sctmom

Had a wonderful couple of days in the North Georgia mountains. Beautiful, clear, cool weather. Spent time with my sister and her husband. And just relaxed! Saw a man and his son (maybe 12 years old) hiking the approach trail to the Appalachain Trail on Thursday. Wished I could have stopped and talked to them, was wondering if they were Scouts.

Today I am thankful for Home Insurance! Came back to find the hose going to the fridge water dispenser had sprung a leak. Squishy, water logged carpet in the living room. Needed new carpet a long time ago, sometimes procrastination pays off. The few items damaged are easily replaced and the insurance sent some to remove the water and wet carpet immediately.

I am also thankful for my son and my ex-in-laws (for keeping him all week). I love him dearly but also like to get away sometimes and they are good grandparents.

Hope everyone had good turkey.

Why would Merlyn not eat turkey? Thanksgiving is to celebrate our country, freedom, etc.

Have a good one, however you choose to give thanks.

I'm out of here in a couple of hours to enjoy a few days away from home. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Just wanted to add that my sister tried Christian churches for many years. She had a lot of emotional problems as a teenager and in her 20's. She kept trying to go to church and do what she was told to find peace. She never found it. I tell her part of the problem was the churches she went to. Regardless she has found internal peace of the past few years, even after much grief from her children as teenagers (they are over that now) and watching her husband die from cancer while the kids were teens.

I'm happy for her. She is a different person, a much more loving, calmer person that she ever was before.

NJ, are you using a computer that might have a filter on it to keep you out of wicca.org?

Maybe your daughter or my sister can get you some eye of newt....hehehe

I WILL have my sister forever. I do not believe she is a "lost soul". She has very strong beliefs, they just aren't Christian. She does believe in a higher power that is female as much as male. She does pray. She does believe in an afterlife. Her first husband died of cancer. We all know his spirit and soul are still alive.

My sister remembers being forced to go to church as a child. My mother stopped doing that about the time I was 5 and my sister was 10. My father was forced to go to church as a child, back when you sat quietly on hard wooden benches for over an hour. My father considers himself Christian and I never saw him in church until I was almost grown. He remembers being so miserable that when he left home he swore to never attend church again. Attending church does not make you a Christian.

How many children can really comprehend being a Christian? Is your view of God today the same as when you were 11? Mine isn't. At that age I attended church on my own. I wanted to learn about God. I attended for a few years alone. My parents supported my decision but did not force me. They made sure I got to and from any church event but they never attended themselves. Then I got sick of the disrepect shown by the others who were there because they were forced to be.

My sister respects others beliefs and never talks about her own beliefs around Christians. She will go out of her way to avoid the conversation because she doesn't want to upset others. Our Baptist relatives ALWAYS go on and on and on about church, but they don't show their Christian love. They assume not just that everyone else is Christian but that everyone else is THEIR form of Baptist. I am not Baptist and do not agree with much of what they teach. My sister would never dream of telling our cousin's children that what they are taught at home and church is wrong. She would not tell my child that. If I asked her to talk about what she believes to my child, she would do so. After she became a pagan, her teenage daughter was attending church. My sister fully supported her on this.

If you think the worse thing is for your child to choose a different religion than yours, then you haven't seen parents who have children try to commit suicide, kill others, die from cancer, suffer from mental disease, etc. You may think being pagan is suicide. Go right ahead. I'll introduce you to my sister when we all get to the "other side".

ASM7,

I didn't have parents dragging me to church every Sunday. I have chosen to be a Christian, my sister has chosen to be a Pagan. My brother doesn't discuss it, possible with no beliefs at all. Guess what? We are all very productive members of society, provide for our families, etc.

I can think of much worse things than for my son to become a Pagan. I'd put my sister's behaviors up against any Christian's any day of the week.

MK, Wiccan is a pagan religion, believing in Gods and Goddesses, nature based religion. Wiccan is a very loose term for many different beliefs and practices. The main thing is their first rule is to do no harm.

This page will give you some more information, definitions and links.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/witchcra.htm

If you search around on the web you will find many pages about it and I'm sure many articles about the "evils" of such. From what I understand many females are drawn to this because they feel uncomfortable with the patriacharial system of Christianity.

We did this last year and was such a hit that we are doing it the same way this year.

