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 was in severe breathing distress on an hour-long bus ride. An hour is too long to wait to breathe, people! The parents of the ill child begged for leniency as they felt that their child would have been in dire danger otherwise- but no, we have strict rules about prescription drugs and the individual situation cannot be considered.

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 wood can be hard to find in many areas of the US.

And if you are baking, more coals go on top than on bottom.

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 opportunity for my son to hone his public speaking skills. The cubmasters gave him such a warm welcome, I think it really gave him an ego boost. And judging from the response Shane got at cub day camp this year, little kids really respond to him and hopefully his participation will help the roundup meet it's recruitment goals.

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 that muted, calming environments promoted concentration for children. For another, there is an enormous emphasis on order and peace within a free community - so while these classrooms have conversation there is no need for screaming. And the teacher does not need to "teach" much, as the materials do most of the teaching and there is little to grade - so the teacher is free to move about and direct or redirect as needed. The net result is that a good Montessori teacher mystically knows EXACTLY where all her kids are, both physically and academically, even if she's the lead teacher of 22 youngsters.

My ADD son was reading well at age 5 after a couple years in his Montessorri preschool, run by an incredible Sri Lankan tacher named Ms. Pyaseeli. I hardly could understand her but the kids worshipped her and had no trouble at all with her accent.

I'll never forget her answer when I asked the weed-out question: What if my son doesn't want to sit at a table and work on his letters? He was 3, and strong-willed does not begin to describe it. And remember, pretty much impervious to pain. I had never been able to read to him, as much as wanted to share my love of books with my beloved first born, as I could not hold him in my lap for more than a hug. I had a vivid image of him spending most of his day in time-out in a traditional preschool setting.

With an expression of total shock, she replied "I do not choose the child's learning. The CHILD chooses his learning. If he does not want to sit, he can go to the practical side. "

And my son did not want to sit. So by the time he was 4, he could peel and cut carrots (yes, with a sharp though child-sized knife), pour juice, sweep the floor and wash dishes. He later lost all these abilities! Every day, she presented him with letters and books; every day he looked at them for a minute or less, and zoomed off to do something else. Then for a while, all he wanted to do was count and learn numbers. So for weeks he counted, and stacked, and learned to add, subtract, multiply, and divide using blocks. (This was a shocker to his kindergarten teacher later.)

Then, one day, she she presented him with the letter activities again, for the hundredth time - and suddenly he was interested in that and was reading pretty fluently within a week. It's a matter of being there at the right time for the child. After that, I sent him to kindergarten, where he learned that he was abnormal, different, and too active, and after a year, he'd forgotten how to read.

Sent him back to Ms. P for the summer, he recovered all he'd lost and forged ahead to second or third grade reading level. Went back to public school, and they quickly had him back to his grade level.

If I had had the money, I would have kept him in private Montessorri education, but with two younger kids in full-time child care, it just couldn't happen. Young industrial hygienists don't make that much, we were already scraping it to buy the generic mac and cheese.

It is worth pointing out that the exceptional Ms. M. only expected children to work in this educational setting through what we would now call middle school (but starting in what we call preschool now). The level of basic literacy she expected most students to achieve after 8th grade is pretty much about the level to which we're trying to remediate our high school seniors - competent in reading, writing, and 'rithmetic, with a good basis in mathematical comprehension on which one could build calculus if desired.

At about age 13, she believed that the focus should change to readying for "real" life - learning to use real tools, build wood projects, fix things around the house, and other practical skills. (Of course, preparing meals is already covered in the elementary Montessorri curriculum, along with table manners and family life skills.) During adolescence, she believed, there was little benefit to most young people in attempting to master academic stuff as they are unable to concentrate. However, she felt that there was great educational benefit to working "on the practical side" - the application of the literacy they had developed to become responsible and productive adults.

What does that sound like to you? Could it be SCOUTING? I don't know if Baden-Powell and Maria Montessori were in contact but their ideas are remarkably similar.

