SagerScout

OGE -

Gosh, I did NOT mean to denigrate anyone and I'm certainly sorry that you saw it that way. Of course we all have challenges with our troops and of course I respect all of those who serve youth in Scouting. I did not mean that as any kind of a cut at all to anyone. Perhaps I was just trying to give myself a pep talk. I apologize completely and abjectly to anyone who was offended.

This time I have to say that I still don't exactly see how you got this interpretation from what I wrote; but I'm awful sorry if anyone took offense as absolutely none was intended.

NJ - I absolutely agree that the lost records reflect a careless SM. I am one of the most paperwork impaired people on the planet, havign personally managed to lose several months worth of business bank statements right before tax season. My CPA is having kittens.

The goal of the specific instruction is to help people like me. The congenitally organized don't need it anyway. Those who have figured out a personal system don't need it - you, for example. Sounds like you worked out something that works for yourself - ONE box to rummage through. Fine. But the 10 minutes that was spent telling me to Get a Notebook and Keep it with you have saved me immense trouble. I hate to admit that I would probably not have figured that out independently for quite a while. It took me close to a year to catch on to making the girls a folder file for their personal information distribution. I'm just paperwork impaired, and I've had to learn to love myself anyway.

Your disastrously disorganized cubmaster MAY have benefitted (perhaps...) from someone stating the obvious: Hey, guys, the paperwork will drown you if you don't keep it under control.... Get a file box with a handle to take to meetings and NEVER put anything Scouting related anywhere else....

I don't propose taking a lot of time for this, I just think it might help some folks. Troop Committee or not, the SM still gets handed a lot of stuff and if he doesn't lateral it off immediately things can get lost.

Yes, I would wish that most scouts would get 20 nights in a year but since our troop has a high percentage of scouts that are restricted from outdoor activities for health reasons in spring and fall, some of them may not. For quite a while my family was used to my son's annual hospital stay in March/April, and another in September, and then we had the traditional Thanksgiving Turkey served with care by a hospital volunteer.... other kids in my troop are somewhat more severely affected by their asthma. They've been to asthma camp 3 times but there are no tents there.

oops, sorry about the link, let me try again:

http://borntoexplore.org/plab/plab.htm

Copied and pasted it that time, that should do it.

BTGTTS. One son is ADHD, the other a different focussing problem. AT one point I had 3 in my girl scout troop at once.

See http://www.borntoexplore.org/plab/plab.html for a different take on his "problem." Or ask Google for ADHD and Project Lab, you'll find it.

You wrote: "I don't want to prevent him from being part of our unit, but I don't really know how to control him."

BRAVO! for not wanting to just boot him out. All too many would, to the detriment of both the child and the troop. The second part of your sentence explains to me both what your difficulty is and allows me to offer a suggested approach as to how to address it.

The GOAL, I think is not for YOU to control him but for him to learn how to control HIMSELF. Do you agree with this? If yes, here's how:

1) Accept what is. You already know the most important thing: he's not a bad kid. He doesn't mean to be this way, he just IS. ADHD is a gift in certain settings but often those who have it would rather not, especially if they are trapped in school where it is a horrible liability causing them to have failure experiences virtually every day - even those that are controlled enough to do pretty well get in trouble constantly.

2) The stakes are high. If we as a society lose them, these kids can rebel in fast cars, fast women, run aways, drugs and alcohol. At 12, your scout is right at the decision point - good company or bad? Let's help him and his family go the right way!

3) If you try to apply external control to a "normal" adolescent, he'll fight you, but eventually settle down, usually. With an ADHD adolescent, efforts to apply external control ("Boy, you'll do what I say because I'm bigger and I said so...") will set up a fight that literally can be to the death. Their death.

