SagerScout

If and when he calls, I would sum up my recommendations to you in two words: "Convince me."

Ruddbaron - I must admit I agree with you, which is why there was no at-home punishment for Ken over this incident. Actually, to be honest, we told him he'd done rather well as he'd been trying to avoid this problem with this kid for a week or more. Our policy has always been "don't fight if you can possibly avoid it - fighting is not recreation - but if you need to protect yourself, do it." Zero-tolerance rules in Texas force the local school administrators to do stupid things rather regularly. Like suspending a teen for sharing her asthma inhaler with her asthmatic friend who wa

It didn't occur to me to ask - does your DO have legs? If not, use stones or a lid rack to keep the weight of the oven off the coals below. It tends to starve them for oxygen, and makes hot and cold spots. I also had a problem once in a park where there was a very deep ash bed in the fire ring - the oven just sank into the ashes and this smothered the coals. A flat and firm cooking surface really helps. Be careful when choosing stones, sedimentary rocks can detonate. The Dutch oven was a favorite of the western settlers in the US as it allowed cooking with so little wood - and

I sense a set-up.

Off the tracking database thread, but ON the kicking off a new year thread - Went to roundtable last night and my son (15) volunteered to help 3 local cubmasters do their "boy talks" at the local elementary schools. We have good support in our school district and the elementary classes usually allow a 5-minute presentation to support the cub roundup. One of the benefits of being homeschoolers is that we can help during the day when the public school kids are tied up, so the homeschooled kids in our troop try to volunteer for that kinda stuff. I figure that it's a great educational

And to return this thread to it's origin - yes, children are not sitting animals. And yes, many ADD kids do quite well in classrooms such as you describe. Maria Montessorri wrote the definitive works on this about a hundred years ago and there have not been significant improvements to her plans since. With a well-trained Montessorri teacher around, children learn at a prodigious rate. Do not confuse "open" classrooms for Montessorri, they are not necessarily the same. For one thing, Montessorri materials are not brightly colored and do not feature attention-getting graphics. She believed t

Gotta go with you on those kind of field trips - Great America? Sheesh. In our town the kids go on REAL field trips ,like to the Institute of Texan Cultures and the Witte museum. Cool places. The one I remember most from my own childhood was the Decker meat plant - wouldn't eat hot dogs for a year....and the bakery. Jr. High and high school offered band trips, but they were mostly weekends. On the demise of "traditional teaching methods" - this parallels the demise of the traditional student. That is, a child raised in a home where a nutritious breakfast was always served before

My "den leader" type experience was actually GS Troop Leader, but I thought I'd share some things our service unit director (similar to pack leader role) did that were very helpful: I don't know how many of these will apply. Our SU had 51 troops, about 300 girls registered, and the SUD is responsible for knowing where everyone is going as far as field trips or campouts. If any of these are adaptable to your situation, steal away; if not, sorry to waste your time... 1) Gave us all her email address and answered questions promptly 2) Kept a box on her front porch for GS "mail" - we coul

FOG - not to be tactless, but yes, I think you must be strange. I most definitely remember field trips and special projects much better than my arithmetic facts. Actually, arithmetic facts are a persistent pain in the tush to me - even now I have to stop and think about them, they never did get to the automatic stage for me - but it didn't stop me from getting a degree in Chemistry (with a minor in mathematics. The worksheet mentality is rampant, and for good reason - they are easily measurable, and keep the kids quiet. And for the 25% of the class that is EXACTLY at the level of the sh

Some kids need to be in an empty room to listen to someone. Some have to move to listen; others have to sit still to focus; I used to put my ADD son in the lotus position and have him clear his mental chalkboard, then have him "write" his spelling words on it and read them back to me. Or sometimes he'd be in a headstand. Physical challenge helped mental discipline for him. Whatever works. The "enriched" environment offered by a good teacher - pictures and posters on the wall, books all around, hamster on the shelf - for some children is far more compelling than anything she has to say. T

OK, I just wanted to pitch in this tidbit: Once you get that nasty mess out of the oven, however you do it, the key to not repeating the problem is entirely in temperature control. I had about half-an-inch of "sticky buns" scorched into mine, and it took me all day to get it out using the stove- boil water-scrape and dump-repeat. It took about 10 times. I scraped with a spatula. It sounds worse than it was, though, ,because each scrubbing is only a few minutes, don't beat yourself up when you get to the part that doesn't come off, you just put water in it and put it back on the stove.

1) I agree with the committee recommendation for the MB work - although 2) IMHO you can't call that punishment at all, it is an opportunity. 3) I totally agree with Eagledad that this is an adult problem - does this father not see anything wrong with his son's behavior? HE needs scout training, and fast, and it needs to be put to him rather bluntly, something like this: IN SCOUTING, we hold the boys responsible for their behavior. If you want your son to be constantly supervised to keep him from doing idiotic things that any 7-year old knows not to do - he needs to be removed f

In my area there is a chain of stores called the Dollar Tree. Everything is $1. Some items are worth less, some more, you need to know which are which. My camping-useful Dollar Tree acquisitions that I believe to be good values after use include: sunscreen, sunscreened lip balms (3 in a pack), floating sunglass straps (2 in a pack), cotton work gloves, waterproof stuff sacks - lightduty but still useful, triple antibiotic ointment, ACE bandages, adhesive strips, acetominophen, allergy medicine, plastic table covers, garden kneeler mentioned above for canoe applications, zippered mesh la

Dsteele, Eamonn - what wonderful posts, reminding us all that there is a reason we do this other than our own selfish fun. Sender - Those "Remember whens" will last forever, not just a few years. sst3rd - So did the SPL learn more than the scouts, ya think? And you know, Scout Vespers is about my favorite song in the world. the second verse brings a tear to my eye every time. Others - great moments?

