadership is quantifiable. Maybe different types of questions would help?

I ask my scouts (and adults) who is solving what problems. Adults or scouts? Problems related to people issues, gear issues, calendar issues. As an overview, if the adults have a 2 hour committee meeting each month and the PLC has a 15 minute meeting before each COH then that's a big red flag, yet it would pass JTE. The next question I have for my scouts is who is identifying the problems. To me, that's the gold standard.

I think it was designed for low hanging fruit. It hasn't done us much good. I'm not sure there is a way to quantify what is inherently qualitative. Stosh will go nuts with this but in a way he's right.

This thread could be tied to the other thread about losing webelos to other organizations that provide the outdoors without what scouts provides. That difference is what needs measuring. I'm just now sure how to measure it.

I never push den chief but any scout that asks gets my full support. An engaged den chief is a great way to get new recruits.

We thought we weren't going to get many webelos this year so our backup plan was to go to the middle schools and recruit. Turns out we got 10, so we put that idea on hold. It seems that a lot of kids are way over scheduled in elementary school but that drops off in middle school because sports starts getting more selective. The end result is that there are more kids with more time in middle school than in elementary school. My hunch is it might be easier to get 7th graders than 4th graders. Our DE is trying that idea as well.

@@UncleP, your nephew is fortunate to have you around.

I wouldn't wait until he's discouraged before you encourage him. You can encourage him greatly by taking an interest in what he's doing. If you want him to have fun then join him on a few campouts. Few scouts make it on their own. Ask him questions. Get him to talk. Be there at court of honors when he receives things. Just knowing that you care about his progress and fun and adventure, and that scouting is important to you will help him. If you know how he's doing then when he runs into problems, which he will, you might be able to ask the right questions to get him to solve his own problems. That's what scouts is about. BTW, all this showing interest and supporting someone is what leadership is about. I hope you stick around this forum and keep us up to date. Good luck.

... Another 1/2 hour, or me not intervening and taking them both to one side, and I reckon a brawl might have happened. Both were getting the "not expected behaviour" speech but the little sh...darling kept interrupting me, I swore at him. If memory serves, to paraphrase "for flips sake, just shut for up a minute".

For some reason this is really amusing. Maybe because I've been there.

Anyway, I think the best policy is to apologise when I slip up. It shows the scouts that I'm not perfect, but I'm trying. It also encourages humility, another good thing to show the scouts. I expect the same of the scouts. Apologise and move on.

@@qwazse, you're asking why would scouts want to be together and the common response is they have common interests. I don't see that as much as the scouts have common personalities. I have a patrol of quiet, focused scouts, a patrol of egregious scouts,  a patrol of leftovers, .... within any of these patrols there is not much common interest. Friendships that have formed since tigers are the same thing. The scouts are good friends, and yet they may have few interests in common.

Also, the idea that all scouts want to be in patrols of the same age does not hold with what I see. Some scouts want a mix of ages. The younger because they do want some help, and the older because they do want to help. One scout told me he likes being with the younger scouts because he can escape the usual high school drama. The idea that all older scouts want to hike harder, farther, faster than the younger scours is also a myth. Some do, most don't. I had one patrol where everyone was the same age and it became a mean girls HS drama theme because everyone was trying to one up everyone else. The scouts decided on their own to move a few people around, to mix things up, and it is working much better.

Without a doubt, the older, self centered scouts want to be away from the younger scouts. That's not to say that all older scouts that want to be away from the younger scouts are self centered, but when the response to a younger scout that's misbehaving is "I don't want to babysit them" then I start asking questions and it usually comes down to the older scout is really just thinking about himself. If he'd instead say he wants to go on longer hikes then it's a very different conversation. About when the scouts are close to 17 there is a switch and those scouts would like to camp together.

Bottom line, there is no one size fits all approach.

I'd say this scout is trying to get a laugh, but making a bunch of adults angry also can be fun.

I recommend thinking carefully about what battles you want to get involved in. He's acting unclean, he's not being unclean. He's not swearing, he's acting like a fool to get some scouts to laugh. Yes, for a new scout this kind of joke can be shocking, but a lot of jokes are. At campfires there seems to be a limit on poop jokes and even boys cross dressing (because the skit needs a damsel in distress, or even a pregnant women) but the scouts like telling them. Now, does a scout cross dressing in a skit mean he wants to cross dress or is he just trying to get a laugh? Jokes require tension and a boy scout pretending to snort coke is similar to a scout pretending to blow his shorts out from eating a lot of beans. It's slapstick.