There is a better way, and it does not involve the destruction of your sanity, his sanity, or the troop. Here it is:

a) Become his ally in in his fight to control himself. In a private consultation (don't forget YPP of course) tell him you understand how hard it is for him to wait, be still, not talk out of turn. Talk to him about how HE thinks the other kids see him. You'll probably find out he knows that they are aggravated with him. Tell him you are here to help him know when he's getting out of hand, so that the other kids will like him better.

b) Set up a private code by which you can signal him -without advertising to the rest of the troop - that he's getting annoying and needs to review his behavior. One word for "hey, you're getting a little out of hand, calm down..." and one for "WAY out of line, you better do some apologizing to someone" but just single words, quietly delivered. Tell him that if he ever doesn't understand why you signaled him he can ask for a private explanation.

c) If he gets past your second word for annoying, he automatically leaves the meeting and goes to another safe place, within your sight. But NOT in a punishment mode - rather, like this: "Karl, you're really having trouble focussing right now, it's time for you to go blow off some steam so you can get back to what we're doing." QUIETLY, do not focus attention on him, that's like putting out a fire with gasoline.

If your meeting place has a completely empty room or yard, that would be perfect. Suggest pushups, situps, lap-running, yoga breathing exercises, or journaling but do not require any of them. Just tell him that when he's ready to come back to the group you'll be happy to have him back. And watch him out of the corner of your eye.

I have to say it again: DO NOT MAKE THIS PUNISHMENT! Punishment sets up a power struggle, the SM vs the Scout situation. The end result will be that at his decision point he may go to the group where he feels accepted without censure - and that will NOT be the group you want this kid to run with!

What you are working toward is a working arrangement in which you are going to help him be a success in his scouting activities. If he feels understood and liked, he will be able to tolerate quite a bit of your assistance in learning to control himself.

d) Physical exercise is this kid's best friend. WEAR HIM OUT! If he doesn't HAVE to take his medication on weekends, try him without it at camp but add about 3 miles to his schedule. You might be surprised to find that this balances out nicely and lets him get to sleep at a reasonable time. ADD medication is speed, basically, so don't be surprised when the kid can't go to sleep on time. If he can't focus in a meeting, have him run laps around the building until he's ready to sit down. Not punishment, remember, just help settling down. Also, consider that he may work better standing up or sprawled on the floor. Often it takes about 80% of an ADHD kid's brain to sit still at a table. Doesn't leave much for the MB work!

e) Don't let him get too hungry or sleepy. You will not like the result. Assuming he's basically healthy, a high-protein/low sugar diet will most likely help a lot. Similar snacks are a must - mid-afternoon cookies at camp and you might as well just sell tickets to the fights you'll have trying to get him to help make dinner. I keep small protein bars handy to prevent melt-downs.

f) He might do better working on two things at once, let him try and see if it helps.

My own children sleep well after Sleepytime tea with Splenda (sweetener). No sugar, no cocoa.

BRAVO again for wanting to help this kid. Please go read about Project Lab, it will give you a whole different perspective about your scout and how to handle him.

Thanks for your input, I guess I now need to make some time to go back and try that training again and see if anything improved. Sigh. It wasn't that long ago that I took the "old" training. Oh well. As I said I had lots of fun anyway, it wasn't total torture. Ok, some of it was but just because when I'm in the learning mode I want something in front of me to learn. There was quite a bit of jawing without much content, as I recall. But I was in good company and as I said the food was great.

Here's another issue that may be of general interest to the board: I'm finding it difficult to get the training I need from my local council at the time I need it. For instance, our troop needs Safety Afloat training but it isn't scheduled at this time and no one offers any idea of when it might be scheduled. My son would like to go to Cedar Badge but it was full as of 4 months before the course date, and it's only offered once a year. So any Junior Leader Training for our troop is going to have to come from me and the SM. Fine, but remember we're the ones who didn't get good training ourselves. The blind leading the blind. Except I can at least perceive light and dark, but not any thanks to the BSA training - it's because of Girl Scouting (I'm an apprentice trainer for them, although they also have significant curriculum deficiencies so I'm not holding them up as perfect) and also my work experiences.

The training schedule or lack of one makes it especially difficult to establish a new troop.

PS: Bob, I believe you may have misread the concern. My understanding is that they are saying that every part of every requirement, including 20 nights of camping, must be done AFTER the blue card. Therefore, for instance, if a boy goes to summer camp or any troop campouts BEFORE filling out the blue card, those nights won't count.

