momof2cubs

I know that what I am about to say isn't strictly what this thread is about, but I think it may apply to the "scout law outside of scouting" theme. Today, I chaperoned a school field trip to our Botanical Gardens with my 2nd grader (God help me). After the guided tour, we were given free time to walk around and we separated into small groups. I had 3 boys and 3 girls of which only my son is a scout. They were running, jumping, whatever, as you might expect. They came across a caterpillar. One boy says, "Can I stomp on it?". Instinctively, I said: "You may NOT, we leave NO TRACE!" My sons

Engineer61: I'm not advocating in ANY way, shape, or form what happened at that camping trip. However, things like this happen. They happen, unfortunately, everywhere. And while I wouldn't wish this experience on anyone, let alone my son(s), I would take the opportunity to teach my sons about self-defense, about dealing with bad situations, about discussing things with other adults in charge, about diffusing potentially dangerous situations, about learning how to deal with difficult people, etc. Pulling him out altogether from scouting will teach this boy nothing. And again, we DO NOT KNO

I have heard that no matter how flat you make a pancake, it still has TWO SIDES. I am always leery of parents that come into any kind of forum or internet media (facebook, twitter, whatever) and rant about how unfairly their children have been treated in "x" situation. The anonymity that the internet affords allows for a soap box where no one can be questioned. She came. She ranted. She posted a "dire warning". She left. She did the same in real life. Why won't she allow the leaders to discuss the situation? Why won't she allow the troop to try and investigate and rectify the situati

jr: see, I just don't get this. I am a Web 1 parent. My kid does admittedly still have some growing to do scout-wise. But how is he gonna grow if they don't let him fail? Let me give you a for instance: last spring, he went to Webelos Woods. This is a district event held in the spring for current bears and web 1s. So for my kid, it was the 1st time camping without his parents. The goal of this event is to get the boys started on cooking, setting up a tent, starting a fire, etc in a somewhat safe environment where adults are still around and helping. My kid is a picky eater. I asked when h

83Eagle: you will get NO argument from me. Low 20s is WAY too cold for cubs. And most parents! Come on down to this neck of the woods, you have plenty of spring camping opportunities!

83Eagle: there aren't that many advantages to living in the South sometimes, but sometimes you sure gotta LOVE the weather! It was absolutely gorgeous most of the weekend, just a little storm blowing through late Sat nigh. We had of course a campfire session scheduled with stories, songs, and skits. Well we moved it to the pavilion and had a great time! So my BALOO training paid off: just because you don't have a fire, doesn't mean you can't have a CAMPfire! Plus the grubmaster (ahem!) had planned banana boats instead of marshmellows for night time snack, so we built them under the

Sometimes it's a lot easier to try to find a BSA approved camp than trying to get one approved; depends on the council. My pack just got back from from Spring Family Camping 2 hours ago. We did it ourselves and had a BLAST. It was AWESOME. There are lots of advantages to going to district events: the activities are planned, the sites tend to be better maintained, it's more structured, you are more likely to be able to have range activities (BB shooting and archery), etc. But doing just a pack wide event can be just plain great. You get to plan the activities and do them at your

I think it's rude and disruptive to chat in ANY language while trying to work a project at a den meeting. This isn't about the language itself, but about the fact that they are talking during a meeting in a manner that is distracting to the boys, the other parents, and the den leaders who are trying to conduct a meeting. It's hard enough to hold the Tigers' attention for 5 seconds without other people contributing to the problem. Our den is been known to do "sing's up" to get adults to be quiet too! On a related note, I speak Spanish as a first language and people DO tend to get par

OOPS, I forgot something else: you do not HAVE to start working on Wolf-specific stuff during the summer. I know of many packs that are active year round, mine is not one of them. I live in a somewhat well off suburban area and kids are engaged in lots of camps and traveling so attendance is always low. So we only do fun stuff over the summer and do not have regular den meetings, but pack wide events a couple of times. You can still work on things like belt loops, and just plain fun stuff: hikes, swimming (see BSA rules on that though..they require BSA trained life guards for that), etc.

grmaerika: I am not 100% sure for the "official" rule is with parents after the Tiger year. In the Tiger year it is VERY specific that the parent must attend all functions with the Tiger. In our pack, we keep that rule alive through the Wolf and Bear years. Nothing magical happens on June 1st that allows all of the sudden for a den leader to be able to handle a bunch of 7 year old by themselves. They are still young and boisterous and the DL still needs help. Also, cub scouting is NOT A FREE BABYSITTING SERVICE!!!!! No matter how many times I say that, parents do not get it. We had a pare

Belt loops and pins are fun for cubbies. True the things can get expensive, but our Pack encourages them. 1. We encourage dens and families to work on pins and loops year round. No deadline for earning them for B&G. We award them at every pack meeting (monthly except for January, PWD month) 2. NO announcing loops and pins at B&G. That's for rank only. Also, personally, as a awards chair in my pack, I try to tell leaders and parents to hold off on getting loops and pins in February, so as not to detract from B&G 3. We pay for loops and pins only once. 4. As for the "did h

Blancmange has the right idea. Something equally heartfelt, but more reasonable seems like a good compromise. And gee whiz, in the current economic climate, is there no one else in your den that has an issue with this? At crossover, a parent is already facing: patrol yearly dues, summer camp dues, equipment replacement, and who knows what all else, and they want you to fork another $100??. Good grief, I am already stressing out about it and I have a whole year before this happens.

