PROBELM SCOUTER, BIGGER PROBLEM PARENT

[DRBUTTS 10]

I am the Cubmaster and the best Den Leader that I have seen has just come up against an issue that we just cannot seem to resolve. Two boys joined this Webelos Den about 8 months ago. The two boys and the parents are very good friends. At first, the parents would not show up and when the boys became a discipline problem, the Den leader asked for the parents to participate in the den and let them know of the problem. Pinching, name calling and non-participation. Although this seemed to resolve itself over the past few months, we recently had a Pack meeting and handed out awards. The previous Pack meeting was at a campout so we did not hand out awards because we have had problems of award loss when handed out on camping trips. The previous awards did not make it to the recent Pack meeting for this den. Although all of the boys received awards, and did not get the awards from the previous meeting, this mom claimed that it was some kind of revenge on her son. An act of unfairness. Wrote rude emails disparaging the den leader and her good character. When I was notified of the situation, I found that the awards were in our scout cabinet and that the den leader had every reason to believe that they would be at the pack meeting that night. I explained this to the ill behaved mom. Although skeptical, she conceeded but still cited earlier problems and continues to compose backward compliminted e-mails to this Den Leader and is driving her nearly to tears. The den leader has been forced to walk on egg shells and every decision has a skeptic and a suspicious jerk waiting in the wings. I have spoken to the lady and seemed to talk some since into her but she just followed up with another jerk derived e-mail.. HELP !!!!!!!!

Can I kick er and child out

Can she sue me or den leader

How do I get a paid scouter to intervene

I have presented the alternative of a new den or pack and she states "Wild Horses couls not drag me away"

 

 

 

[NeilLup 13]

I am sorry that you have this problem but this kind of thing does occasionally happen and not, necessarily, only in Scouting.

 

To answer your questions as best I understand matters:

 

1) Can you kick the parent out? Not sure what you would kick them out from. If they are not a registered leader, then you cannot terminate their registration.

2) Can you kick the boy out? I believe you can. The membership of all of us, youth and adults, is subject to the review by the individual or organization who appointed us.

3) Can she sue you? In our American legal system, virtually anyone can sue virtually anyone else for virtually anything. Would she WIN? That's another matter. One of things you get as a registered BSA leader is the BSA's legal defense for your reasonable actions as a leader. So if you get a subpoena or notice of lawsuit, your immediate first action is to contact your council office. They take it from there and there is no cost to you.

4) As far as her comment "Wild horses could not drag me away" you may have to say, at some point, "This is not a suggestion. You are not welcome. Please do not return."

 

What to do? Here is what I would do.

 

a) Involving a paid professional -- simply phone your council office and ask to talk with the District Executive who handles your area. They will assist you.

b) Involving a skilled volunteer -- If your unit has a good Commissioner, they should be able to help you also. Try to find that person

c) I would get as much back-up in my unit as possible. I would bring this matter up at the Pack Committee and get their endorsement and support for whatever needs to be done. Ideally, this matter would be handled by the Committee rather than by you although you may need to do it.

d) Resolve upon your course of action - This could be saying telling her that if her behavior continues, she is unwelcome and that her son is welcome only if she changes her behavior. Do not let it get into a "I have my rights." and "I was only protecting my son." and things like that. It is appropriate to say "If you feel that you need to act like this, then this Pack is probably not for you and not for your son. If that is the case, we accept your resignation from the Pack."

e) Before stating that, however, I would suggest having a vote from the Committee that this is appropriate and letting both your Sponsoring Organization and the Council Office know what you plan. You need to have them on your side if the woman starts making noise.

 

There would seem to be a personality conflict of some sort. You don't need that and I would suggest that you need to make it clear that you won't tolerate the kind of action you describe. However, my wife often tells me that it takes two to fight and you may need to look at whether there is anything going on with the Den Leader which provokes this kind of behavior on the part of the mother.

[SteveK 10]

I have a simpler solution. Ask the parent to be incharge of awards for the Pack. Then she would hopefully understand why a bag of awards was inadvertantly forgotten for a Pack meeting. She will prob decline the invitation, but then everytime she complains, offer her the job again.

 

When that does happen (forgetting), I always called the Scouts up, announced their awards and appologize for forgetting the actual patches.

[Twocubdad 665]

If I'm reading the post correctly, it sounds like the problem is largely solved. The Scout's behavior is improved and the mom has calmed down after having the problem with the badges explained. She's now just generally carping and whining.

 

It may be that your den leader, and maybe you, need to be a little thicker-skinned about that kind of stuff. There is always going to be someone like that around. I just comes with the territory.

 

On the other hand, if you really feel she is causing a problem, I would do two things. First, get backup. Your pack committee chairman really should be involved already, more so than the Cubmaster. If you don't have an active CC, go to your Chartered Organization Representative of the head of your chartered organization. Outside the unit, as NeillLup says, you should contact your unit commissioner. Your professional District Executive really isn't the one to get involved in a problem like this -- in fact they are trained to stay out of the middle of these kind of conflicts. They will, however, refer you to other volunteers who can help, most likely the commissioners.

 

Secondly, if it comes to it, you need to very plainly tell the mom to quit the e-mails and complaining. If she is so unhappy with the den then she and her son need to find another situation. If she continues to be disruptive, then I would ask the CO to remove the family from the unit.

