Difficult Mother, Great Scout

[Huntr 10]

I have a question about how to deal with a dificult mother (D.M.). Her son is a good scout, and really seems to enjoy the den program.

 

Some history:

I am a lifelong Scout. Did the whole program as a youth, Cubs, Troop, Explorere Post. Made Eagle.

 

Joined the Pack last year as the Tiger Den Leader when my oldest boy joined. We are now into our second year. I fully admit, and was upfront with the parents, that I am not the most organized person in the world, but am making great improvment. Tigers was easy in that the poster available from BSA tracks each step of each requirement as they do them. I planned to use the Cub poster this year. No go on that. It only tracks completed requirements, not the individual parts of them. This left me feeling like I was on a liferaft in the middle of a hurricane without a paddle. Thus the Den was a little disorganized the first couple meetings. Then, last week, I found the Scout Trax excel spreadsheets. Talk about a life saver. I now have all the things the boys have completed marked down and it is easy to see what we need to work on.

 

Between Join Scouting Nights, Pack Halloween Party, and closed schools, we have only had 4 den meetings so far this year.

 

At the first meeting, I needed to talk to the parents for about 5 minutes to do some planning for the Pack camping trip. During those 5 minutes, since the boys were hyper, and I was still waiting on 1 family, I allowed the boys to play TAG in the gym where we meet. After that, I was done with the parents, and the boys were calmed down, and we had a successful meeting. Since it was the last den meeting before Halloween, I had the craft be painting pumpkins, and we did that first to allow the paint to dry before the end of the meeting. After that, we did some rank requirements (talked about safety I believe). Talked about the camping trip, and what they wanted to do on it. Then the hour was gone, and we ended the meeting.

D.M. told me "If I had known all he was going to do was run around, we wouldn't have come. He can do that at home."

They ran around for 5 minutes of an hour meeting.

 

I missed the next meeting due to prior commitments, but the A.D.L. ran the meeting, and I heard it was a great meeting. Turns out the D.M. and her son missed that meeting.

 

Between that meeting and the next, I lost my A.D.L., she became Committee Chairwoman, and thus can't give full attention to the den.

 

I asked the difficult mother to be A.D.L. since she had expressed a desire to take a more active role before the new "year" started. She agreed.

 

At the next meeting, I brought the state and U.S. flags and a packet of information for the boys with the intention of doing the flag requirements. I needed to look over the boys books, so as soon as the D.M. (now A.D.L.) got to the meeting, I asked her to do a quick presentation on the state flag to the boys. I showed her what to tell them (it was in the packet), and told her I just needed her to cover 5 minutes of meeting so I could look over the books. She did it, I took less than 5 min. to do the books, and then I took over, and finished the rest of the meeting. We finished the flag requirements, the safety requirements, and worked on the environmental requirements.

 

Last week, she said she would do the word search from the program guide, and bring in some geneology info and do most of the meeting. I told her that'd be great. Just in case though, I got together activities and packets on the Heritages beltloop/pin. I also had my ex-A.D.L. (who is still helping out, just not on an "official" basis) find some sort of Thanksgiving craft for the boys to do. She put together an entire packet of coloring, word search, item matching acitivities for them.

Boy was it a good thing we did, the D.M. did not show. Everybody knows that I leave my house no later than 6:30 for our 7:00 meetings (which are less than 5 minutes from home) so that I can set up. They all have my cell number, and it is on 24/7. Instead of calling me and letting me know she wouldn't be there, she emailed me. At 6:50. I do not have access to email at the meetings.

Meeting was a huge success. They boys were entertained and active the entire time. Did all the requirements for Heritages, only need to do the poster to get the pin. I also showed them the spreadsheet with all their accomplishements filled in, and what they still needed to do. They got a kick out of that.

 

This past Saturday was Pow Wow. When I asked the D.M. to be the A.D.L., I told her about it, and asked her to attend. Told her I would register her if she wanted to go. She agreed. I had her on the phone with me when I registered her. I paid for her to go ($27.00). This was 3 weeks ago. She emailed me Wed. to let me know she wouldn't be going. Said it was because she couldn't get anybody to watch her son. She knew he woulda been more than welcome to hang out with my son while we were in training. So now, unless I can get a refund, I am out the registration fee. She also still owes me for the food for the camping trip ($15.00).

 

Between Thursday and Friday, she emailed me about 6 different reasons why her son wanted to drop out of the den. They were all bogus. One was "I don't want to go if all we are going to do is run around the gym" (how many active 7 y.o. boys do you know that don't like to play tag? And it was only 5 minutes and he had a blast doing it). Another was "I don't want to go because I don't like everybody yelling at me." NOBODY has EVER yelled at him at a scouting function that I am aware of. If I was aware, I would have nipped that in the bud and made sure it NEVER happened again. Thus, I can only assume that SHE is the one yelling at him, and I guess doing it in the car on the way home from meetings. I told her that I was not aware of any yelling at the boys, but if there was, I would put a stop to it in the future.

Yesterday (Sunday) evening she emailed me saying that she needed to get his handbook from me (I asked to take them home with me 2 meetings ago so I could record everything, and returned them at the meeting last week, which she was not at), and asked that I mail it, so she could take him to a different Pack tomorrow night (tuesday). I emailed her back that I would not mail it, it would not get to her in time. I would drive it to her house tonight after work. She lives the same distance from me as the post office, if not closer. She then emailed me back "never mind, I will get it from you at some point." I still plan to take it to her tonight.