While I can appreciate the good intent, $100 seems quite steep of a contribution in my opinion. I live in a fairly well off area, and I think most parents around here would balk at that much money. Interesting this was brought up, since I have been thinking of what to do next year for my webs den leader once they cross over. All I had in mind was ask for a contribution of around $20 from each parent and buy a restaurant gift certificate. Plus flowers for his wife as a thanks. I think people discount the wives' contributions sometimes A spa night (while very nice) seems over the top

I know everyone says that the Tiger year is hard, because they are SO young. But I have to admit that I had the most fun ever with Tigers. The book has so many fun electives, and the whole thing is so new to them! I loved it. Tigers do not become wolves until the end of the school year. Many people say that it is June 1st, in my pack the day after the last day of school is considered the turning point. We end school in late May, the Friday right before Memorial Day. So yes, you can still work on Tiger stuff and there's so much out there. We had a musical meeting (Music belt loop

Pete, there is a big difference between someone that can't read and someone that won't. I'm surprised that there could be anyone that can't read. I just googled it, the US has a 99% literacy rate. I am trying to understand why this person won't take the YPT on-line. Could it be they don't have internet at home? Or even a computer? Maybe it's a matter of informing them they can use the facilities in a library? Or maybe they are not very computer literate? Maybe they just need a little help in learning how to access the internet for instance? I don't mean to be rude, but if they can't

It's not a silly question, it threw me off too when I was going through it. The answer is that each of those count towards one arrow point. A wold will earn a gold arrow point for every 10 of those that he completes. So, for example, he can complete 3 from American Lore, 2 from Spare Time Fun (elective 5), 3 from Foot Power (elective 7) and 2 from Be An Artist (elective 12) and earn a gold arrow point. After that, he earns 1 silver arrow point for every 10 electives. So you can pick and choose your electives. There is a caveat: if you are working towards the World Conservation Award,

Don't know if this helps, but for our Family Campings duties are ASSIGNED. It is expected that if you attend, your will do something. This includes: packing the trailer pre-camping, setting up the kitchen area on arrival, various set-up, cooking, cleaning, and fire duties associated with meal times, latrine duty, and unpacking the trailer after. Another thing we do that kinda helps is that duties are assigned to the family, not a particular adult. So if two parents are attending family camping, they can determine who will attend to the duty and who will be shlepping the kid(s) to whatever

jamist, it happens. Specially in the Cub Scouts beginnings (i.e Tiger and Wolf). Parents sign up thinking the kid will look cute in the uniform, they get a nice activity once or twice a month to get dropped off to, and maybe send them camping once a year. They don't realize that it IS a commitment on both the kid and the parent, it is work (but it can be fun work!), it is NOT a babysitting service, and that it could possibly interfere with other stuff. I rather have 20 scouts committed and proud to be scouts than 45 where half of them are only in it half-a$$ed. I stopped taking

SP: ok, point taken. As an explanation of why the whole thing chafes the hell out of me I'll give you a brief history of my last two years as a PWD parent. Last year I had a tiger and a bear. My kids were all about having a cool looking car (as opposed to a fast car) and didn't do ANY of the things my husband suggested to them would give them a faster car and a better chance at doing better. All they wanted was to cut, sand for a little bit, and paint and decorate the hell out of the cars. Dad and I stayed out of it. So naturally their cars sucked come race time. And they both came home c

I am ALL about competition and establishing winners and losers. It's one of my pet peeves these days that we seem to have this "thing" (for lack of a better word) where we absolutely must without a shadow of a doubt Make. Every. Child. SPECIAL!!! I hate that!!!!! We have dumbed down everything in order not to make anyone "feel bad" about not getting something, or not achieving a goal, or not a winning a race, or whatever. So yeah, I am 100% perfectly ok with the PWD remaining competitive. My problem comes when adults obviously build the cars. And not only do they OBVIOUSLY build the

We have tried everything we could think of in our pack to make this a fair event. And still almost invariably we have one or two cars that are so OBVIOUSLY made by dads that it's not even funny. It's unfair, it makes me mad as heck, and it discourages boys that work on their own from even trying. We even had an elite race this year that was for dads only, so they could build their own cars and leave their son's cars alone. No dice. I've grown to hate this event.

"Yah, we want to avoid da appearance of impropriety by having a male and female leader not share the same tent, but does anyone see any appearance of impropriety in havin' 10 moms and dads share a great big floor? Really? Da old phrase "get a grip" comes to mind" Hey I hear ya, but strictly speaking when we do the overnights, we violate YP and G2SS rules. No one has ever said a word one about this, but honestly I am just holding my breath on this one. And I gotta be a little honest: when it was my turn to do the Zoo thing with my youngest, it made a little uncomfortable. Plus the sno

pchadbo: we run into this one all the time. Our pack does yearly "overnights" at various places. Usually, these are not strictly BSA programs so the sleeping accommodations do not lend themselves to YP and G2SS rules. For instance: our Tigers do a yearly overnight at our local zoo. The Zoo provides what they call "lodges" (and i DO use the term loosely). They are basically one big room. There is no way to hang any sort of curtain and these are Tigers so either the mom or the dad (or both) must come. Everyone sleeps on the floor. We try to keep the adult males on one side, the adult f

While the trash talking is WAY out of line and should probably be addressed, where a Web crosses over to is a very personal decision. Ok so it's unusual in your town. Ok, so I can see the troop's SM being a little put off. However, not every troop will be a good fit for every boy. For whatever reason, she wants to go somewhere else. You can't force a scout to be in a particular troop! Think about it, the boy will be (in theory) part of that troop for 8 years! That's a bigger commitment than where to go to college! I can understand your frustration and in some ways your embarrassment

Excellent!! Thank you!!