singlemom

Basement person what in the world is wrong with you? Is Aspergers a life threatenting illness it would take over half his life to recove from? Connect the dots and pray you never have a child that has to live through it, carry the scars from it and then experience a person like you.

I do not need any more responses. I know my first post was strong my child has been treated very badly. And so many of you are so venomous it makes me wonder what percentage of those in scouting are this cruel to downplay something thta happened to a child that has already been through hell and back.

If you knew me you would know the hovering parent thing was laughable. Most kids that have things going on like my son aren't doing the things he is. he is because I have worked hard to help him ovecome his fear, understand his limits and what things he can and cant do so that he can go out into the world and take care of himself. I dont know why so many of you seem to think that these young children need such little supervision. You dont have to hove you can hang back and diffuse situations before they start. Like making them put down the rock they are carrying towards another child.

I am not going to post anymore. Do not get me wrong i admire anyone for volunteering with children. I love children. But if you are going to be responsible for other people's children be responsible. Or dont take it on. Dont try and pass the buck and downplay it if someone gets hurt on your watch. Dont make the kid feel like its his fault another kid went after him.

And I dont care how many volunteer hours you have put in, you dont know anything about hard work and persistence until you have been a child that goes out into the world every day knowing that there are things that other kids do that if you do them the results could be devastating or that if someone decides to strike you in a certain place you could end up in the hosptal.

Basement person, are you a Dr? If you are I could explain the details of my son's situation one to another. However, I do not believe that a person without a medical background would understand his diagnosis. Especially since you seem to think Aspergers is a life threatening medical condition.

I will not be posting here again but I do appreciate those of you that took the time to respond to a mother that was -as I said- at her wits end. I still stand with what I said about camping without a parent. I believe that 11 is too young to go out camping with people you do not know. Especially since as someone stated these people may be well meaning volunteers but they have no formal training in child care and may not even be that familiar with camping aside from their scouting experience.

Even people that are trained to care for children normally do not "mix" these age groups on a playground so what does that tell you? Children this young are still in the concrete thinking stage. Where you or the other lead they will follow, you cant expect them to have these complex thinking patterns that some of you seem to expect they are capable of to protect themselves. They are not there yet.

With that I do wish you the best. Those of you that are full of hatred I wish you peace.

Wow lots of responses and I don't know where to start. I was obviously very mad when I wrote that. I DO believe that people should be careful about sending their young children off with people they don't really know. I can't imagine a person would not be upset if they had this happen. For those of you that displayed empathy for the situation, bless you, for the rest of you, what calious individuals you must be. I did not expect this venom towards a parent with a hurt child. WOW!

I am not going to detail his injuires as I am not too interesed in giving specifics given the hostile environment here. Sufficient to say he had to go to the hospital. Again not to go into specifics but my son is disabled due to a very long term life threatening illness. They wre all aware of this and encouraged me to let him go without me because he would be safe with them. As far as being a quitter, I have myself survived a life threatening illness, lost his father and am raising a boy who is well adjusted and kind despite the things that have occurred in his life. That has taken a lot of work and is no accident. Further, kids like my son do not survive if they have parents that are quitters. I have always given him as much freedom as I possibly can and was trying to give him more by letting him go without me.

I have talked to the SMs and so has my son. Reread my original post. My son has been made to feel guilty and is hurt is that not enough for you yet? So I should force him to go back, which he does not want to do? Some of you are heartless individuals just heartless.

So because I think it may not be safe for people I don't know well to watch my son in the wilderness I am a quitter? Especially now when they have shown me they are not watching him well? And further when he gets hurt by another boy they defend the boy? These things show I am encouraging my son to be a quitter? I disagree. This is just evidence that I am smart enough not to followw the other lemmings off the bridge. And smart enough to know that when excuses are made for physical aggression, more will occur.