We are visiting a nursing home and singing carols. We also wanted to take some craft items to them that the boys made. We had to all pickup our popcorn on a Saturday morning so as some parents sorted popcorn, the others helped the kids with the craft project. Spent about an hour doing the crafts. Had a great time. On the way out, picked up the popcorn and was on the way.

Last year we decorated coffee cans and filled them with goodies like combs, nail files, cloth hankerchiefs, notepads, hand lotion, etc.

This year we are making popsicle stick picture frames. We will take a Polarid camera with us and take pictures of the residents with a few of the scouts and put it on their picture frame. We will also have the boy color some pages and make some cards to give to the people.

Again we are making the crafts on popcorn pickup day and do the nursing home visit a week or so later.

"Explain to me how my faith is leading to the same god as the Wiccans, when my Bible tells me that I cannot worship the One and Only true God and the god of idols?"

If you worship the One and Only true God then there is no "god of idols". Why do you refer to gods that do not exist? I don't think your wording is really what you meant.

Pagans do not necessarily offer sacrifices to idols. They just don't worship the Christian God.

Now, to some just not worshipping the Christian God

is doing what the devil wants.

I thought they were welcome as well, but I think BSA will not approve a religious symbol from them. Also, for many BSA does not teach some of the things they value. You may not agree with them but you gotta respect them for starting their own group and not trying to change BSA. Right?

Their website

http://www.aquatabch.org/spiralscouts/

I'm surprised they are getting away with using the word "Scout". I thought Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts charters gave them exclusive use of "scouts" in group names.

This page has links to a few different sources of games, skits and crafts based on the monthly theme.

http://www.arkie.net/scouting/Training/Roundtable/Handouts/

One game we played last year that the boys loved was "Santa's Boots Relay". Get shoeboxes (shoe stores will give these to you) and spray paint them black. Line up in a couple of rows for a relay race. Each boy puts his feet (keep his shoes on) into two boxes and must shuffle across the room and back. Then the next boy does the same.

You can also call them "snowshoes". You don't really have to paint them. Make sure to get some BIG boxes, some of the boys have big feet and big shoes.

They have a website. If you look on THIS website for other Scouting organizations you will find it.

By the way, Pagan means non-Christian, it does NOT mean devil/demon worshipping. They don't believe in the devil, many believe in more than one god/goddess.

In over 2 years of searching the web for various Cub Scout sources, I have never seen such.

Your best source is Progam Helps, but realize the BSA does not expect you to spend every meeting on Achievements and they don't cover every achievement within a given year of Program Helps.

Most of the Wolf and Bear achievements should be done at home.

The Bear's have a similiar achievement. I thought of writing the scenarios on index cards, the boys would take turns drawing out a card, I would read it out loud and that boy has the first chance to answer it. Or maybe you could do like a "college bowl", divide the team into two dens and alternate asking questions of the teams. Of course everyone is a winner and gets a sticker or snack.

Rooster, I pulled those statistics from many sources. These were the most conservative estimates, each presented by many different Domestic Violence groups. Want to see more, just search for "Domestic Violence stats" and you will find many pages. I specifically did not use the stats that were so vague as to say "between 1 million and 4 million women..." That's a pretty big range.

Does it excuse gays for having sex in the public? NO! But I could use similiar examples to say all men should be locked away.

How many men are involved in this park problem? Is it 30% of gay men in the United States?

Heterosexuals also have sex in public. Living in a metropolitan area I'm sure you know of strip bars. I betcha there are also "clubs" for couples who want to "share". Those clubs do not let single men join, only couples of single women. Does that make all heterosexuals a bad group? These clubs include people from various walks of life, many are professionals (it's not cheap to get into these places). So does that make everyone making over $100,000 per year a bad person? Nope.

You can't generalize about the gay population because of what is happening in this park. It's horrible what is happening there, but it doesn't justify discriminating against all gays.

We can just as easily give you examples of gays that lead "normal" lives, have given all they could to help others, lead a celibate life, etc. No matter how many of such cases are presented to you, you still would not change your stance that they are "dangerous".

In the United States...

Every 15 seconds a woman is beaten.

Every 3 minutes a woman is raped.

Only 1 out of every 10 victims of domestic violence report the incident.

Domestic violence is the leading cause of injury to women between the ages of 15 and 44.

Domestic violence is the number one cause of emergency room visits by women.

Between one and four million women are abused by current or former husbands or boyfriends each year.

More than 3 million children witness acts of domestic violence every year.

