scoutmomma

Talk about the timely appearance of a thread... I just got a packet yesterday. Felt completely out of the blue to me, though I guess I must have made some sort of positive impression on my DE, who I've spoken to on multiple occasions in the past year. I actually find myself intrigued by it, but I definitely will ask if anyone else among the troop's adult leaders received it. I was looking at the various topics, and some look quite interesting. It would be a bonus if I could scrape the $ together so my son could go to NAYLE as well (he went to NYLT last fall). Any suggestions

I thought it was four's a crowd...I just read "ilklings" as "inklings." How about that?

Regarding California's SB777, here is the actual language of the bill: http://tinyurl.com/yv8vse Also, here is a blog with a more balanced view (from either side): http://tinyurl.com/yqe9qf To hear the left tell it, it just protects kids from discrimination so they can learn. To hear the right tell it, it should be bill number 666 and mandates that kindergardeners be indoctrinated with the homosexual agenda. Most likely the truth lies somewhere in between...I only skimmed over the bill, but it doesn't look like it says teachers must teach what it means to be homosexual,

My goodness, I had no idea I was such an evil person. Again, this goes far beyond simply "agreeing to disagree."

A fascinating column indeed, and I appreciate Aquila's bringing it to our attention. My internal debate was similar when my son first asked to join Cub Scouts, and later when he decided he wanted to go on to Boy Scouts (though of course I was coming from a slightly different neighborhood, that of Girl Scouting). My ultimate decision to let him do so was based on the fact that I knew he would learn camping and outdoor skills that he would carry throughout his life, if he stuck with it, and I was not prepared to have a discussion with him when he was 6 about my issues with BSA's policies towar

OGE, thank you for the clarification. I appreciate it.

I had said I was done with this thread, but the email system alerted me that there was a response to the thread, so I had read it...and cannot let go unchallenged Nessmuk's implication that I am in agreement with the organization he had mentioned earlier. Nessmuk, my statements regarding homosexuality as not being a mental illness do not mean I am in agreement with that organization, and I am completely disgusted that you would imply any such thing. That's quite a lot more than agreeing to disagree. I do think it very interesting that a person who holds views contrary to anothers can be

He further states that most of the boys don't care if they waste food because their parents, not them, are paying for the cost of the camp outs (which includes an allotted food budget per person in the patrol). If this were happening in our troop, this is something that we would bring to the attention of the PLC to ask them to brainstorm solutions to this kind of waste, along with a reminder that a Scout is thrifty. Once they figure out how to deal with the situation, it would be communicated to the entire troop, parents and scouts alike, through our troop mailing list. Good luck -- that

Beavah wrote: Yah, scoutmomma, you're really confusin' this old flat-tailed critter, eh? Lisabob described a common middle school girls phenomenon where a girl is singled out for deliberate, mean-spirited exclusion (often includin' spreading nasty rumors about the girl). And yeh say that's what was goin' on in your unit. Yet yeh also said: "They [the perpetrators] weren't actively excluding him so much as they were just being oblivious and not noticing his distress (he had a tendency to just get quieter and quieter)..." Yes, you're right, I did say that. And, on reflection, I g

I know it isn't supposed to be this way, but sometimes there is a bit of rivalry between units in the same town, and in that case having the CC for one unit also serve as the UC for the other unit is asking for it. I guess that's at the root of my wariness. Our troop and this CC's troop have some recruiting overlap in the sense that the boys in our geographic "territory" and theirs both attend the same middle school, and we have some scouts that he thinks should be in his troop, but they chose to join ours. So, yeah, there's a bit of rivalry going there, seeing that we have 36 scouts t

To an adult it may be petty, but for the child it is REAL! Exactly. These experiences in our troop really opened my eyes, and made me realize that the important thing is not to quibble with the scout or parent whether we agree that the problem is bullying or not -- the important thing is to recognize when we have a child in emotional distress, and to figure out a way to help. If that means broadening the definition of bullying, then I can deal with that.

We don't use a bridge, but we do have a large, stepped candleholder, with one candle for each rank from Tenderfoot up to Eagle, with 12 candles lined up in front for the points of the Scout Law. As part of our Courts of Honor, designated scouts light the candles for the Scout Law, as well as the candles for each rank being presented that evening.

Lisabob, that's a pretty good description of what was happening in both situations. And because it involved boys instead of girls, they weren't inclined to talk to adults about it, but were both quietly suffering because they were afraid of being seen as "soft." Once brought to our attention in the first case, it was difficult for some adults to get past the "buck up, get over it" mind-set, until it was too late.