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 school, where the television only had 4 channels and so fairly often offered no serious distraction from reading or homework, where even a latchkey child (such as myself and my 4 older siblings, from my 2cd grade on) was expected to call mom as soon as we got home.

Summer was boring. We stayed home. We read. Sometimes we watched cartoons. All that tedium made school look good come fall. Our weekly library trips were highlights, at least for me and my sisters. Brothers didn't read much- almost surely both would be classed ADD now. One would have surely been Spec Ed, as he kept flunking stuff. Took him 5 years to get out of high school and 6 to get his college degree - in engineering, from Texas A&M - he ain't dumb AT ALL... Back then they called it "he's a boy."

None of us did sports, but all were required to do ONE extracurricular activity - my sisters did theatre/choir, brothers were FFA, I was in band. That was all we could handle. We never, ever went out on school nights, not as a family and not as an individual, unless it was a school related event or in support of our ONE E/C activity. We didn't gather around the dinner table - but we did have dinner every night at about 6:30, leaving time to clean up and do homework. (when I was a full-time salaried employee I was lucky to get HOME by 7 PM, much less have dinner then...)

Cub scouts and Camp Fire Girls happened immediately after school and were therefore OK - we could walk to them and we walked home afterwards. No one thought twice about seeing an 8-year old walking alone back then.

Kids now are acclimated to a constant TV-commercial pace of life - 30 images in a minute - and school is just toooooo sloooooowwww. I know the feeling, I'm the same way now. We're in the Windows world where someone can be working on a presentation and surfing the Scouter board at the same time (idid I say that out loud?) Is it bad? maybe. Is it life? Yep. Eight-yearolds can't really walk alone anymore, in most areas, and Mom hasn't got the time to scramble those eggs in the morning as she's having to work much longer hours than my Mom had to - because Dad is often in another county, working long hours to support BOTH his families (we hope).

I've thought about going into teaching but I'm not sure I could stand it, although I do like children. Seeing sleep-deprived, nutritionally deficient children show up -Pop-Tart in hand - day after day, dealing with the parents that allow their early-elementary kids to stay up until 10 or 11 and then scream at them for making them late in the morning... I just don't know.

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 could pick up forms and junk from it, and leave our camp notifications for her, without bothering her family.

3) Did the first "fast start" training for new leaders; council training picks up after that. Helps a lot for new leaders to have a face and name of a nice, helpful person first off.

4) Paired up experienced leaders with new leaders as informal advisors. Also, established program level advisors at the SU level (all in the neighborhood) that leaders can call on for help, when required.

5) SU meetings are the same function as roundtable, and she always made ours rapid and fun. Started on time every time, ended on time. An older girl troop catered snacks as a fundraiser, mutually beneficial as some of us couldn't get dinner beforehand. Made the meeting more pleasant.

6) The SU has a leader/family event every year, and all volunteers get thank-you pins or whatever - and we do appreciate them!

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 sheet, they promote learning. A big improvement could be had by self-pacing, allowing the speedy kids to forge ahead and the slower to keep pounding on whatever their personal sticking point is... but it's far harder for the teacher as the gaps can get quite wide pretty quickly. Children are just that different.

mk9750 - of course there is nothing in the constitution about public schools; the brilliant statesmen that wrote it were mostly self-educated. However, later developments caused the government to determine that it was in the country's best interest to educate everyone, and the public schools gained steam at around the same time the Industrial Revolution did. A cynical person could note that public school is excellent training for learning to accept that you should work long hours in a job you don't like very much, and for dampening any intellectual curiosity that might cause you to explore jobs that you MIGHT like.

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. This isn't a bad thing, as long as the teacher understands and deals with it.

scoutmom - My other son was Spec Ed for emotional disturbance. In one of the last ARD's we attended, I was told that since his basic skills were above grade level, they had NO requirement to offer him work at his level. Since he refused to participate in the one-hour-a-week GT pullout program they declined to do anything else for him. OK, picture a little kid, a year younger than his grade level, walking out of the Level 5 Special Ed classroom to go to the GT program - ya think he might get TEASED just a little?