I'd weigh this event against what this scout is like when he's doing his job as SPL. Does he help the other scouts? Is he friendly to all? Do the younger scouts look up to him in other situations? If so, I'd say let it go. If you want, talk to your sons about pretending, and jokes and that nobody is even close to saying cocaine is okay. At most a very short talk from his SM is more than enough for this situation. If, on the other hand, he's self centered and just trying to show off that he uses illegal drugs while not in scouts, then that's another situation. It really depends on what the scout is like when he needs to be serious. It's important for scout leaders to have fun as well as be serious. This might not be an ideal way to have fun, but it's not that bad.

@@Grubdad, there are lots of scouts that move troops and they rarely move because they're happy where they are. The new SM wants to know what's going on with your situation as much as you want to know how he'd deal with it. Ask a vague question and see how the new SM responds. You just want to get him talking. See if they've ever dealt with similar issues. You know that Krampus has dealt with this before because of the detail he went into. If the SM doesn't have much to say about scouts that use bad language then I'd worry. Or if you get a boilerplate description I'd also worry. Dealing with troublesome scouts is important in the growth of the scouts so this should be something the SM deals with and can talk about. There are different approaches but for this topic there should be some approach.

Sorry to hear this.

We typically do separate ceremonies but they have limited boilerplate. The scouts put them together but I ask them to limit the ceremonial part to 10 minutes at the end and the first 20 minutes should be about what eagle means to them. This translates into lots of stories (some heard by adults for the first time), slide show, and open mic time for anyone that wants to share. The ceremony is typically the Eagle oath along with all the other eagles in the crowd, and presentation of the medal with the requisite crying/hugging/fumbling with the pins by mom. The most important part is the very end when the scout talks about what eagle means to him. Some scouts have said some amazing things at this point. It's very personal and just like every eagle scout is unique, every ecoh is as well. Every scout has always asked me to tell a story about their trail to eagle. I used to talk about all the mbs and requirements but that gave way to a story about the scout. What he enjoyed, what he struggled with, what makes him unique, and some good stories of character, adventure, and hard lessons they learned. I never tire of ecohs. I've had scouts that were on the fence about whether to continue come up to me after an ecoh and tell me they just decided they want to be an eagle. It's not logs, candles, and the meaning of the color blue that does this. It's that the younger scouts look up to the eagles and say they want to be like them. I suppose some just want the recognition but most know what's behind the recognition.

At the same time I agree with everyone that says just completing the reqs is no reason for anything special. That's a paradox. It was best explained to me by a really great asm I had who told me we were aiming to help scouts out years from now. Hopefully, 5 years after they leave scouts they will better appreciate what it's all about. At that point it's less about req's and more about character.

I've also noticed entire campouts brought down by one or two really negative or bad apples. I've also seen one or two really good apples float the entire troop but that's probably a SM minute thread.

A "stern talking to" is nothing but an empty threat for any kid that knows how to play people. The biggest problem scouts I've ever had are those that don't want to be there. If they want to be there then they want to be accepted on the terms of scouting and it usually doesn't take much more than pointing out their behavior for them to see the problem and try to fix it. Immature scouts that want to be there just need time and constant, gentle pressure. Their behavior will slowly improve over time. If they don't want to be there then their behavior will slowly get worse until finally something explodes.

Either way, there are boundaries and they are the same for all scouts (and adults, as was pointed out). Also, as pointed out, there should be consequences for going over the line. If a scout is brazenly breaking boundaries and nobody stands up to him then there's a problem that should't be wasted. It might be the SM wants the scouts to deal with it and the scouts need some training. It might also be the scouts expect the adults to deal with it and the adults are uncomfortable dealing with it. It might be that the troublesome kids all belong to the SM/asms. It could be the scouts only listen to the SM and everyone else is ignored. You'll never know until you ask the SM in the most open way you can. "I saw so and so saying such and such at the last campout, was that okay? What was supposed to happen? My son was really embarrassed."

Have fun, and keep your mouth shut unless it involves a question or preventing bloodshed.

Get all the requirements done and at the last minute lose out on eagle by one vote. Not my cup of tea. One earns the rank on their own efforts, not the whims of others.

I don't use a vote so much as a poll, and I'd never use the result for a scout that didn't have time to fix it. This is all about encouraging a scout to do better, so nobody will lose out by one vote. It's up to me to do something about a problem scout long before he ages out. I've missed that a couple of times and had to hold my nose when I signed their app.

One thing it does bring up is that if an older scout has been gone for 2 years and the younger scouts don't even know who he is, then that scout has some work to do. He shows up for 6 months, puts some effort into it and all of a sudden he has a great experience and the younger scouts now have a goal of being Eagle. I've seen this several times.

What I have done using a vote is take the results of the OA elections and gone to a scout that missed by more than just a few votes and asked him why he didn't get nominated. It usually starts a really good discussion. The scouts listen to what the other scouts think a lot more than they'll listen to me. The nice thing about this is it doesn't put me in the position of being the bad guy. I could see this not working if OA is just a popularity thing but in my troop they're tougher on the scouts than I would be.

