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Scouts who leave outing early.


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Yeah, I don't like making general policies for specific situations. And I sure as heck wouldn't be changing the way the troop does things to accommodate this one family's rude behavior.

 

Here's another thought: At the boy's next Scoutmaster Conference or Board of Review, just before you get to the part where you sign off on the boy's advancement, everyone get up, announce that since all the fun stuff is over you're leaving early, then walk out.

 

Go home and wait for the phone to ring.

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1) He has doubled the time to get the 20 nights camping for Camping Merit Badge. This should be explained to him in an SMC.

 

2) His Patrol Leader, with the SPL and SM's support, needs to assign appropriate duties to ensure he carries his load. This should be up to the Patrol, and they can discuss it. Perhaps he is on KP duty for all meals, as that is the equivalent of camp breakdown.

 

3) He is going to have problems getting a POR of leadership with his attitude. This should be explained in a friendly SMC.

 

4) His SMC should discuss carrying his weight.

 

5) His BOR should discuss carrying his weight.

 

6) OA elections might be problematic with this behavior.

 

Now that I wrote this, I think that #2 is the key place to start. Let his Patrol come up with a fair way to deal with this.

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Good discussion.

 

We would never allow a parent into a patrol's site to help with anything, other than correcting a time-critical safety problem.

 

Our guys don't tolerate things like a member frequently departing early or otherwise shirking his share of responsibility. At first, the feedback is clear and direct. When a scout continues to defy the norms of the group, the other members naturally begin to pull away from him. When I get the inevitable phone call from upset parent that "the guys aren't being nice to Hubert" or "why didn't Hubert get selected for a POR which he needs for his next rank" or "elected into the OA," I explain that the guys tend to befriend or elect/select the scouts who they know they can count on to be there helping get things done.

 

Good luck!

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Thanks for all the input and the boys will be discussing the issue at their next PLC. In the meantime, one of our committee members is a school psychologist (every troop should have one of these on their board, lol) and I discussed this issue with her. She has seen how he acts on campouts and believes he may have some mental issues. She also notices that when he does chores, (cooks, cleans camp, set-up, etc.) that the father is there helping him if not doing the work for him. She suggests that I talk with the father again and find out if in fact there may be some mental disabilities. If so, we need to step back a little, tell dad to stay on the side lines and issue some simple challenges to the boy and see how he does. Part of boy scouts is to be independent and do things on your own. This boy may need a little more time to develop this skill and mom and dad are just prolonging it. We have another campout coming up at the end of the month, I will have to make sure that all parents stay out of patrol sites excpet for saftey purposes!

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Gutterbird,

 

As part of my parent volunteer training, I make it crystal clear we don't have any parents on campouts - just scout leaders who are equally there for all the boys. To make sure they get the point, I tell them the objective is that a casual observer is unable to determine which boy goes with each adult. There may be a transition phase for some scouts with special needs, but the objective is as you state - to teach them independence. If there are special needs, simply educate the PL and other youth leaders so they are better able to do their job of helping each scout succeed. Ive found once the boys understand the special needs, they are very compassionate in working with him. But a parent who is always in their business drives them bananas.

 

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Interesting discussion... I agree with the focus on solving this via PLC. Without Scout buy-in to a solution you really won't see any change. However I do agree with others that the Adult Leaders must let the parent know he needs to back off - even if it means his little johnny has a difficult time doing his work. The kid's got to figure it out sometime, and Scouting is a nice safe place to make all kinds of mistakes!

 

We really haven't seen such a problem, perhaps because Saturday night is our fun night. After a day of activities, Saturday evening is the time when the Patrol can really focus on building as huge a fire as we can get away with, cooking great dinners, making cakes, and playing man-hunt in the dark.

 

Friday night is the time to set up camp, maybe have a fire, and then go to bed. Most of our camping trips are 2-3 hours away, so Friday night is kind of a wash as we often get to camp until 9 or 10 at night. The Scouts make a big breakfast on Saturday morning, which they all like, but Saturday night really is the highlight of the camping trip.

 

We had a problem for a while of Scouts going straight home on Sunday, but PLC solved that by letting the Scouts know all had to go back to the Church to help unload and put away the equipment.

 

Good luck with your issue, and please let us know how it was solved.

 

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  • 1 month later...

He did not make the next campout. Our next one is in three weeks and I will let you all know how it went. In the mean time, I pulled him aside on one of our last day trips, (and yes, he wanted to leave early on this daytrip to a favorite nearby fishing pond) and had a scoutmaster conf. discussing his leaving early. We discussed sharing the workload and setting good examples for the younger scouts, among other issues. I will report back to you all early October after the campout.

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Oh yes...

I believe every Troop has come across this issue.

 

Summer Camp: I have taken the lead for the last 2 Summer Camps, I must tell you, I am not a fan of the Friday Family Night! Home Sickness sets in and well you heard the rest.

 

We have had the usual 1 or 2 scouts that leave early, then it's like a domino effect, more start to ask. You have to be firm with the Scout and the Parent.

 

The ones that must leave, there's always the chore of cleaning up the patrol boxes at the next meeting. (usually it's the next day, Monday) If there are no patrol boxes, then it's clean the QM Closet.

This is always good when you have more then one scout that leaves early. Do this enough times, then they will rethink about it.

 

Looks as I will be in charge of the next Summer Camp also... I will bring this issue up at one of our Parent's Meeting to be sure to get the word out. Might as well be up front with them so there is no misuinderstanding.

 

Doug Walker

SM

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I have mixed feelings about the Friday Night Family Night at summer camp. My first year at camp, family night was Wednesday and we did not lose any boys, however, camp is a two hour drive from our city and very few parents made it. Those that did come, had to leave early because they had to work the next morning. The council then switched to a Friday night Family night and we had more families make it. However, we lost 5 boys that night. Three were planned and two got homesick when they saw mom and dad. This past year we had 100% turnout of families for our troop and we only lost two boys. One was arranged ahead of time with a family activity the next day and the second was a last minute decision by the boy in my original post. So I will have to say I favor the Friday night family night and starting next year we will only allow scouts to leave camp early if it is arranged ahead of time or if it is an emergency.(This message has been edited by gutterbird)

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We are dealing with one of these scouts right now. The Scout in question is reaping what he has sown. He is working on his Eagle Project and it has been dragging on for months, the reason, almost no scouts in our troop will help him on the project as they have no respect for him, leaving campouts early (And sometimes showing up late) is one of his hallmarks. He will be having a friendly chat from several adult leaders soon regarding his poor attitude and lack of participation or leadership. He will be informed that no SM or ASM in the troop will be signing off on his SM conference until he starts demonstrating scout like behavior and more over....Eagle like behavior. This includes being on campouts from begining to end, no more of Mom showing up with him saturday about 10 am and her picking him up at 7:30 am Sunday.

I like 2 cub dad's idea ! I wouldn't shift the agendas around so they miss out on fun, I'd be plain and direct.

1. Inform scout and his dad the EVERYONE is sick of the selfish behavior and failure to pull his own weight. In the future dad or momn will not be allowed on campouts and the son stays the entire camp and pulls his weight. If they cannot live with that then they will not be permitted on any more campouts.

 

2. If ths scout does come on campouts and stays the entire time but still won't do any of the work, they will be delayed advancement as they will not be having scout spirit signed off and no one will sit and have a SM conference.

 

If they whine and create a problem, suuggest they find another troop. You don't need negative energy and wasted time when you have a troop full of scouts doing the right things to put your energies into.

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