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We have a kid with Asbergers (similar to Skip's). I also had an autistic kid in Sunday School class -- it's a miracle the young man (now in his 20s) can stand our rather noisy church. Yes, everyone has to adjust. But, you all have a right to expect good behavior. By now you understand that by definition, the disorder amplifies everything -- literally. Where your brain circuits will actually dampen the nerves that fire in response to any stimulus that comes along, an autistic kid's brain just keeps 'em cranking. So, "overreaction" is par for the course. You also have to explain t

Nothing that can keep you from doing it. Failure depends on your metric: If success to you means always having at least 6 from a patrol on any outing, then obviously 12 minimizes the risk of that kind of failure. If success means your PL can relay a message to every boy in his patrol within 1/2 hour, then 12 increases the risk of that kind of failure. Think of it this way: 12-24 is size of our venturing crew, and my officers are hard-put to keep their fellow youth engaged in the program. Sixteen year-olds have lots of communication tools at their disposal, but they have barely lea

I agree with BP. Adults will make a difference, so lean on your committee members. You may have to do that resource survey all over again. I personally am having a rough time with my new crew officers (elected 7 months ago). They're good kids, but haven't gotten their heads around the fact that they need training and help. Above all, they need to make each other a priority. If I were to do things differently this year, I would have called each of the officer's parents and let them know how grateful I am that their son/daughter stepped forward, and they should be proud that their

Sounds like a great idea. To ramp it up (make it more fun, not more strenuous, for the boy) ... Pre-arrange a "dead-drop" at some point (maybe two miles into the hike). Have him find a good spot slightly off the trail for a snack, bear-bag the snack, and mark the location (the "drop zone") on the on a copy of the map. (If your hikers are Jr. Military types, you could put the lat/long in code or puzzle.) Hussle back and put the map in the dead-drop. Include a note indicating that the "enemy" is closing in on the drop, and if they do not arrive at the primary zone by __:__ hours, the p

Two words: adult volunteers. Just like my three word answer for why there aren't more venturing crews: female adult leaders. There is a difference between "pretty inexpensively" and "inexpensively". And that difference boils down to time away from that second job everyone takes on to make ends meet. For example, let's try an experiment based on TT's comment: My older son has expressed an interest in Sea Scouts but frankly I wouldn't know where to look... OK TT. How about the mirror?

I thin nolesrule nailed the true intent of the requirement. Finding a level route for the boy to ambulate under his own power would not give him the experience he needs as a PL to qualify to take his patrol hiking and camping. Having him determine the route that keeps your car's engine (or your heart) from seizing after a morning of geocaching over hill and dale, is more in line with the spirit of the requirements. As to how important it is to push the boy in getting this requirement done (besides doing what the doctor says), 5yr, you might want to consider your program over the

SP, we are just starting this strategy this year because all of the Webelos from our sister pack crossed over to a spin-off troop. A couple of our committee have taken this up on their own and have developed a presentation that focuses on our troop's activities. The two private schools in our area (one Catholic and one Protestant) have also benefited from Eagle projects of scouts in our troop, so there is a lot of goodwill there. About half of our boys (including mine) go to the local public school, which has a strong academic reputation. The youth-groups (both protestant, but pret

You'd have Venturing. Trust me, the grass ain't any greener. At least it ain't any browner.

Which reminds me, you forgot ... #7) Celibacy. Okay. I'll shut up!

Please don't limit it to #5. I can barely keep up with the one spouse I got!

What I did for one boy with a permanent disability was circle the locations of a half-dozen geocaches on a map and went with him and his dad to find them using map and compass. Dad drove, he was the navigator, I was along for the ride (and to calibrate my new GPS). He figured out where to park, and walked us (as best he could) to the spot on the map where the cache was. In the process we measured some distances and heights of things. Alternate requirements do not require council approval, and you may interpret them to the letter. So if "permanent" is not stated, you are not obligated t

Personally, I haven't met a kid who remember the beads, so less fuss more fun is the way to go. I'd suggest a short song at the den meeting, but folks might call that hazing.

This really becomes a conversation between you, the boy, and his parents. Even if this is a kid who will probably be hiking anyway in January, talk to your district advancement chair about applying alternate requirements now because of his temporary situation. Regadless of what the DAC says, what you want is to be able to tell the boy, "This is what other boys around the council in your situation have done ..." Out of respect for boys with permanent disabilities the kid might decide, "I want to do the req's for real. I'll wait. In the meantime, can you give me a blue card for First

Our troop is changing it's recruiting stragegy from focusing on the one middle school, to visiting several private schools and youth groups in a 3 mile radius. We actually have boys from school districts 10 miles away. But we don't recruit from there. They just like our program. I really would like to see the adults from that area pull together a program, but I'm afraid they don't esteem themselves highly enough.