The spec ed teacher - with 7 students, 6 of them several grade levels below chrono age - did not have time to provide a challenging science, reading or history curriculum for him. So he wasted 2 years completing easy, dull worksheets in exchange for candy - and they considered that a great victory, having trained him to "do work."

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. When it finally is all out, reseason at least twice, but be sure to heat the oven upside down so that you don't get a sticky, slimy spot on it.

I've seen people line the oven with foil and obviously that works too, but you lose some pie filling in the folds of the foil and frankly, once you've re-seasoned the oven it is really unnecessary to line it. Just carefully arrange the bottom coals on a pretty flat surface with an inch or two between them and pick up your oven and turn it 1/4 turn every 15 minutes or so to eliminate the hot spots. I turn the oven one direction and the lid the opposite way to get even heating. Since I figured this out I've never had even a small problem with sticking, and my baked goods come out better than in my old home oven.

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 from scouts, good luck watching him 24/7 as he goes through his teen years. See ya at juvie. ON the other hand: If you want your son to learn to be responsible for his choices.... AND have the opportunity to "play with fire" in a safe manner....AND learn to be self-sufficient and able to keep himself safe outdoors, indoors, around water, and where ever he goes...AND be able to be a help rather than a hindrance in an emergency situation.... well, shut up, go take your training and get with the program.

You'd be amazed at the lengths parents will go through to prevent their children from growing up. I had a mom remove her 4th grade daughter from my GS troop against the girl's wishes (tears and everything) because the mom felt that her daughter should be released from the troop meeting as soon as mom showed up to pick her up- whether or not the girl had done her part of cleaning up the meeting room. The girl, being very bright, had learned that all she had to do to shirk her share of the work was to dawdle as mommie insisted she leave on time regardless.... and although we usually allowed sufficient time for cleanup she simply would play until mom rescued her from her responsibility. When I finally said "enough, she MUST do her kapers" mom suddenly just took her out so her poor baby wouldn't have to put up markers or wipe tables. The girl did not realize she was going to lose scouts altogether, she was just being a normal kid acting in a normal kid fashion - why do it myself when I can make Ms. J do it for me?

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 laundry bags (2 in a pack), proven to be very useful for carrying your miscellaneous junk in the water while tubing, light-duty ponchos (2 in a pack) for emergency use, fireplace matches, reusable ice packs, and a small, very lightweight (cheap!) 8 inch skillet, works great on a hobo stove and fits in a backpack.

If you have one of these near you take a look. You have to monitor stock as stuff comes and goes. Take cash or a check, they won't take credit.

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 seriously if there is no test or grade attached. Good grades are easy for her without study.

A friend took his son out of school in 8th grade due to his failing grades and serious emotional adjustment problems (diagnosed ADHD, btw). After a year working at home, they've just decided they'd better send him back to school. Why? Well, he was working with his sister on her seventh grade mathematics and demonstrated an insufficient grasp of the topic.

Note that the boy had TAKEN 7th grade mathematics in public school as he wasn't withdrawn until 8th grade. Upon my inquiry, he had made a "B". To me, this demonstrates the failure of the public school, not the failure of the home school. His grasp of the math he'd studied on his own at home (geometry) is quite good, in my opinion - and my minor was mathematics, so I feel qualifed to have an opinion. But his dad was appalled at his lack of mastery of the subject he presumably learned in public school and decided to let them have another crack at him. Seems illogical to me but of course the decision to home school is considered a radical one and it can be difficult to do for some.

Anyway, I have found that good grades and an education useful in life are for practical purposes independent of one another. I've a friend who has severe dyslexia. He squeaked by in every class he took, working 3 times more than everyone else to barely pass. He now has a master's degree with the lowest GPA possible, and is one of the smartest people I know, and quite successful in his chosen field. (BTW, he used to be my employee and a very good employee he was - talk about work ethic!).

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, either little rapids or (more frightening to me) strainers. I haven't gone downstream myself in about 20 years.

