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Following on http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=291838&p=5 ... Just had a 4th year scout finally suck it up and pass his swim test in the lake at camp. When he came out, I said, "Boy, you just swam that like a 1st class scout!" He could have done it in a pool at any time, but he wanted to win "the head game." Getting signed off for it any other way just wouldn't have been the same. Wouldn't you know that wasn't his last requirement? He needed to talk to someone about rights and responsibilities. We pointed out that there was a police officer among the adults in camp, but he put off meeting with the guy until the last day! Too late to pull a committee together for his BOR. Go figure.

Easy road test: Load up with two full gallon jugs of water. Walk about an hour. Adjust. Repeat. Fact is, once you get the length of the frame right, you will be constantly adjusting everything else anyway! Have fun!

Discipline is making right a wrong, repairing the damage, a time-out, a lost privilege, sending the kid home. No, discipline is the process of developing the ability to make a good choice. You are told when a bad choice was made, asked to make a good one, and failing that, you perform some productive act that helps you order yourself civily. Time-out, IMHO, is a form of solitary confinement. It's saying "You're not allowed to be one of us. You are a pariah. A blemish on our precious order." Push-ups or laps, may convey just the opposite. "Your one of us, but it's clear you're bucking the system. So, let's give you something constructive to work on while you deal with your hang-up." And if power and control forced on a kid is what you're against, why make them sit through a litany of announcements and those scoutmaster minutes that are always more than 60 seconds?

If a doctor says there is no chance the boy will gain the upper body strength to do one more pull-up, and the boy agrees, I'll get a waiver. Otherwise, ask the boy who does not grab that bar every day for 30 days straight if he thinks it's fair to the other boys if you cut him some slack. The kid may swim a mile on each stroke (relying on leg strength obviously), hike 5 miles navigating through The Crucible in the dark, know 500 wild plants an animals, can recite The Constitution verbatim, etc ... But if he is not busting hump every day for a month to pull his chin over a bar one extra heave, he's not a Tenderfoot yet. If he has put in 30 days straight with no improvement, then chances are there is some physical impairment. Help him overcome his pride get him to a doc or physical therapist to figure out what's going on in his body and get a waiver for the requirement. How is this complicated? P.S. - I sure do hope the other scouts in the troop would encourage that boy in every way they could think of. They need to learn that not everything comes "easy" for everyone.

"... to keep myself physically fit ..." We could see this discipline as a way of offering a boy an opportunity to work on part of the scout oath because the poor lad was having trouble with "mentally awake" or "morally straight." Heck, we could say forcing boys to sit and listen for one more hour (without electronics ) at the end of a school day is the true hazing, and granting an ADD kid the opportunity to knock off a few reps that he should be doing in terms of personal fitness anyway is a recognition of the boys needs. Like I said, not something we do in our troop for a kid talking out of line. For one thing, whatever the boy missed while running would have to be repeated. But, if your boys are comfortable with it and you're positive and encouraging regardless, I don't see the harm. I do see this fitting the style of a young SM more-so than an older one. (For me, I'd be really nervous if something slipped and it was me who had to drop and give 20 in front of the boys.)

No. A "do we need to discuss this with your parents?" has been good enough for most purposes.

I would have no problem with my venturers learning the patrol method. I could see a break-out session for crews to consider how the position descriptions would translate into the Venturing leadership structure. Neutral language painted with broad strokes requires a lot more maturity to process. Of course, we've underestimated our boys before...

Instead of skuttling a trip, have a backup menu in case the boys plan poorly. Liver an onions works best but is hard to keep. Dried soups or canned stew is always a good stand-by. Otherwise, remember those times 8 years ago when you and your buds might have driven Dad nuts? Payback has come early to you, my friend. Leverage your connections with OA and other scouters. Go to as many district roundtables as you can. If you have the time, join a crew or young adult group so you have a chance to relieve some stress. Get fed, so you can feed.

Is their really a physical barrier? If I were Kudu, I would say that placing the adult campsite 300' away should be sufficient. Any scout that wants to walk that distance should get the respect of being welcome by the adults. This may be your battle to pick. Get feedback from the boys (not just your son). Frankly, a cluster of adults by any other name is a committee. If they don't like the "C" word, call them the "Old Fart's Patrol" and declare that the SPL's expecting a song and a skit from each patrol (including OFP) at evening campfire. Also ask the OFP that you will to divide up responsibilities into "Parent Relations" and "Youth Relations". Whoever thinks they are better at one vs. the other can choose the appropriate patch.

Your scout executive or president of council are probably your best contact. However, if the charter org favors your cub master, council is likely to uphold his position. I can't see anyone higher up doing you any favors. BSA doesn't own any counties, so if y'all want to go fishing at the local watering hole, or go play in the park, they can't stop you. Your boys might miss a camporee or such (kinda dumb IMHO, that's $ that a council is not getting) but in my opinion you have no excuse for not offering the boys a great time with or without your council's approval. How does your new Cubmaster feel about things?

Because this is a camp counselor we're talking about, there's no way of telling how literally he'll take the requirement. Your son may get some minimally supervised 16 year old who couldn't tell NA tribes from Klingon. Or, he may get a detail oriented anthropology major on summer break. Sometimes a dad who is who is a MBC will volunteer to counsel so the staff can be free to emphasize other classes. I suggest you do put it to your son. Read him the req. and ask him if his family tribe would qualify. He might have to go to the library just to learn that one fact. Let him decide if he would rather touch base with a tribe in his vicinity. Support him as best you can. In the process, you will start him on his his own journey propelled by his own ethical fortitude. P.S. a hand-written report in a composition book is fine for a boy this age. The goal is to grasp content. There are no extra points for style.

