mbscoutmom

The original post described the boy as special needs. Whether violent or not, a special needs child may need more than a regular den provide. It's not only a matter of safety, but also the well-being of the child. The kind of behavior described alienates other people and lowers the child's self-esteem. Unless he can get it under control, it may not be in his best interest to put him in a regular den with kids who are going to react negatively to him.

J_Prewitt, good discipline helps all kids, but it doesn't completely solve their problems. We have a very structured home, with discipline approved by our sons' therapist--that doesn't include spanking, btw. It has made a tremendous difference in their behavior, but still there are den meetings where my 8yo gets out of control. He, however, does not disrupt meetings so much that people want him to leave. As I tried to say before, there are lots of reasons for kids to misbehave. Some can be helped with better discipline, and sometimes that's not enough. As den leaders, it's not our job to

J_Prewitt, I'm sure I'm not the only one who disagrees with your statement: "In my experience with high-strung boys it seems to always come back to a lack of dicipline in the home." In my experience, there are boys who cannot sit still, pay attention, and be quiet no matter what kind of discipline they get at home. We've had a number of them in our pack, including my own sons. I have one with ADHD, and medication has made a tremendous difference. Another son has a mood disorder and takes a different kind of medication with equally great results. Lack of discipline at home or other

Our Tigers don't carve their cars. They just sand and paint the blocks of wood. We have a separate race for them, and they have their own trophy. We always have some arguments from parents about this, but it's a long-standing tradition in our pack.

Yes, I took BALOO training last weekend, AFTER our cub family camp out. My husband and another leader had taken it previously. I learned a lot from it, including some things we could do better on future camp outs. I know that better planning and communication with families would help, but I wonder if we should continue to prepare all the food as a group. Does that work well if you have more advance planning and get the parents involved, or is it better to just have every family responsible for feeding themselves?

How do you make a family camp out fun for everyone and not too much work for those running it? We had our second one of the year last weekend, and once again my husband and I came away from it utterly exhausted!

Thanks for all the wonderful ideas! I didn't really want to ask for dues right now because we're asking all the families to volunteer more of their time next year. Don't want to hit them with too many demands at once! I like the idea of asking families for their surplus supplies and keeping them in the scout closet for all the dens to use. I'll check out our local Wal-Mart to see if they'll donate some bins to keep the supplies in. And I think the pack can afford to let den leaders turn in receipts for supplies they can't get from the closet. You guys are great!

I'm taking over as cc from my husband in a month, and thinking about making a few changes in how our pack is run. One thing that has bugged me since my husband became a den leader 3 years ago is that den leaders have to supply everything for the den meeting. Scouts pay no dues. In fact, they pay nothing after the initial registration fee, as the pack pays re-registration fees and even buys them a Boy's Life subscription. They pay only for food on camp outs, and a few other minor fees. All the money the pack needs comes from fundraisers, but we don't even keep a record of which boys' families p

Thanks so much for telling me about the books in Spanish. My husband went to pick them up today, and they were free. That will be a great help.

Last night 4 new cub scouts showed up at the den meetings, from three primarily Spanish-speaking families. We deperately need more involved parents, but how can we get them to volunteer when there's a language barrier between them and many of the boys and leaders? A significant number of our families do speak both Spanish and English, but some of us don't. Also, do you know if there are cub scout handbooks available in Spanish? The kids are learning English in school, but their parents may not be able to help them with their achievements in English.

"BTW - Does the new Tiger's Adult Partner realize that he/she is the defacto Den Leader? Now that there are 2 Tigers they will need their own meeting time/place." I'm sure they don't--and I'm not about to tell them that! That's a sure way to get them to turn around and walk out. Three years ago, my husband and I just about did that when our 2nd son was a Tiger. There were only 3 Tigers and none of the parents wanted to be den leader. If the Wolf leader hadn't taken on the Tigers for that year, we wouldn't have had a Tiger den. After a year of getting to know the leaders and other families

I was just informed by my husband, the cc, that we have a new Tiger and a new Bear joining us next week. Wonderful news, since we only had 2 active Bears and 1 active Tiger. However, I now have to figure out what to do with the new Tiger! Our current Tiger's mom is single, working, and going to school, so I've been helping her get him through his Tiger requirements. He'll be getting his Tiger at the Blue and Gold Banquet in a couple of weeks. I thought that after that I would work on his Bobcat with him at den meetings, and that's all, since I have the Wolf den meeting to run as well. (It won'

Two of my wolves received their Wolf badge in December, and most of the rest will receive it at the Blue and Gold. December's pack meeting focused on the Webelos who received their arrow of light, so we didn't do anything special for the boys who received their Wolf. I'd like to use a special advancement ceremony for the ones who receive it at the Blue and Gold, though. Should we include the boys who already received theirs in the ceremony?

I would like our younger cubs to put on a puppet show at the Blue & Gold using puppets showing characters from the Jungle Book. This is one of the activities for the 75th anniversary award. Are there any resources we can use to come up with a puppet show using these characters?

I am editor of our pack newsletter, which comes out once a month, and has info on everything we're doing for the following month. I also print a notice for our den that I hand out at each den meeting, that has all the pack activities and den assignments on it until the next meeting. In addition, for pack activities and important den information, I send one or two e-mails. There are still some parents who don't know what's going on, but most do.

Is a cubmaster really supposed to do all that, SemperParatus? Ours doesn't--he was chosen mainly because he's great with the boys and likes public speaking. He basically just mcs the pack meetings (when he's there). We have a very active leader in our pack who's a single mom with a baby, and she fills in for the cub master when he's not at pack meetings, as well as being pack secretary and taking on a lot of the work. So I think it's very possible for you to be able to do it. Just don't try to take on more than you can handle. The committee should be able to spell out for you what they w

Thank you for all your helpful replies. I think the best idea is telling everyone that if no one is in charge of an activity, we won't do it. It won't work for us, though, because we don't want our own boys to miss out on anything! The best solution for us may be to find someone to be Assistant Committee Chairman, to share the administrative duties with my husband. I believe he is doing the job correctly, but, between work and scouts he has so much to think about that he sometimes forgets things he should have taken care of or delegated to someone. I've been trying to help him with this

What's a CO? Also, I looked for threads on recruitment and couldn't find them. Can you post a link? Thanks! Dorothea

We plan to make a pitch at the Blue & Gold for more help. But we have asked and asked these parents to help and no one does. I think they don't feel the urgency because, with the strong Webelos II den leadership, the work has been getting done without their help. How can we make them see the urgency of need without pushing them away? I entirely agree with the "one person, one job" rule. That's exactly what I've been telling my husband since he took on the Committee Chairman job. He's not doing that well trying to do two jobs, and I've had to step in to help him get things done. I bec

Our pack will soon be losing 4 very active leaders when their sons crossover in March. My husband and I have had to take on a lot more work than we wanted to this year--he's the committee chairman and webelos I leader, and I went from asst. Wolf den leader to Wolf and Tiger leader by default. With these 4 leaders gone, I'm afraid we're going to be overwhelmed. We currently have about 35 boys, and will have 25 after the crossover. How can we get more parents to come forward and take on some of the burden? Dorothea