 

If a problem comes down to a choice between one Scout or a den leader serving 6 or 8 Scout, I'm going with the den leader every time.

[fotoscout 15]

Hello DRBUTTS and welcome.

 

If you are fortunate enough to have an active committee and Charter Organization the structure is in place for you to deal with this. Take the problem to the committee chair and COR, then move forward. You should have a Unit Commissioner who can also help with this type of situation. As an outsider the UC can sometimes be a good mediator. If you still feel that youd like a professional involved, then by all means contact your DE. Even if your committee and CO are not active, you still have that mechanism to fall back on, the positions of CC and COR do exist on your charter, find out who they are and use them.

 

With the support of the your committee and CO, you can ask her to take her son to another pack. I have to wonder why she would want to stay if she felt so loathed in this den.

 

The other thing you can do is to ask her if she wants to be your awards person. She can get a full dose of what it takes to make all of the awards happen and at the same time she can eat a little crow.

 

[Eagledad 2779]

Goodmorning DR

 

All the advice given is very good. To me it sounds like you are trying to handle this on your own. If that is the case, get the whole committee on board and get them to handle it. They need to allow her time to vent her frustration. But if all is as you say, the committee must then explain the facts and ask her to stop. I find these folks like this usually only continue when they feel they have and audience. I've learned that when a person like this feels they are the by themselves, they either step back or get out. You don't have to ask them to leave. Just give them expectations that forces them to choose to either behave or get out. But the key to this is to get your committee to take responsibility together and act. Give them opportunity to vent, but once everything is the best it can be, make sure the committee stands firm because once she sees her actions only work against her, she is force to make a choice.

 

As others said I would also make sure that District and Charter rep. participate or at least know everything going on so that they will support you as well.

 

We had a similar situation a couple of years ago. The committee voted to give the adults guideline to participating with the Troop. We informed the charter rep, the District Commissioner and the Council of our plans and they gave us full support. The CC met with the adults and gave them a written notice with verbal explanation. Later we heard through the grapevine these adults went to sue, but their lawyer told them there was nothing to sue for because we only ask them to act like adults. They choose to leave three months later.

 

You have the right for a peaceful program and to hold adults accountable. But, the unit must be united on how you deal with this or it wont get solved. It cant be the CM against the world. It has to be the whole unit working together to bring the best possible program to your sons. It was a very good team building experience for our committee.

 

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

 

Barry

 

[EagleInKY 14]

I have little to add. I, too, encourage you to not go it alone. We don't have all the facts, so it's impossible to give you perfect advice. But I know that sometimes there are other factors that make "kicking her out" more difficult. She could have friends on the committee, be a member of your chartering organization, etc. All of these facts can complicate the matter.

 

Second, it sounds like the boy is behaving better, but the mom is the problem. It's really unfair to punish the boy and deny him the chance of scouting if he is behaving acceptibly.

 

I've had the cranky mom problem before. Usually the "we're always looking for help, how would you like to be in charge of ?" nearly always works.

[hops_scout 9]

Sounds like in this situation, blocking the person from emailing the leader may be warranted.

[FScouter 24]

If your DL is as good as you say, her good qualities are surely apparent to the boys, the parents, the committee, and everyone else. One can never please everyone, so don't even try.

 

You said she has been "forced" to walk on egg shells. Wrong. She has chosen to walk on egg shells. If egg shells get crushed, so be it.

[dsteele 20]

I agree with the folks who said you need to get your committee et. al, behind you before you act.

 

I also agree with hops_scout that the Den Leader should block or delete the offending emails.

 

You, as Cubmaster, could expain to Mom that, now that her son's behavior is acceptable, she doesn't need to attend the den meetings anymore. Depending on how strongly you feel, you could make it sound like a suggestion that she not attend or a relief of a requirement. If she isn't welcome to participate in the den meetings, tell her she can't.

 

That's just my thinking. Free advice is worth the price tag.

[mikeb 10]

I had a very similar situation. I had a family that joined my Bear Den this year, coming from another Pack. Shortly after joining, the mother in this family began sending out scathing emails accusing various Pack leaders of everything from incompetence to taking "pay" from the Pack funds. In person (Pack, Den meetings) she would either avoid you or act quite cheery when conversed with. Her son acted fair enough, but always acted a little odd, kind of like a person would act if he was hearing bad things about you. After 6 months of this and the inability to get this woman to come into reality I finally had my fill and told the CM the family could no longer be in my Den. She must have felt the "vibe" because before action could be taken the family moved to another Pack. I wish them luck.

As for your situation I recommend what I will do should this type of thing occur in my Den again, and that is taking the quick action of telling this family to ship out. I'm sure she is bringing your whole unit down, and destroying the joy your Den Leader has for the program. Yes, it's sad for the boy, but it'll be more sad when you lose a great Den Leader and the spirit of the unit.

[purcelce 11]

Welcome the boards Doc!

 

My suggestion is go with 2Cubs advice.

 

And I know I'm going to catch heat for this but here it goes.....

 

The Foggy Question: DRBUTTS are you a proctologist?

 

YIS

 

Cary P