I posted here because I am at my wits end how to handle this. I don't want to embarass my son any more he is already embarassed and discouraged enough. HE does not want to go back because of how bad the SM's have alreaady made him feel. He is an upbeat positive person as am I despite what has happened to us in life. He doesn't want any more pain emotional from this nor do I. No one has even called to check on him. I have never said all scouting is bad, some of you are off the edge.

I know my original post was strong but think about what has just happened to my yes PRECIOUS child here. Mine is just as precious to me as yours is to you and it makes me very mad when people who claim to be role models act like this. I am not saying they are bad. In fact I am starting to believe a BIG part of the problem is that they do NOT know how to handle aggressive children.

Those of you that gave constructive answers thanks so much. I feel like I have some options now of how I might proceed. I also think its probably not because I am a SM. I think as engineer said that this kid probably gets in trouble a lot so they are used to defending him since dad is their buddy. I have found out that earlier in the year that he had started something with a kid but the kid's dad intervened and stopped it. SO yeah having a person that loves you and is looking out for you when you are a little guy is a big deal. I actually work with children and yeah 11 is little - in a different stage of development then the older middle schoolers.

FYI most aftercare places around here anyway dont let the older kids and younger kids mix because there are too many problems including injuries. I am not saying scouts should not let them mix but if they do they need to train leaders to understand how to keep the little kids as safe as possible. Also, perhaps SM should have to take a course in dealing with aggressive kids. After reading some of your closed minded responses however I suspect some of you would not want anything like that but perhaps you shoud consider that since BS was started there have been significant findings in child development. As in we don't let small children do everything we used to. In the depression era we can see that small children were often left alone at age no one would think to now.

The kids have told what happened that night but I am not going to go into all that here. I will tell you that my son was not physically aggressive. And you can't make ANY excuses for aggression save self defense. This is just giving positive reinforcement for the behavior.

I read all of your responses and I responded mostly because I wanted to that those of you that gave the kind constructive responses to a woman who was obviously at the end of her rope with grief for her child. Some of you really need to grow a heart.

My son's father died when he was very young. He was a cubscout all the way up and then crossed over to boyscouts. He entered a boyscout troop and was very excited about it. That has all changed.

In my town in some troops the women help but in most they are not too welcome at camp although in the one he joined they are allowed to go. I was convinced against my better judgement that it was best to send my son without me on his camping trip with the boyscouts so that he would become independent etc etc etc. I was a fool and let him go with people who were supposed to be watching him. Guess what, they weren't and he got beaten by another much older child.

Lots of excuses for the child that beat him. lots of he's a nice kid he comes from a good family, he feels real bad about it, he cried about it, it was an accident- but not too much in the way of concern for my son. The parents of the child have not even called me. Of course the scout leaders would like us to come back to "get to the bottom of it" but I can't let my son have to sit and listen to any more "male role models" make ridiculous excuses for the aggressive behavior of their friend's son. I mean the kid is sorry, I mean he has a great dad, nice guy!

My son is so sad. He is not interested in going back and is moping around the house with his little injured parts.

Men tend to stick together and if your child does not have a dad to buddy up with "the guys" he will not be a member of the testosterone club and in the end will not count.

I am a highly educated person. I work with children every day so I have some understanding of what is going on when a larger child beats a small one, its no an accident. I am sickened that I encouraged my son so much towards scouting. From what I see and hear now in most places I read about scouting this is more of a men's club then a boys club. My son means nothing to his scout troop and yours probably will not either. Many people that are lucky enough to have two parent homes look down on single parents and scouting is chock full of self righteous people like this. I hope if any of you have your kids in scouting you will not find this out the hard way like I did,

Stick with sports. The men there don't need to exclude women from their activities to feel like men.

Boyscouts could be a great organization for ALL boys instead of just those from the "right kind of families" if it would join the rest of us in 2011.

I am sorry this post is so strong I am very upset right now. Scouting has taken my sweet happy go lucky kid who has been doing so well and just kocked the wind along with his enthusiasm right out of him.

I feel so guilty for encouraging him into boyscouts. Cubscouts was great and I so wanted him to be around "good" men.