Good 'nuff for government work. Keep in mind the further north, the closer the longitude lines will be. That "wee extra" can amount several seconds. Usually not a problem for orienteering courses. For some geocaches, 40 feet off can yield a "did not find". For settling land disputes or staying out of Iran, it won't hold up in court. If you need to ensure that level of precision, there are plastic orienteering templates for various scales (including 1:2400) that include a degree longitude conversion symbol (it look's sort of like a curved funnel) for every degree lattitude. First place

I have to sleep tonight, so there is NO WAY I'm following that link. Besides, when it comes to losers-of-bets-to-scouts these old eyes have seen too much ... But from the bottom of my heart on behalf of those boys: THANK YOU. There's one more pack who knows their CM loves them.

I have a boy with asbergers too (my son's best friend). And your right, my son would not make him sing for his stuff -- alone. But my son watches him like a hawk at camp and makes sure he tidies up. The boy has wanted to quit several times, and every time he as emphasized that it wasn't the other boys. It was primarily the bugs. He admitted he didn't like work. We told him that we weren't going to compensate for that. And sometimes he was very bitter about actions of other boys, yet he would find it in his heart to forgive them. But those bugs really annoyed him. He left summer camp m

What changed with the Imperial slave trade was Wilberforce read his Bible and did what it said. Where not some scribes meticulously transcribing their people's encounter over centuries with what seems to have been a very external yet unnervingly personal force, we may very well have been importing servants from our vanquished enemies today. Our sons would then bring their children to scout meetings to sing for unclaimed equipment! (There would probably be paperwork to file if an SM made the son of a slave owner sing for his pen-knife.) Now was Wilberforce responding to the morality

Scoutfish, those medal slides and cubs just don't mix. Have your cubs make their own slides ASPAP! (Each den could have a contest.) The easiest one in my opinion is a simple Turk's head out of leather thong. Grips, lightweight, can be made distinctive with beads and such, and cheaply replaced. Just sayin' there's nothin' in the book requiring the metal slide. And if someone tells you there is you have a right to take their uniform police card and cut it in two. Fun for every one.

OGE's hurt from the snipe hunt was not just about the deception. There was abandonment as well. And the next time the same kid pulled a simpler stunt, that abandonment comes into the equation. He couldn't get past that to see his an opportunity to meet boys from all the other units at camp. How does the "humiliation" of singing help a boy become a better scout? Well, he gets an opportunity to share in the humiliation the leaders feel when they have a site with stuff littered around. He might for the first time in his life begin to understand how bad it may make mom feel to have to cl

BP, I don't thinks it's always groups. I think some well-meaning individuals who find solace in a certain form of piety will raise concerns. Some of them, you could almost figure out their favorite radio show, but others just call things at face value and don't realize that snap judgements are often the wrong ones. Usually if you point out that ceremonies were chosen in a way not to offend Native Americans (e.g. they avoid calling on gods an actor might not believe in) they can meet you halfway. That means inviting them to observe how things are done and explaining why things are the

There's one more kind of wild, and if you have youth (or adults) with issues around partying, etc ... you will want to think long and hard about Seabase, look over their website, and call them about the options you're interested in. There are plenty of resorts, etc ..., and your time ashore depends on the adventure you choose. This is very true in the Bahamas, where each day scouts are welcome to use local facilities on each island. At one stop, my wife was amused when, while the bartender was pouring ice in my nalgene, a lady beside me turned and asked "How much do you want to forge

Ah, but TT made a practical tweak. And using the EDGE method, enabled his boys to follow it. Since that method doesn't require reading any reference, in a couple years the boys may never know their doing things differently! Regardless, you get the "super achiever" parents. Even doing it "by the book", I still hear a little of "so-and-so" needs to be APL/PL/ASPL/whatever. I'm not sure there is any good solution but to hold the boys to their decisions and work with them to smooth out the rough spots. Listen at the SM conferences for the upper ranks. Ask about the quality of your e

If you sign on as outings chair, the really cleaver thing to do is ask one of your parents "I don't think I can make the next committee meeting, would you mind going and taking notes for me? You can breif the folks planning outings when we meet for coffee next week at ..." This works well if you do have parents who can spare the time, but are afraid of taking that "leadership risk." It doesn't work so well if you have parents that are pulling double shifts just to make ends meet.

And what of that boy who left his belongings? He who has no respect for his environs, who cares little who for the goods his parents paid dearly for, who expects his fellow scouts and scouters to clean up his leavings as though they were his chaimbermaids? He has humilitated his own troop. No doubt at home he expects his mother to abase herself, and by his repeated or occasional action (or, rather, inaction) broken her to his slothfull will. It is the likes of him who make the self-appointed gaurdians of wilderness recreation areas cringe when they see a trailer with the fleur-de-lis pu