Motivating Scouts

[asm 411]

In the previous thread there were comments about bribes and recognition given for completing merit badges. I never like this. Here is some information that I put together to help parents get their Scouts moving if need be. Some just use it from the start.

 

www.sharonScouts.org/usefulInformation/sixEasyStepsToHelpYourScoutSucceed.html

 

I have seen these techniques work well on the 17 year old life Scout to get moving on completing Eagle and 10 year old AOL crossovers to get started on the foundation ranks. If anyone else has any suggestions similar to these I would love to add them to the six easy steps.

[fleetfootedfox]

I assume you didn't mean to say you don't like giving recognition for completing merit badges. We are supposed to practice instant recognition. It's in the scoutmaster handbook.

 

Here's another link:

http://www.scoutingmagazine.org/issues/0611/a-emom.html

[asm 411]

I think merit badges and ranks patches are great. Hey I am all for giving out patches for special campouts and lots of other Scout oriented activities. A small item the represents something done. A keepsake.

 

What bugs me is when I hear about a Scout not being able to do something like activity night at school until they finish a merit badge or not being able to get their driver's license until they have finished their Eagle.

 

What kind of lesson does that teach?

[allangr1024]

Asm,

 

I have never liked the idea of withholding a drivers licence until a kid eagles, myself. This is a ploy by parents to get their kid to do something. I have always thought that a boy should do what he wants, and get awards that he wants. Not every ball player will be a pitcher, or a quarterback, but I have seen parents push their kids to excell in sports beyond their interests. It is the same with Ealge Scout.

 

Eagle is a great goal, but it comes with a cost. The scout must expend the time and effort to earn the Eagle rank. A parent can encourage to a point, and then it becomes nagging. I do not want a boys momories of scouting to be "it was a drag because my parents nagged me into doing it when I did not want to." I was tempted to do this with my guys, and it did not work. So I let them decide. One dropped out at sixteen, the next did the same, but came back to finish Eagle at 17, and the third dropped at 15. Each gave it at least 3 years, and that is about all I can ask. Each knows about camping, scout craft (although they probably need to take up a scout book for a bit if I really pressed them), and I hope remember the time with fondness.

 

Now, as SM, I find a different role. I look over my list of upper ranked boys, and I call them aside every few weeks (I call it a Mini scoutmaster conference) and go over their advancement goals, and steps to meet them. I usually see some merit badge earning for a while after this. In college I studied a subject called Management By Objectives, and these principles seem to be usefull in this setting. Most boys do not set goals on their own, or think of how to take steps to meet them. Besides cooking, this might be one of those skills started in scouting that will do them some good in their adults lives.

 

 

[perdidochas]

To some degree, you can analogize requiring Eagle Scout before getting a driver's license to getting a college degree for getting a job. Most things involved in getting a college degree have little or nothing to do with your actual future job. However, getting a degree proves that you can stick to something for a long period of time. An Eagle is the same way.

[perdidochas]

Just want to add: I don't have Boy Scout age boys yet. I have a Webelos I and a Bear in the house. At this time, I don't plan to make Eagle a requirement for a DL with either of them. I may make it a requirement for me paying for car insurance, but I'm still undecided on that issue.

[Lisabob]

There's something to be said for teaching (and modeling) perseverance, though I think a parent's or mentor's actions speak a lot louder than their words, or threats, or promises, or bribes when it comes to these matters.

 

The people I know who are happy, healthy, reasonably secure and successful adults (all at the same time!) are nearly universally people who also have a strong internal motivation to do whatever it is they do with their lives. They know how to set their own goals, what it takes to achieve them, and how to pick themselves up and dust off on the occasion that they do not reach those goals.

 

The people I know who are miserable and seem to have the most problems are also the ones who always need someone else to set the goals for them; without that they're drifting around, apparently without direction or meaning. That latter group always seems to blame someone else for their problems too. Why? Maybe because they don't know how to set their own goals or what to do when they don't meet the standard that someone else set for them.

 

Ownership of one's goals and expectations is an important life skill in my view. The mid and late teen years when most boys in scouting might be working toward Star/Life/Eagle ranks are a good time to let kids test out their abilities to set and live by their own goals in a supportive and fairly safe environment.