Women are 10 times more likely than men to be victimized by an intimate

Nearly one-third of American women (31 percent) report being physically or sexually abused by a husband or boyfriend at some point in their lives, according to a 1998 Commonwealth Fund survey.4

See a pattern??????

I had an elementary school teacher who could whistle with 2 fingers and be heard for a half a mile! She was also a very tall woman who could bore a hole through you with her look.

The other teachers always had her whistle to get us in off the playground. You better believe it got your attention! I don't remember ever hearing her raise her voice. We had a healthy respect for her.

Take a look at this page:

http://www.geocities.com/lonezrule/links.html

One of the links is to the BSA fact sheet about Lone Scouts. One way a boy can be eligible to be a Lone Scout is "being home schooled". That right there gives you the "right" to be a lone scout.

Hope that link will answer some of your questions.

If you know other homeschoolers in your area that are interested in Scouts I would recommend starting a new troop. You don't need a large number of boys to have a troop. You do need a charter organization, which can be "Local Homeschoolers" -- made up of the interested parents. Where I live some homeschoolers have formed their own pack and troop.

Most of these questions can be answered by your DE and in my opinion should be answered by your DE.

When you speak of your son earning his AOL early, do be aware that one of the requirements is 6 months AFTER turning 10 or after completing the 4th grade. I know you may not have a "date" that he "completes" 4th grade, so you need to go by his birthday. Just because he has done all the other requirements does not guarantee he is ready for Boy Scouts. AOL should take about 1 1/2 years.

From what I have read about Lone Scouting, they are welcome to visit packs/troops when possible. There was an article in Scouting magazine about a couple of Lone Scouts who travel with their families. Do a search on the web and you should find them. One has his own webpage. He tries to visit packs/troops as often as possible.

Good luck.

"As opposed to at the outset laying-on the "there's no Pack without you" or "your son's not in Tigers without you" lines (though those should be in your hip pocket),"

The rule for Tigers IS "your son is not in Tigers alone, there MUST be an adult". This is a BSA rule and one that should be enforced. Tigers always have their adult partner with them. That adult can be a parent or other adult appointed by the parents such as an uncle, aunt, grandparent or other relative.

First have the boys make a list of den rules. Then tell them this is the way it is --- you will behave.

Children are like wild animals in sensing fear and weaknesses.

Where do you meet? Are their distractions? Is the room too big or too small? Is there mold? One room available to my den is downstairs in an old house owned by the church. The mold can set off allergies that result in HYPER!

Keep their hands busy. I've seen some den leaders expect the boys to sit with their books open. Wrong! They should be busy, busy, busy. What kind of activities are you doing? Alternate quiet with noisy.

Do not stand up above the boys. Get down on their eye level.

Use the quiet sign. If it means you stand there for 5 minutes, so be it. If the project isn't finished or there is no time for games, oh well.

Put your foot down. Make it clear bad behavior will NOT be tolerated. Explain that to the parents. If you decide to have the parents stay at the meetings, tell them they have to help and they have to control their son. BSA is not Baby Sitters of America.

Scoutparent PLEASE provide your source for the following quote:

"It's interesting to me that if you look at gallup poll results; most Americans do not buy into this hoax and that as the level of education goes up the level of belief in evolution goes down. "

The numbers I saw say 45% believe in creationism only.

Others have also asked for your source about the level of education stat.

Girl Scouts seem to be successful with Kindergarten aged children. In some areas they are now letting 4 year olds join as Daisies.

I also have the same question, has BSA considered having a program for Kindergarteners?

A friend of mine took Girl Scout leader outdoor training a few years ago. I remember her saying she had to cook her breakfast on a coffee can over a buddy burner. She said it was a very hands-on course, they really did do a lot.

Sounds like your council has some problems that not all councils have.

We do instill a part of ourselves in our scouts. YET there are many things I don't want my scouts to pick up from me, so I try to leave those habits behind when I'm with my boys. There are may things the Cubs don't know about me. There are some things about me that most adults around do not know. I think we all have some of that.

Now, I am working with Cubs, not teenagers, there is a difference. The Cubs don't see me as much as a Boy Scout might see their Troop Adult leaders.

If the rational is that the boys may "pick up" being gay or that gay is okay, what about all the other things they may pick up --- smoking for one. Every one of us has character traits that we do not want the boys to follow.

Does that make any sense?