I'm personally backing the poster who says it's ok to count the total nights as long as the preparation requirements are done AFTER the blue card...but honestly it doesn't seem to meet what I was told in training.

If the SM can't find a counselor early in the Scouts career for this badge that might take 2 years to earn, it seems as if you are penalizing the boy for doing scouting anyway.

Thanks for your question - I just want to say I had the same question! My son has been a Scout off and on for 3 years, and since he likes camping and we do family camping as well he's easily met that 20 night requirement already - but we've been waiting for a merit badge couselor list promised by our council for TWO YEARS (no exaggeration!) and so technically he hasn't even started the merit badge. I just signed up to counsel it and plan to encourage all the new boys in our troop to start work on it immediately or soon at least to avoid them suffering this problem. But it would have been nice to have someone point this requirement out fairly early in the game.

And another thing:

Something else I feel they should have covered better in training: how to organize yourself as a SM so that advancements and merit badges don't get lost in the shuffle. Hasn't happened to me, yet, but the biggest reason that the SPL mentioned above is still a Star scout is that his former Scoutmaster took all copies of his blue cards for two completed Eagle-required badges - and lost them, along with some for his two brothers as well. Yes, the scouts should have kept a copy and I'm sure it will never happen to them again. But that's really not an excuse for the SM losing items representing so much labor for these kids. Those two badges should be all that stand between him and Life Scout Status, because I can't see anyone in our troop having any problem signing off on THIS kids' Scout Spirit and leadership items.

Don't know about BSA curriculum - I recall nothing at all presented about the details of recordkeeping in my class - but in the GS Leadership Mod 1, the obvious is stated: Get a notebook, put THESE ITEMS in it. Organize it THIS WAY, or another way if it suits you better. Put a zipper pocket in it for things you really don't want to lose. Yes, you'd like to think that grown women and men could figure this out but experience shows that you'd be wrong in many cases.

This is a new thread spurred by the discussion elsewhere in which WoodBadgeEagle was trying to figure out something that perhaps should have been covered in training.

I have taken Scoutmaster Fundamentals, which as I recall was a full classroom Saturday followed by an evening session and an overnighter. Had a great time. Nothing like camping out, eating a delicious foil-packet meal,and finishing a day with Dutch oven cobbler. One of the Eagle scouts in my patrol successfully taught me how to tie a bowline, not a mean accomplishment for either of us. But...

What else did I learn?

I got the whole boy-led thing. All good there. Some basic scout skills were taught. That was fun, although mostly a review except for the bowline (I'm knot-impaired).

What confused me was how on earth a teen boy could possibly invent a meeting structure and meeting activities that would make for mostly interesting meetings. I knew it wasn't happening in the troop my son was in - that's why I was in training in the first place. As a corporate trainer, one of my Top 10 hits was a session on "Running Effective Meetings," so I had some background. Number one in running a meeting is to have a goal and a plan - and this was almost always lacking in the troop meetings we attended.

As an GS leader (Brownie and young- Jr. at the time), I was familiar with the process of establishing an outline for a program. And I knew that it wasn't something that everyone can "just do" as I have helped other leaders figure it out. ADULT leaders....

I was trying to pay close attention in my training - and I was an honor student in college - but if they presented the resource "Troop Program Features," I missed it entirely. IMO, this tool makes boy-led success far more likely. Our SPL - a 16 year old Star scout saw the value in it immediately and was thrilled to have it. After several months of doing program planning "from scratch" with his PLs he was worn out, although he has done a great job. He has bags of 4H leadership experience and a total of about 12 months of PL experience in different troops, so he's got a good grip on what's needed to make things go. Most kids don't.

I just looked over the junior leader training curriculum and I think I see some of the same deficiencies that I saw in my SMFun class. It seems to me we want to do fun team-building exercises with our junior leaders but not give them the nuts and bolts of what's available to them to help with their program. I'm no opponent of team-building, I've taught many sessions myself, and I love watching a group problem-solving team come together. But don't make the meetings, where the rubber really meets the road as far as retention goes, harder than they have to be!