I'm having similar issues. My approach is to work along the lines of #3. (Can't do much about #1 and #2.) Although "making" them do anything is useless. "Encouraging" is. I think PL's need to be able to "talk smack": Brag about their success in their patrol in a formal setting (e.g., during roll-call).

'fish. Yours and my troops are victims of week #1. Full of glitches. On the flip side, the staff is fresh and full of enthusiasm. First, I have real issues with Robotics at summer camp in general. Second, this camp was clearly not prepared to offer the badge. Staff should be able to apologetically drop a course from the schedule rather than put on that they can offer it in a timely fashion. The best remedy for this is trustworthy scouts, abandoning FCFY, and not making Eagle so important that one feels the need to violate the Scout Law to obtain it!

Do you also have a by-law about the menu that a boy may prepare for his patrol cooking requirement?

Love the canvas shorts. I haven't found much of a need for BSA trousers of any variety. Any conditions which I would feel the need to use them, I would toss on a pair of jeans or pull rain/snow pants over the shorts.

E92, the AD was a really good sport with me. I offered to bring my chrome whistle on it's bright orange lanyard down to guard duty so he could yell at me and "put me in my place" in front of the other staff. I was his only student last week, and we had a lot of inconveniently timed thunder. So we could go over this stuff in depth. But that topic probably added a half hour of discussion on something that may do little to forestall death.

Not a fan of the supplex green shirts. I will do my best to avoid buying them. Only a few youth in our crew need them (for performing council duties). So they just hand down cotton shirts. The guys found them uncomfortable. The girls noticed that the fleur-de-lis was not stamped on the buttons. I don't know what I'll do if our crew decides to adopt the national uniform. But I don't see that happening.

FWIW, we had extra oil, so one patrol of boys asked about deep-frying the potatoes on steak night last week. Although this was a drastic deviation from the menu that the commissary sent, I gave them some pointers. They then experimented with different cuts (started trying chips then settled on fries). The other patrol caught wind and made up some pancake batter to deep-fry onion rings. It wasn't a contest, but they went around to the adults (who were waiting patiently to be invited for dinner) offering samples. The chocolate chip cookies seemed to be a special favorite for the frier. (I passed on those. These old arteries have limits!)

So, 2C was feeling the Rip Van-Winkle effect when taking CPR instruction. Well, when I was re-certifying BSA gaurd, I was nonplussed by the official answer to the following question: "How many whistles should be used for guarding an aquatics area?" According to National Camp School. It's not one for every guard: "a ... shiny brass whistle ... serves more for exhibitionism than for discipline. ... A bell or horn is more sanitary than a whistle for buddy checks." They suggest only one or two whistles be used with discretion by aquatics supervisors. My objections: First of all, most guards prefer plastic Fox 40's so the "shiny brass" argument is outdated. The whole "exhibitionism" speech sounds like it was written by someone who got whistled at a lot. We're worrying about whistle sanitation? Really? What are guards supposed to twirl? (I tried a float tube. It's a little clumsy, but might work.) That said, our Aquatics staff seemed to manage well by just yelling at undisciplined boys in a timely fashion. But, ours was not a particularly crowded week. I ran the policy by a senior scouter, and he replied "sounds like someone was over-thinking an issue."

NYLT was not marketed to venturers in my council. It's never been a focus of mine since it conflicts with our troop's summer-camp week, but I also have not had youth clamoring for lots of leadership development. It's hard enough to get them to ILSC. They just want to go hiking and camping! In general I would suspect that the crews who would bite on NYLT would be ones that also want to attend Jambo! They probably also have some superactivity planned this summer, so there wouldn't be much fat in the budget for NYLT. It would be nice to hear from some venturers (or their advisors) about any experiences they've had with NYLT.

Coming in late to this conversation because I was with our boys having a riotous time at summer camp. Regarding Horizon's comments about BSA being shut out of the market of "Top academic kids" "Top athletes", etc ... I'd like to point out that son #1 was in the top 10 of his class and earned 4 varsity letters (and a girlfriend) before earning Eagle. Several of his classmates were scouts/venturers and equally high achievers. True, he never made it to Philmont, but so far neither have I. Our troop now has more tech-school students among it's senior membership, but they are really good friends for son #2 and it's true they have more time for scouting, but scheduling around them is equally challenging. In other words, scouting is good for everyone, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time with it. Finally, I agree with Barry that units need to think of visibility in their community. We could spout "youth-led," "adult trained," "#eagles," etc ... But folks (parents especially) need to see that their boys will be doing important stuff if they stick with scouting.

2C, Thanks for bringing up the topic. I need to recert my 1st Aid and CPR to complete my BSA Guard recert, so E92's details are very helpful. I now know what to look for. Question: how much beyond BLS are the wi Depress first aid courses?

I figure the rules are based on the trouble a particular group of boys have gotten into. If a troop has spent the past year bandaging cut thumbs, etc ...they'll do something to get everyone on the same page. Theat my mean restricting knife use until trained. Even then a boy may be allowed to carry his knife, just not use it until he gets his card. If the tro hasn't had problems (probably because the go over safety often), then they might not even bother with the cards.

Scout son #2 says: "Pointless. Utterly ridiculous. So we need a green card for the Internet now?" Fore me, anything that perpetuates the EDGE delusion is not worth my time. Although a venturing level pledge that involves responding promptly to advisor's Email would come in handy if it works better than that Silver-Ring thing!

So is national gonna pay for the broken wind shield???? Whatever is not covered by insurance. It's an accident during a scouting activity, so maybe it would be worth the paper push. It can't hurt to try. Anyway get your scout exec on the line. Probably should have been your first move.