If we have to go find additional resources we will. Money is a big problem for us, though, so any advice "on the cheap" is appreciated.

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 man would have been in tears. He's still got the scar, 17 years later.

This definitely changes the discipline plans as spanking is completely ineffective - not that I'm a big spanking fan anyway but often strangers say stuff like "that kid could be set straight with a good spanking" - and it is totally, totally not true. You'd be well into child abuse before my son would even notice, and then he'd laugh at you first. From Anne's post, perhaps he's more typical than I thought.

I will say this, though, this particular child really didn't hurt himself too much. He is kinesthetically gifted, like a cat he tends to land on his feet even when doing the most unlikely things.

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 last post in this thread, I hope. I already know I shouldn't have jumped in as these discussions always give me great pain. But for the purpose of helping those who might also want to witness to Mormon or JW missionaries, I suggest you start at www.truthinlovetomormons.com to study a coherent approach. I tab and highlight my Bibles, and write in the margins to boot, as it's helpful to my somewhat damaged brain.

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 the same way about me, considering the rapid retreats their missionaries have executed when confonted with the three translation of the Bible that I keep handy with highlighted verses that demonstrate why I believe their church to be under a leader who is not Jesus the Christ. (I have the same experience with Jehovah's Witnesses. Of course, they do not join scouting so they are not at issue for BSA. )

So I guess it would be fair to say that I do not find LDS volunteers appropriate role models for my son, and I'm sure there are other scouters in other denominations who would feel the same way. But I haven't left the BSA over their inclusion of this group, just as I haven't left the BSA over their EXCLUSION of a group that I DO think could be appropriate role models for my son (dedicated homosexual scouters).

NOW, do I think LDS churches should be accepted as CO's? YES, absolutely. Do I think they can and should teach their own children their beliefs? You betcha, and given the Great Commission I'm not even adverse to their missionary efforts. I witness IAW my own marching orders. God will sort it all out, thank Him I don't have to.

I just wish that other churches were offered the same consideration, as there are "welcoming" congregations who would and could be excellent CO's were it not for the BSA stance.

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 meds we'd help him execute that plan.

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 could still succeed on a swim team, and will feel the prouder for overcoming the difficulty; and of course, it's obvious that having your feet tied together doesn't mean that you are a bad or evil kid.)

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 to medicate. He did try it again his senior year in high school, with mediocre results, after which he bagged the idea in favor of just using cheap and readily available caffeine.

Considerations were: His behavior was always reasonably ok; there was a little BB gun incident about 6th grade, not repeated since he had to pay for the window out of his allowance. One time he decked a kid, all reports are that the other kid (much larger than my son, BTW) pestered and pushed and pushed and pestered until he knocked my son backward into a chain link fence. Spurred by the pain of hitting the fence, Ken came off it and unloaded a single right hook on the other boy that nearly broke his jaw. Both boys got ISS, the other boy got 2 days for starting it and my son got 3 because he did really hurt the kid. I personally thought the punishments should have been reversed as EVERYONE there acknowledged that the other boy was engaging in bullying behavior and Ken was just defending himself - but under zero tolerance rules this was the determination, and I just told Ken to do his time and he did. In the long run, it was a positive thing for him as he never again was bullied in any way - the power of that single punch coming out of a rather skinny and small kid became legendary and the rep followed him to 2 new schools. He also learned some defensive moves to disarm or immobilize opponents without hurting them. Never again had a problem.

Other than that, his big problem was and is an near-complete inability to do academic work that does not grab his interest. His basic skills were always above average - reading, writing, and mathematics comprehension were all perfectly acceptable, although he frequently could not finish books, even those that had his interest. But he got his first programming internship at age 16, and respectable if not outstanding 1250 SAT's. So now his 3.0 GPA on his first year of college work all combine to make me feel that he'll be generally able to manage to learn what he needs to learn when he needs to learn it for life. MIT might not be in his future but I don't think it will handicap him too desperately.