I must chime in my admiration for WoodBadgeEagle for correctly (IMHO) identifying a "root cause" for a great number of problems: not simply lack of training, it's easy to beat up on adults who refuse to go to the training. The next question is, once they GET there, do they learn the program or not? Is the training turning out SMs and ASMs that can deliver the promise? I think that the existence of tremendous numbers of posts in many threads on this board that are about very basic Scouting issues like "Whose troop is this anyway?" leads me to suspect that this is not the case in many areas. And remember, the ones who are here are the ones who care enough to read and learn! (and have the time and computer resources to get here...) Imagine the rest of the crowd!

I'm going to start a new thread for my rant about the glaring omissions I saw in my training....

Thanks, NJ, for focussing on my real point rather than my foolish sniping. I'll repeat it for those who were distracted in my earlier post. In my experience, Girl Scouts USA is an organization that is truly committed to teaching living skills in a diverse community, and to that end tries very hard to protect the parental right to instruct their children as the family wishes. In my area, there are individual troops that are exclusively one faith or another, and in these troops the practices of that faith are followed. In other troops, such as my own, I welcome all girls and thus have an obligation to be aware of and sensitive to their individual needs. So I have 7 different religions represented in 8 girls, ability levels from extremely gifted to technically retarded (don't tell her, she doesn't know she has limits yet!), and income levels from pretty darn comfortable to food stamps and needs-a-campership. My troop has suffered a high turnover rate, not so much because they don't like us but because we're in a neighborhood where people move a lot - some military, some not. Plus, in several cases I've lost scouts due to family disintegrations.

Yes, it's much harder as a leader to manage than a nice stable little troop of bright, homogeneous middle class kids from two-parent families and all one religion, but often the difficult tasks are the most rewarding.

However, be careful what you wish for. In the BS troop we just had a first visit from a new boy that appears to be quite severely emotionally impaired and that's going to be a whole new challenge... of course, my own son is also technically in this category so you'd think I'd feel more confident...but you'd be wrong. There's always something to keep us on our toes.

You folks are right. My snippy, catty comment was out of line and off-topic to boot. It was a reaction to my feeling defensive in this forum, where I fear gay friends would not be welcomed. Please forgive me.

An interesting thought, and I agree very appropriate with a mixed-faith adult group - but where children are involved, with the inherent UNbalance of power, it still seems that the fact that I am Christian and they are not could set up a conflict in the child. I like to think that they look up to me, and I don't want to be perceived as advocating, however subtly, that the faith in which their parents are raising them is wrong. Even if I happen to think it is!

And returning (sort of) to the origin of the GSUSA stance, which may appear to seem wishy-washy to some of you:

They FIRMLY believe that PARENTS are the right individuals to establish religious faith and beliefs for their own families.

Therefore, Girl Scout troops go to great lengths to be respectful of the different beliefs within the troop. Now, if a troop happens to be sponsored by an individual church, as many troops in my neighborhood are, and all members of the troop are Catholic (or fill in the blank ______ ) there is NOTHING to prevent that troop leader from using hymns, prayers and religious observances common to that faith. Many girls earn religious recognitions, attend services and do other very Church-like things within their troops in this situation.

If, however, a troop has a mixture of girls of different faiths - OH, and I'm not talking mixing a few Methodists in with the non-denominational Christians... I'm talking Christian, Muslim and Jewish all together now - THAT troop leader (me, for instance) would have to be an insensitive clod to end a troop prayer with "In Jesus Name We Pray" no matter how trippingly the phrase comes to my lips as a card-carrying UMC member. The girls in my troop, BTW, can still earn religious recognitions but they have to do it outside of troop activities because, well, I don't have time to chase down all those different materials and I'm not qualified to counsel any faith but my own.

So, it's true that we don't talk a lot about the Risen Christ in my troop, which I realize may cause some of you to feel I'm not a good Christian. Please forgive me. But the parents of the other girls in my troop have a right to NOT have their kid's faith questioned and potentially made into a dividing issue within the troop.

