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good story. I had a similar scout with me in wolf, and had him through webelos and he followed me to the troop a couple years ago where i am now sm. Same situation with the parents, although i think some of the action was a call for attention.

 

I pulled my hair out many times over whether to ask this scout to leave. and received attention from the chair and cm. But i always came back to what one of my den parents said to me "God put you in the position to take this den leader job so you could help this boy" whenever I was about to say enough, I always went back to that conversation and stuck it out a little longer. While there was some bullying and physical push here and there, i was always able to bring a stop to it. It never went as far as what 17 was doing. So, jump forward a number of years, while he is not a model scout, i am very happy that he is still with us. I think, in some small part, that his being in scouting has helped him in life in general and calmed him down a bit and given him some structure where he can learn how to act.

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The boy run program cant go bad, just the administrators of it. In fact Im a little weary of adults who think in the possibility of a Lord of the Flies moment because they are already skeptical of a proven style of youth development. Those adults tend to interfere with scouts decisions before the scouts have time to experience the repercussions.

 

Yes, the adults waited too late to intervene but I know from experience that sometimes the adults mess up. Im sure these adults will do better the next. But I wonder if the experience will scare them away from boy run or if they will learn how to ecoruage a different attitude torward these kinds of behaviors.

 

Running a Scouting program is always learning process for the both the adults and boys. In fact, I teach in the SM Specific class that adults need to learn faster from their experiences than the scouts in a maturing troop or eventually the scouts will outrun them and the adults will end up being obstacles to the scouts' growth. Adults also need to push their comfort envelope enough to give the scout enough room to have to think about the reprocussions of their decisions. In the long term, the troop will eventually mature enough to where the scouts act more adult than the adults.

 

One of the attitudes that has to be encouraged and develop in self independence program is everyone is responsible for all the behaviors in the troop. My personal motto that drove the way I ran the program was If the adults didnt show up today, would the scouts do it differently?. And if I felt the answer was yes, then we started working on the part of the program of which I was uncomfortable. If I felt that a scout could get bullied in our troop, then I would be concerned that some scouts observing the bullying would not for whatever reason step up. And I would start changing that environment.

 

In our troop, if a scout behaved in correctly and wasnt stopped by any scout near him, all the scouts who observed the misbehavior would be included in repercussion of that bad decision. Eventually our scouts learned that if someone didnt speak up, everyone would be held accountable. Once you have a safe environment like that, the scouts would behave the same whether or not the adults showed up that day.

 

Barry

 

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Jay K: The fact that you even have a DI mode, satisfys my inquiry. Good for you.

 

My reluctance to swallow the "Boy-Led / No Adult Interfence" mantra has it's foundation in a little personal experience.

 

Weeb 2s and their dads were invited by troop to an overnight lock-in at a climbing gym; scouts stayed awake all night hollering with the lights full on; making dang sure that no-one else could sleep, either. I approached the SM at 5am about having a word with the SPL. The dads and Weebs were hostages to the troop, and had not been forwarned that they were expected to stay awake all night. Being that inconsiderate of others because they could wasn't the most productive way to recruit new members. The SM replied that "It's their show." and declined to talk to the SPL.

 

Weekly game time became organized 45 minute gang fights on the back field ala "Braveheart."

 

The troop culture got so out of hand, that last month the law was called on someone. No details; all of that is correctly being kept confidential. But the leadership is using having called the law as a recruiting point attesting to their efforts to improve the troop...

 

In the case of the OP, and in my experience, "Boy Led" has become distorted to mean that adults shouldn't even observe because they don't want to know what's going on.

*******

 

To all the Scouters who use Kudu's 300 feet as a shield from reality: ignorance of what is going on will not shield you from liability or moral responsibility. Be sure that you keep in touch with where 'Boy-Led" is leading your men.

 

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So to summarize:

 

--17 and 4 boys were throwing knives at a wall

--Some boys (not 17) walked on ice on a small ditch (swale)

--Trainerlady's son was threatening in some way to hit 17 so he was flayling arms and -connected with Trainerlady's son's chin. Witness' concer.

--Every scout in the cabin was involved in the duct taping incident that duct taped Trainerladys son and another boy.

--Lemonade event was premeditated. And 17 admitted to it.

 

Dad said 17 wouldn't have a knife until he was 21 now.

 

17 will be banished from camping and outings for 4 months, not allowed to run in troop elections and will not be passed on Scout Spirit for at least 4 months.

 

Trainerlady's sons exagerates and/or lies.

 

Trainerlady, who is not in an adult leadership position, had previously told 17 "I have even gone as far a telling him to be glad I can't sit on his Eagle BOR, because I'd fail him over his lack of Scout Spirit and for not living Scout Oath and Law." and is now wondering why there is friction between 17 and her son.

 

 

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OGE,

 

I support the 300 feet concept, and boy led troops. But I'm getting the impression that many in leadership and in training are too lazy to walk 300 feet in the dark to listen quietly to what's going on. "That would interfere with boy led. You don't want to know..."

 

The OP cited a classic example of where boy-led was headed to a cliff.

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