We are close as a family and he knows he is loved. At the same time we chose not to medicate we accepted the fact that his grades would be lower, and didn't allow that to disrupt our family peace. Prior to this we had had 2-hour-long marathons of "homework help" sessions consisting of him weeping in frustration at the kitchen table and me trying to get him to pick up the pencil and write a sentence. Hard to have a happy family life with that going on 4 days a week. After our decision to butt out, I had approximately a zillion conversations with teachers explaining that we would NOT "make" him do his homework and that they were welcome to fail him if that was necessary under their grading criteria. IMHO, a failing grade is enough punishment and was the ONLY logical punishment for failing to do schoolwork. He saw the inside of summer school more than once, in which he gained a valuable insight: he is more able to do one or two subjects for 6 weeks than 7 subjects for a longg semester. He was in high school band for 2 years but never did any of the "fun" stuff as he was never eligible due to his grades - in any given grading period he would have one failing grade. The next grading period he'd pull that one up but drop another.

His best buddy in our old city - same age, also ADHD, not quite as brilliant as my son but IMO a great kid. We taught him to windsurf and took him out with us all the time - he was always super-polite to me, obedient and respectful, played well with our younger children and always did 110% of the necessary work for our beach outings. Anyone who sails knows that the packing, unpacking, equipment cleaning and so on is necessary drudgery that most teens would like to skip - but this kid had energy to burn and never even rolled his eyes when asked to tote, carry or fetch something.

K*** had a single parent (now a teacher) who earnestly did her best to instill discipline in her wayward child. She grounded him, spanked him, and withdrew privileges to punish him at home for his school failures, in accordance with the urging of the professional educators who insisted that parents must always "support" the school efforts, and she and they told him frequently that if he didn't apply himself more at school he'd end up in jail or worse. So she provided strict discipline in accordance with the recommendations of the education establishment.

And the most recent report is that he is now in jail for vandalism, after impregnating a girl in high school and using a dizzying array of substances. Amazing how kids do what we expect.

When looking at a personal decision to medicate or not: Keep in mind that depression very frequently accompanies ADD. In my mind, the depression is a far more serious potential handicap than the attention difference, and is the symptom that should be monitored most closely. If the depression or anti-social behavior gets away from you, medication and probably counseling is absolutely indicated and to skip it borders on negligence.

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 find them both more fun and easier to handle, but as the girls get older it gets rather trickier to keep them large. I also really approve of multilevel troops and have had one for 4 years - but my 2 Sr. scouts got a bit of the short stick several times because of the juniors in the troop - which is where I'm coming from on my suggestion that you try to stay Jr./Br. The age range you describe could naturally age into Cd/Jr, so you would only be dealing with 2 programs at a time, which is quite doable.

All that said, be aware that attrition at 6th/7th grade is immense and the girls get very into cliques and exclusionary thinking no matter how hard you try to avoid it. So you end up with a smaller troop that is very difficult to keep focussed. I checked with other leaders and all report the same thing: Brownie's and Juniors are MUCH easier to manage and generally act in a more mature fashion than Cadettes. You'd think it would be the other way around, but IMHO you'd be wrong. Don't sweat it now, just be aware that those awesome 4th graders that can do their whole campout menu in a meeting may dissolve into a group that argues with tears and drama for an hour over what one girl thinks she heard another girl say to some boy in third period. Menu? What menu? Did we need to do that TODAY?

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 both earned AOL and the girl opted not to go bronze as a Junior. She just looked at it and said "looks like too much work" and blew it off. Silver is still on the table but she's not pushing for it. But she's so used to excelling at school that I don't think she feels the need for additional recognitions. Her biggest goal is to make the 8th grade volleyball team; she takes her A-B honor roll report card for granted.

That said, I have met several girls that are far closer in nature to my boys than to my daughter, and have met some boys from other families that are more like my daughter than my sons. So I don't think it's ALL gender linked. Plus, I'm female and I have the procrastination gene and the distracted-from-the-task gene too. You can tell, because I'm writing this when I should be working. Fortunately I work for myself so the boss is pretty easy on me.