BTW, I have noticed no deficiencies in moral character in the Muslim or Jewish girls in my troop whatsoever. When they are adults and we no longer have a GS leader/troop member relationship, I will be delighted to witness my faith to them. Until then, I will can it just as I have to can my feelings about certain BSA policies.

If you want to be sure that your daughters have a Scout-type experience and are only exposed to your own religious beliefs, it looks like AHG or Awana or some other church-based group would be the logical and responsible parenting choice for you. Alternately, you can volunteer as a GS leader and build a troop solely from the girls in your home church, and keep them all safe from outside influences that way. I'm OK with you making those choices for your daughters - they are your children after all.

However, if you welcome the idea of your daughter getting to know girls that are different from themselves, including being of a different race, religion, physically or mentally disabled, and probably of different economic circumstances, IMHO an open-door, all-girls-welcome GSUSA troop is a good place to do that. Nothing says you can't take them to church youth group too.

Julia

(PS ... Oh, if the start of this thread was because some of you have heard rumors about GSUSA being a giant lesbian-loving organization that exists solely to promote the gay lifestyle - please learn some critical analysis skills to apply to what you read on the web. I've never seen anything remotely like that in an active 4 years in Girl Scouting. I think - but am not at all sure - that I MAY know a lesbian GS leader, but short of following her home and peeking in her windows I don't know how I'd find out for sure. I believe her troop is perfectly safe with her and would send my own daughter anywhere with her on Scouting business. Of course, GS are even more strict about 2-deep leadership than BS. Just because we don't beat lesbians up and hang them on fences does NOT mean that we are supporting child abuse. )

I don't know about Boy Scouts, other than knowing that the age-out limit can be raised (suspended?) for developmentally disabled. I do know the Girl Scout way. The policy in Girl Scouts is to enroll developmentally disabled at their "Age Level" which means that adults enroll as adults. We have one in our service unit who acts as a "scouter" (not really a GS term), in a teamwork situation with non-disabled volunteers.

The downside is that recognitions are few and far between for adult girl scouts, so if you're looking at the benefit of earning recognitions, well, it just ain't there for the grown-ups.

Oh, and about the scout requirements... I am sort of in the middle on those - I think it IS appropriate for the troop guide, ASM, or SPL to point out "hey guys, if you haven't made tenderfoot yet this campout would be a chance to get some of these requirements met...anyone want to show me anything?" As Bob White said, catch them doing something right....

Sctmom - I know that your son's elementary school is probably doing their level best to train you to be responsible for his work. Don't you just enjoy getting those phone calls about the missing assignments, with the implied message "What are you going to do about it?"

I suggest that you resist the pressure and inform all involved, including your son, that you already did elementary school once and you are not going to do it again. Tell your son that he is responsible for developing some kind of system for keeping up with his work. I'm sure they've introduced agenda books and all that at school, and if he's a typical somewhat ADHD boy they may as well have been whistling in the wind. He'll have to develop his own system, externally applied systems almost never work.

Then you have the hardest job in the world - you have to allow him to fail. You will probably not have to punish him further for failing, he'll feel badly enough. Offer empathy - "wow, too bad. Gee. You must feel terrible." Then encourage him to figure out a way he can succeed the next time. If part of his answer is to make YOUR responsible again (Mom, I need you to remind me to take my homework every day, say NO, and ask him how he could remember it himself. Don't tell him how to solve it until he's given you three bad ideas, and maybe tried them all out. If he really can't think of a workable solution, give him two silly or lousy ideas and then follow with "some kids do it this way..." And ask if he thinks it will work? Make it HIS idea.

Iterate as needed.

His path might not be through the valedictorian office, but with your love and encouragement, he'll find a way. It will be HIS way, and HE will build his self-esteem in finding it.

I absolutely believe that lack of parental support is behind many boys leaving scouts. If Scout Parent sighs and rolls his or her eyes, and grudgingly gets up from the video soporific of the night to drive the kid to scouts, barely slows the car down to let him out (tuck and roll, kid!), never asks about his advancements, whines about the cost of the uniform and camp and having to sell popcorn - it's gonna take a pretty sturdy 12-year old to buck that kind of message. The same parent might willingly pay for a video game system that costs as much as an entire YEAR of scouting activities... because it keeps Son in his room and out of their hair.