Do the younger scouts look up to them?

Within the context of a troop, that illustrates the second part of the scout oath because there's no reason they ever have to even talk to the younger scouts. Just as in society, there's no reason any of us have to look out for anyone else.

My point is that we all let our Egos hold back scouts in some ways or others. I certainly don't have a defense for this SM, but that some of us don't see ourselves in the mirror sometimes bothers me. 

 

It's me, I'm getting old and cranky. My apologies to all.

 

Barry

I see a bit of truth under that crankiness and it's worth another look. Maybe hypocrisy is just the wrong word. How about contradiction? We have a challenge running this program in our troops in that there's no good description of what we're trying to do. So we each come up with our own description. "Teach scouts how to make good ethical decisions." What does that bloody well mean? "Fun with a purpose." Sorry, but that's just stupid, said my son a long time ago. The whole point of fun is not having a purpose, don't mix them. It's supposed to be fun, no pressure, let the boys decide, yada yada, and at the same time the result, Eagle, is easily more important then lettering in a sport and probably just as important as graduating high school to a lot of people involved in this venture. Fun, easy to do, and yet this is the greatest educational opportunity since sliced bread. No conflict there. A scout will develop great character by learning a few knots, how to read a map, and hanging out with his friends on 10 campouts. The only reason this works is that we apparently have better skills at motivating teenagers then the average high school teacher. Afterall, they can test and set harder requirements. We don't need that, we just use our superior wit. I wish.

The BSA created this monster. The term Eagle sells this program like none other and yet the meaning of that term is the source of all the grief. It's not the adults that are the problem so much as the definition of Eagle. Eagle teaches a scout to make good, ethical decisions, and leads to men of character! But, umm, you can get 5 merit badges at summer camp by sleeping through classes taught by some lame ass 16 year old kids, not even scouts, that don't know squat about a merit badge. Who knows, maybe a lot of character is developed by the never ending describe, discuss, and explain found in the merit badge requirements that few scouts really do. It's not just the merit badges but the whole advancement method can be run like this. It's true that advancement is only one method, but let's face it, it is driving all the stress. The parents want it, the scouts want it. Nobody is writing on their college apps that they went to Philmont. Nobody is writing on their job application, as proof of their good character, that they were an SPL. This thread is 10 pages long because a scout wants that patch.

Stuck in the middle of all this is ... us. We believe in it. We have good memories from being a kid, or worse, we see a young man smile as he finally figures out how to start an end splice or the first time he makes his own dutch oven cobbler, or any of hundreds of other challenges. It's called SMC, or scoutmaster crack. If you're lucky you get a hit about once a month and the rest of the time you just roll snake eyes dealing with video games and scouts forgetting to do something. But it does work at times and when it does it's great. So we stumble about trying to bridge the gap between the hype and the reality because it does work, at times.

Is there any surprise that adults struggle with this program? The adults are not the problem. The adults are the people that make this work. And sometimes they also make it not work. In an ideal world all the kids would be above average and self motivating and this would be easy, but we get all sorts of kids with all sorts of abilities and the typical teenage challenges. We hang on to them as long as we can and we do our best. We make decisions and sometimes they blow up. We're human and we also get frustrated, proud, and all the other things mankind is known for. Maybe for that reason an extra dose of humility should be required in these situations. Other than that I don't have any answers. Scouting is about people and people are complex. Simple rules can not cover that complexity so there will always be challenges like these.

Welcome back, @@cyclops

We are not strong in the Patrol Method and that's the first place I need to focus. Our troop is not used to patrols acting as a defined group that cooks, eats, cleans, sleeps together etc.

 

So yes it was painful to watch a 13-year old patrol leader try to mange the big herd. Many times it was a train wreck and left it inviting for the adults to step in.

If the PLs and patrols don't have experience with setting up camp, cooking, and cleaning on their own then asking a PL to do that for an entire troop is likely not going to be successful. I'd start with that and skip having a PL run the troop wide activities for now.

Then I'd work on getting patrols to organize their own activities outside of the usual cooking/cleaning. It could be that every patrol does roughly the same thing, as decided by the plc, on a campout but within that context each patrol might do something different. Different hike, different pioneering project, who knows.

Later on you can work on the problem of getting troop wide activities organized. Or maybe each patrol is having so much fun they want to do their own thing on all campouts.

BTW, very cool that you're trying to do this.

It's such a treat to have you back.

"Rule #2, they need some prodding and a whole lot of support. I regularly call scouts and ask what they need help with. I know, the SPL should be doing this but we just aren't there yet."