I'm piggybacking on this older thread because I was doing a bit of searching for threads about Unit Commissioners, and this one seemed apropos... In the three years I've been involved with this troop, including the past year and a half as committee chair, we've never had a Unit Commissioner. Not saying that's a good thing or a bad thing... We've experienced a great deal of growth in that time -- doubling once and then doubling again. Currently we have about 36 active scouts, and anticipate 4-5 Webelos crossovers next month. We have a pretty even spread of Life, Star, First Class,

The second scout I mentioned responded to the taunting by punching, and it only got him ostracized at school and in his patrol. Yah, IMO this is an example of behavior that isn't bullying, it's a reaction to being pestered and annoyed for attention, by a lad who isn't reading the social cues being communicated by other boys. Like skeptic describes, this is fairly common. Perhaps the classic is the annoying younger sibling who doesn't accept the message "hey, I want some space right now" and keeps pestering his older brother. So the older brother naturally "ups" the strength of the messag

Here's a part of the story you didn't include: Mr. Brockman says that all of his scouting activities are made possible because he receives administrative support and help with recruitment from the of the Cradle of Liberty headquarters. Take away the scout building and Mr. Brockman loses the professional staff he relies on. This opinion piece makes it sound like all Scouting in the Philadelphia area will fold without this building, which is just plain wrong. Cradle of Liberty Council conducts most of its business from its Valley Forge headquarters. And the Wall Street Journal's

Ignoring someone or not doing something because someone is being bullied by another is not bullying! This is the kind of stuff that happens when we go through these fads! Terminology gets skewed & the meaning is whatever someone wants to have it fit for them! Little Billy is being bullied by his friends! How? They are ignoring him! Give me a break! Ed, that's how we felt about it for awhile, too. And that attitude cost us a scout and a troop committee member -- shamefully we were too caught up in an attitude of "they're over-reacting" rather than "how can we help?" My point is that

But now it seems not paying attention to someone because you're hanging out with your own friends is "bullying" in scoutmomma's unit. You're mistaken in this statement, Beavah. The scout who quit was being ignored by his friends. He was also being teased by the 16-year-old, and his 14-year-old friends did nothing to intervene, but chose instead to ignore him. And the scout who was being taunted and ostracized was being taunted by his friends who couldn't recognize when teasing crossed the line. The ostracizing began when the put-upon scout started hitting. Me, I'd offer t

I saw Nessmuk's original, unexpurgated message, and found it extremely offensive, so I thank OGE for editing it. As for the rest of the message, well, knowing that Nessmuk continues to assert that homosexuality is a mental illness, I don't see any point in further discussion. I'm done with this thread.

Thanks to DanKroh and Packsaddle... Nessmuk, you may find James Dobson an authoritative source on psychology matters; I don't. He thinks homosexuality is a preference that can be "corrected" through counseling, a view that is rejected by the American Psychological Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Counseling Association, the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the American School Health Association, the Interfaith Alliance Foundation, the National Association of School Psychologists, the National Association of S

I wrote: Our adult leadership had several lengthy meetings to discuss HOW to deal with the situation...which ultimately we were unfortunately not able to resolve and the scout and his mother (a member of our troop committee) resigned And FireKat responded: This is what usually happens, the kid being picked on has to stop it by leaving. Tell me, scoutmomma, what happen after the boy left? Were the instigators ever delt with or was the whole thing dropped? Why did the same thing happen again? Same bullies? The main complaint of the 9th grade scout who left was that he was feel

My son attended NYLT last fall as a 13-year-old Star Scout, and I have seen a definite change in how he handles himself -- he has clearly benefited from it. But I agree that you need to make the decision based on your knowledge of the scout in question.

Ironically, right before these new requirements came out, we had a scout in our troop quit due to what his mother characterized as bullying -- and none of the adults recognized it for being what it was, as we were all laboring under our own childhood memories of what constituted bullying. Which was not what this boy was dealing with. Our adult leadership had several lengthy meetings to discuss HOW to deal with the situation...which ultimately we were unfortunately not able to resolve and the scout and his mother (a member of our troop committee) resigned. So when the new rank requiremen

The "official" answers, as far as I can tell, are here: http://www.scouting.org/boyscouts/resources/32215/rankchanges.html

First of all, I am not "scoutmamma," I am "scoutmomma." But don't make up some cock and bull story that homosexuals, unlike heterosexuals, somehow lose their appetite for boys, but somehow heterosexuals switch gender preferences when the subject goes below a certain age. I'm not making up stories, I'm providing links to information and research. Homosexuality does not equal pedophilia. Homosexuals are no more likely than heterosexuals to be pedophiles. Homosexuality is not a mental illness; pedophilia is. (This message has been edited by scoutmomma)