Then the parents gather and say "I just don't know what's wrong with little Johnie. He's hanging with the wrong crowd and we don't know what to do with him...and he just stays in his room all the time."

OK, all you scouters that are so dragged-down by high-school age boys that act like wearing the uniform is like putting on prison garb .... we just gave our king-sized scout his new shirt at the last meeting. He put it on, slowly, hesitantly, a little afraid - and began to button it. As it became clear that he WOULD be able to button it and there was plenty of room (if anything, it's a little big), his face lit up with a blinding smile as he said "Wow! It fits! I can march in the parade now, and look like a REAL SCOUT! Thanks a million!"

Being able to wear what the other boys wear means a lot more to some kids than others....

Thanks to all that chipped in suggestions.

YIS

Julia

Our Quartermaster (12) was assigned the buying food duty for an upcoming event. His mother said "OK, I can do that." I told her that it wasn't HER job, it was HIS job. She had trouble grasping that her 12-year old could in fact shop for groceries. I'm hoping she lets him at least put them in the cart.

Julia

One possibility would be to hand them a collage of different things they CAN do as an idea starter, or a scrapbook of articles from Scouter.

When I was trying to get young Girl Scouts to do planning, I'd offer five or six choices and allow priority voting (each girl gets 6 votes, she can put up to 3 on any one item.) As they got older, they got used to the concept and did their own brainstorming for choices.

Also, structured brainstorming is much more effective and productive than free-wheeling brainstorming where everyone shouts out their ideas. In structured brainstorming, you give everyone a minute to write on their scratch paper as many ideas as they can think of, without any criticism or thought for practicality. Then the leader goes around the room and asks each in turn for ONE idea from the list, and the scribe writes it on the board. You tell them if they think of something new when it is not their turn they write it on their scratch paper; if someone says something they listed, they just cross it off their paper. The one-at-a time method ensures that your loud scouts do not get more of a say than your quieter boys -one of whom might have had that great idea you were looking for but was too shy to mention it.

During the list-making process NO ONE says "no" at all - write everything up there, including all the stuff you know they can't do or the truly absurd. Do not allow any criticism at this point. Once there are absolutely no new ideas coming up - and the leader has asked all the way around the table, one person at a time - THEN you let the BOYS look up the BSA rules to cross out the ones that they can't do (you might speak up if they miss something). Then have them discuss and eliminate those they really don't want to do, and see what's left. Priority voting is a good way to make the final cut.

This way, you're not even in the discussion at all. You just have to teach two boys how to lead the session - one to talk, one to write on the board or flipchart or whatever you have.

It is important that the list under development be visible to all as it will stimulate ideas. If the same thing gets said twice, put an asterick by it so the boy that said it the second time still feels heard and not foolish.

In my experience, a small group can come up with 10-15 uses for a coat-hanger in free-for-all brainstorming. The SAME group will easily generate 30-40 in structured brainstorming. It really works.

Told you we GS leaders like to sit in the corner and knit.

Julia

The current SPL, while doing a dandy job IMHO, is getting a little worn out by the responsibility and is ready to hand it off to someone else at least for a while. The only choices are his two brothers or my son. I can reasonably anticipate difficulties with any of these. However, I do agree with BW that it's better to stick to the plan and have elections.

We have a strong likelihood of ending up with inexperienced scouts in the PL spots. That's the reason I started this thread in the first place, so I could help them as much as possible...

We haven't identified a candidate group of Webelos yet, one of the downsides of being a brand new troop with no pack to feed into us yet. But we are definitely looking!

Julia

I like the idea of emphasizing den chiefs more, but in my area it's hard to find a den to welcome a chief. My son got his training a couple months ago and would really like to be a den chief, he used to be a teacher's aide in a special ed class and liked working with younger kids. But I can't find a den that wants him (and no one has even met him so I know it's not personal). I know it is late in the year but still, a willing volunteer with no place to go is kinda sad.

Julia

Oh, I like that idea! We'll start work on that poster collection right away - if I can get them to go at all!