 

They sure do.  But under the Patrol Method is this not primarily a responsibility of the PLs? PLs, in turn, might delegate this duty, in some aspects, to the Patrol Scribe or ASPL.

 

Sure, that's the goal but I'm not there yet because it's the PL that needs the prodding.

What I was trying to get across is that boy led is not binary. It's not that one day a troop goes from adult led to boy led. I tried that a couple times and it fell flat. Rather, it's evolving.

What I see is scouts learn from scouts, not adults. But scouts that haven't seen it done right before won't suddenly start doing it. That leaves a chicken and egg situation. My approach to solve that is to make small changes, and that might include prodding the scouts.

Paraphrasing what @@Eagledad said, you don't just come up to a new 13 year old patrol leader that's never seen it done right and tell him he needs to motivate his scouts. I tried, no luck.

@@Adamcp, I can attest to everything everyone here is saying. It's not just the scouts that get stuck in a rut. A few years ago my plc was based on a 6 month rotation, I decided who was in what patrol, scouts essentially played nose-goes to figure out who the next PL was, and you know, they just didn't really act like patrols. That's the troop I got and I figured it was the way was. But I did realize I wanted change. I had and still have no grand plan but I see the goal. I make small changes. The first was to get the best scouts as PL. Rather than me deciding who would be PL I did something similar to an OA election. The only scouts that could be PL were those nominated by the troop with at least half the votes. It was then up to the scout on whether he wanted to run. All this did was convince the scouts that this is an important job. We haven't had to do that since because now everyone realizes the PL is important. Soon after that, at the next cycle of new webelos I told the PLC to figure out the new patrols as I knew I sure can't do it. I did ask them to look out for the young scouts. The patrols broke out by personality. That was great for the well behaved personalities but there was some rough parts with the, shall we say, biker gang/mean girls patrol (loud scouts with drama included). Summer camp was a bitch with this patrol, I had a meeting with all the scouts and the parents and we talked about the Oath and Law, some scouts were crying, parents were incensed that I wasn't going to break up the patrol and spread them out among the "good" patrols, one parent took his kid away in a huff (my son would never take a dump in the woods!). Anyway, we went and collected garbage for a few hours one day just to develop some teamwork, and you know, it all worked out. They are a tight group now. I believed in these kids and a lot of parents didn't. The last thing any of my patrols want now is to split up their patrols.

Rule #1 about getting the patrol method working: it takes time and patience. You gotta believe in these scouts and give them the support they need, whatever that might look like. One PL begged for help with some scouts that just wouldn't help clean. I put together a teamwork training session that lasted an hour. This may sound insane, but at the end a couple of the scouts in that patrol said "huh, I guess we do have to help out. It makes things better." Hello! You're absolutely right that they have no experience and haven't seen it before. They have to learn, slowly. You can't just dump everything on them at once.

The next issue I have is getting them to want to do something without the adults around. You'd think they'd want to but they don't trust themselves. I trust them, but they've never done it. A hundred yards is fine, they've done that, five miles is not. So, I created a challenge for them. The next campout involves a hike and each patrol will go on the route they want, and there will be no adults around. They would not have chosen this on their own. I have tried but no luck. It's time to take the binky away. One PL is really hesitant about this. He's worried about a couple of immature scouts in his patrol. Another scout said he has to review his map skills. The really cool thing is the scouts are taking this seriously.

Rule #2, they need some prodding and a whole lot of support. I regularly call scouts and ask what they need help with. I know, the SPL should be doing this but we just aren't there yet.

Rule #3, trust is huge. There needs to be mutual respect and it takes time to develop. The adults and scouts need to trust each other, and it has to be earned. If the scouts trust you then they will listen to you. The same goes the other way.

You can help them make decisions by limiting their number of choices. As they grow they'll need less of this.

Rule #4, I don't think there's a goal line. It's not like one day I'll say we made it, we're boy led, this is it and there's nothing more to do. We talk about growth for boys but I'm starting to think troops grow as well. Troops that have been doing this for a long time are way ahead of my troop. I'm hoping that once my PLs get good at leadership one of them will make a fine SPL. But we are miles ahead of where we were back when it was "I don't want to be PL, it's your turn."

Look at the accident rate for water skiing, snow boarding, or snow skiing and my guess is neck injuries are much higher for those sports.

I found the following info in two minutes on google, so take it with a grain of salt. For water skiing the injury rate is roughly 1 per 100,000 people, half of which are head and neck injuries. 20-30 people die each year snow skiing due to head injuries. One study showed 1.3 injuries per 1000 runs at terrain parks, half of which were head and neck injuries.

I'm not ignoring the risks, but let's not throw the baby out with the bath water.

And, slip and slide meets baby in bath water joke is coming ..... now.