I have observed that my children learn very little in school, and quite a bit out of school. For my 15-yearold son, we took this to the logical conclusion and removed him from public school. My older son, 19, is doing well in college after doing very poorly throughout 12 years of public school. OTOH. My 13 yearold daughter is an A-student in one of the best school districts in the state, NJHS and all that, popular and loves school for social reasons - and is the most poorly educated of my 3 kids as she never reads other than what is required, and prefers not to think about anything se

OK, y'all with experience: how do we go about the planning for an overnighter with a small troop (9) with a wide range of abilities. All have passed BSA swimmer, but a couple of them were "barely." My experience tracks redfeathers - a little current goes a long way toward improving a canoe day! But of course I want to be absolutely confident of making it to my site with all the boys I started out with. Here in central Texas, we have some very pleasant rivers - none are raging like in the mountains, we just don't have that much water anywhere - but all of them have some hazards on them,

I read elsewhere that trash compactor bags are more heavy-duty than even good garbage bags, seemed like useful info to pass along for your purposes. I'm jealous.

My ADHD son has a lowered awareness of pain too, and after all this time and zillions of Dr. visits, I didn't know that it was part of the symptom spectrum! I thought it was just him! When he was 2, I recall hiim on a stool in the kitchen - told him to get down, he was too close to the toaster - looked away for a minute and sure enough, he touched the toaster. Came over shaking his hand saying "Hot, Mommy, Hot!" No wailing. I thought "Oh good, he learned the lesson without major damage." Then I saw the 1 inch diameter second degree burn on his little hand. From the look of it a grown

I don't want to hijack the thread into a religious debate, my point was that although I very, very vehemently disagree with the LDS church on some critically important topics I will fiercely defend their right to be in the BSA. I also welcome Christian denominations not my own, and our Jewish scouter friends and yes, even the UU among us. I just wish the LDS church (among others, they are by no means the only ones) would offer the same courtesy to others with whom THEY disagree. Local option sounds fine to me, since we already have it in other religious teachings. This will be my

I find more than a little irony in seeing a publication of the LDS church vehemently defending the sanctity of one-man-one-woman marriage given their history of promoting both polygamy and child marriage, which I do NOT find acceptable in any way, shape or form, hetero- or homo-, serial or otherwise. Would I let my son attend an LDS church or join an LDS troop, even as a visitor? Please don't take offense, folks, but NO, NEVER. I do not choose for him to associate with the members of this faith other than casually. Nor do I associate with them other than casually. I'm sure they feel

And one more time, sorry, but I have to say this too: other parents have had fantastic results with some medications, and I would never, ever tell anyone that was happy with the way their ADHD child is doing that they should change ANYTHING. The decision not to medicate WAS the right decision for OUR son, we're pretty sure, but it did involve hiim giving up a lot. Like, being on the honor roll, and taking band trips, and I think one girlfriend whose parents just couldn't see that he wasn't a dummy. This decision is under constant review and if he decided tomorrow to try one of the newer

Me again, I know I just wrote a book but I want to make it clear: If you do NOT medicate an ADHD/ADD kid, you MUST de-emphasize grades. That is the trade-off, and it should be a conscious choice. Otherwise it's like sending him to soccer with his feet tied together with one-foot rope between them and yet insisting that he be the star of the team. Frustration, depression, desperation, and despair will follow as the night the day. (To carry the metaphor farther: feet tied together isn't a handicap in a sack race, so put him on the sack race team; it's a small handicap in swimming but he c

I have an ADD child. He's 19. I also have about 23 years of other experience with youth, from JA to Sunday School teacher to BSA/GSUSA to school volunteer to teaching the neighbor boys how to windsurf because we just liked them. Total of 6 children counting my 3 step-children, plus 6 grandchildren thanks to the step-daughters. My scouting son, NOT ADD although he likes to think he is, was diagnosed with a severe anxiety disorder in 5th grade and was in Special Ed until we withdrew him from school in 9th grade. My vote for my ADHD son - reached in consultation with him at age 11 - was not

Yep, I'd say you need more girls to go with your existing ones. I'd try to focus on 4th graders, maybe 5th, but not 6th if you can avoid it as the 6th graders will already be at the jumping-off point for Cadettes. And frankly, they'd most likely be better off in an older girl troop since there are quite a few opportunities that are open to Cadettes that are not open to Jr/Br levels. You'd almost surely find yourself having to compromise on SOMEONE's program, unless the good Lord has issued you 36-hour days while the rest of us only got the 24's. I agree with you on the larger troops, I

Dsteele - thanks for the positive feedback, I'm happy to be of some help. FOG - I personally have two boys and one girl, and both boys TOGETHER do not have half the organizational ability of the girl. Also not half the ability to delay gratification, half the ability to plan their work and work their plan.... They are both fine young men and I couldn't be prouder of them, but elaborate systems must be put in place in order for them to get simple things done. The girl just does them. Same household, same parents, same discipline plans .... different children. Oddly, my sons