 

Anyway, the reason for this long, long post is to ask, is there anything anybody thinks I could have done, or do in the future, differently to handle this situation better? I am hoping that she will change her mind and come back to us.

 

Thanks,

Steve

 

[Scoutndad 10]

Difficult spot but not unfamiliar.

 

I liked your idea of assigning her the ADL. Although I don't think you were setting her up for failure, I don't think you are surprised at the results.

 

I know it is not a lot of money, but you might be out if you offered to do all of that for her (chalk it up as a life lesson and I think we have all been down that path) but don't be afraid to request the money from her...the worse case scenario is that she says "no".

 

Not sure if you really need an ADL or maybe a volunteer to help you track the scout advancements and activities. You may be "unorganized" (your words not mine and you may not be giving yourself enough credit), but you seem to assign tasks, plan meetings and prepare back-up plans...but in my book, you have 90% of DL job completed. Just ask a parent to help you track the scouts and maybe do some light typing (agendas, word search, internet surfing for ideas, etc.) and keep having a great time. You need to find a parent who shows up to your meetings consistently since it is that parent that is commited to their sons scouting and will look forward to becoming an active participant and quasi-ADL (soon to become full time ADL).

 

You mentioned the tag issue a couple of times...boys will be boys and as long as they are not creating a distraction, hurting one another or are out of control, keep it going but start putting scouting into it (freeze tag with "safe" or "no tag zone" if they yell out a Tiger Scout requirement but can't repeat the last one mentioned).

 

Keep up the great work and forget about the DM...you have just discovered someone more "unorganized" than you that will continue to have the same problems no matter where they go.

 

Good Luck!

 

 

[Prairie_Scouter 10]

Huntr,

Sounds to me like you're doing a fine job. It sounds to me like this is more about what DM expected Scouting to be rather than (1) what it is, and (2) what her son expected it to be. You'll run into that at all stages of Scouting, I think. Having fun is part of Scouting. At the Cub Scout level, you'll have parents who don't think they should be playing games, just doing requirements. At the Boy Scout level, you'll have parents who think every activity should be aimed at meeting some requirement, either for advancement or a merit badge.

 

Keep up the good work, and make sure you're having fun YOURSELF as well.

[Huntr 10]

Glad to get verification that I am on the right track.

 

About my organization skills. Now that I have discovered the WONDERFUL scout trax spreadsheets, that will not be an issue.

 

I don't really "need" an A.D.L., just want someone I can rely on to take over when I cannot attend something ( I don't expect that to ever happen, but you never know, I may get the avian flu ).

 

 

[kittle 10]

Huntr,

 

It sounds to me like you did everything you could do to include her. Maybe she just felt overwhelmed and didn't want to admit it.

 

I want to second someone else that said get a parent to check the boy's books. The parent can do that while you run the meeting. Then you can take the updat home and put in into the program.

[EagleInKY 14]

There are some you cannot please, no matter how hard you may try. Best to wash your hands of it now and write off the financial loss as a payment to your peace-of-mind fund. Otherwise, you'll be paying for it with your sanity for years to come. BTDT (Been there, Done that).

[Lisabob 13]

Huntr,

Let the other pack have her. You seem to have done everything that might be reasonably expected to accomodate her. Hopefully she'll find a better match there (though I rather doubt it, based on your description) and your life will be that much less stressful.

 

By the way - have you tried getting a den chief? Den chiefs are usually pretty good at helping run games. Can be wonderful if you have "adult" stuff to deal with for a short part of the meeting but don't want a bunch of boys running around like crazies either.

 

Lisa'bob

A good old bobwhite too!

 

 

[SemperParatus 1]

Huntr,

 

Welcome to the forum. You've done your best...what more can a good cub scouter do.

[Huntr 10]

My pack has been trying to get den chiefs, but the local troop does not have the scouts available.

 

I delivered the boy's book to his mother tonight. He was happy to see me, and happy to get his book, and he definately seemed to me to be excited when I told him how close he was to getting his Wolf badge. Hopefully I will see him at meetings again. I will put up with the mother, as long as she gives me a chance to give her son a good scouting experience.

[anarchist 10]

welcome Huntr,

 

you might want to consider an "email meeting" with all of your parents...I ran dens in the dark ages and am still a ACM (though I have not had a boy in the pack for five years now) I always had a snack for the guys ( yes even webelos enjoyed)...we set up a parent rotation schedule where each family was responcible for a light snack and some fruit drink at each meeting...that parent became my "assistant" for the night (since they had to be there anyway). we allowed substitutions or "trades" as long as I was kept in the loop...I generally called the night before den meetings to "remind" (and to be prepared) I also always had a set of snacks in the truck-only used them maybe two times a year...

 

chew on it a while, it might be something you can use...if we can give 1 hour a week surely families can give one hour every two months...don't cha think?

 

 

remember, we can not save the world...though we try...we in the end must only do our best.

best of luck

anarchist

[MarkS 11]

Need den chiefs? Go to your district Boy Scout roundtable and make an announcement. You'll get den chiefs.

[MarkS 11]

An "email meeting?" Be careful. I use email at work. It's the life's blood of communication with my suppliers, sharing technical data and files, etc., but we know how to use it. I have found that the leaders and parents in my pack are not so proficient at using the tool. Too many times messages are sent, opened, read, but not received.

 

To communicate you need a message, a sender, and a receiver. With email you don't always know if you have a receiver.

 

Also, sometimes simple concepts become burdensome to communicate in an email. The more complex the topic, the more you should consider a phone call. It might actually take less time.