[AnniePoo]

Good article by Mike Rowe (a.k.a. the "Dirty Jobs" guy) about making Eagle.

 

http://blogs.discovery.com/mike_rowe_answers/2008/11/mike-offers-a-p.html

[allangr1024]

AnniePoo,

 

I liked this article my Mike Rowe. I liked the way he warns that it is lonely at the peak. The only contention I have with it is that he seems to be saying that it is a failure to not get Eagle. The goal of Scouting is NOT to get a boy to Eagle rank. It is to help him grow, make good decisions, enjoy the outdoors, and have fun doing these things.

 

I think most everyone can excell at something. For many, that something may not be scouting related, but you can still exalt in an accomplishment. If a boy comes to me and says he wants to be the first string quarterback, and he has to lay scouting down to do that, I will encourage him to give it a shot. I think the failure is to have set no goal, and tried nothing, and wasted time, and achieved nothing.

 

[Lisabob]

Thanks for sharing that link, I quite enjoyed it.

[lilizard62]

I am one of those nagging moms that wants her son to be Eagle. I have bribed my son to get him to go to meetings and outings.

He is so close to completion and it is killing me. I have been in Scouting as long as he has. Up to now, all that he is lacking is the paper work to finish 2 merit badges and the Eagle project. 1 year and a half ago he put his foot down and did not want to finish.

I am so scared that he will never go that extra step.

So yes I will threaten and beg and deprive him of the luxuries of the driving or talk owning a personal cell phone until he earns his Eagle.

Until the the Program comes up with ways to help families deal with this lack of motivation of Soon to be not wanting to be Eagles. I will do what I can to help him finish and prevent my son from regretting not making Eagle.

[BulldogBlitz]

"I am one of those nagging moms that wants her son to be Eagle. I have bribed my son to get him to go to meetings and outings.

He is so close to completion and it is killing me. I have been in Scouting as long as he has. Up to now, all that he is lacking is the paper work to finish 2 merit badges and the Eagle project. 1 year and a half ago he put his foot down and did not want to finish.

I am so scared that he will never go that extra step.

So yes I will threaten and beg and deprive him of the luxuries of the driving or talk owning a personal cell phone until he earns his Eagle.

Until the the Program comes up with ways to help families deal with this lack of motivation of Soon to be not wanting to be Eagles. I will do what I can to help him finish and prevent my son from regretting not making Eagle. "

 

Please stop. He isn't interested. Maybe someday he will regret it, but then again, maybe he will despise the riding spurs which are being laid to him more. It is his award, not yours.

[lilizard62]

I cannot stop. I will not stop. I will be the spur.

I would rather have him resent me for making him earn his Eagle than feel that I an the cause of letting him quit.

 

[Bob White]

How parents choose to motivate their children is up to them isn't it?

 

Our role is not to determine who has the better parenting skills but to deliver the Scouting program.

 

How is a parent saying that you can't go to a school activity until you finish the merit badge any different from the troop that tells the scouts you can't go on the canoe trip unless you are First Class?

 

How is you cant get you drivers license until you are Eagle different from you can't be a JASM until you are an Eagle?

 

I see just as many units setting arbitrary goals for scouts as parents do.

 

My concern is the number of trained leaders who continue to focus on advancement and getting scout to advance, rather than on adventure and activities that require scouts to learn and apply new skills as they prepare for and participate in the adventure, so that advancement is the by-product of participation rather than the reason for participation.

 

Advancement is a tool not a goal. It is a measurement and recognition of a scouts growth not the cause of, or the purpose for, the growth.

 

Off to the side...

Being a nagging parent neither helps nor hinders the Scouting program. It only effects the relationship between the youth and his or her parent. Whether the effect is positive or negative is a risk taken by the parent that rarely pays off in the long run. It is not our role as Scouting volunteers to change parents, our job is to change youth long before they become parents.

[lilizard62]

It is not as ugly as it sounds. But I do believe in motivating the scout with luxuries for rank.

The teen years has created a monster with my child. I believe that Scouting can tame that bad behavior. I seek help and guidance from the Scoutmasters and the other Scouts from the Troop. I wish I had the knowledge of the Scoutmaster that went to college and learned the behavior technique that works for him and his troop till then I will make due with what I know.