Let me do that for you!

[Scoutfish 16]

I guess it's not an entire spin off of a thread, but a spin of of a comment within a reply within a thread.

 

Maybe it's the same circumstances in a different age rank.

 

Cub scouts get bored with the program too. They get tired of the same dull thing.

 

But is it that it's dull or is it because we do not let them do as much as they would like to do or as much as they are able to do.

 

My mom is a great person. She has a heart of gold and will bend over backwards to help anybody out.

 

WEll, that's her downfall too. Not that long ago, while I was working on something in our woodshop, my son decided he wanted to make a box to hold all his Lego pieces. HE measured, marked and planned it all out while I used my radial arm saw to cut the pvc board for him.

 

All I did was cut the boards to the length he marked. After that, it was all up to him.

 

ell, my mom walks into the shop and she turns to him like a heat seeking missle aiming for an active volcano!

 

She starts telling him everything he is doing wrong, why he should be doing this or that, and then takes the box he is building off the workbench countertop and puts it on the floor and tells him he can hammer nails better that way. In less than 1 minute, she is pulling some of his nails out and resetting them elsewhere.She completely took over and he pretty much quit his project.

 

I had to stop her and I told her (not an exact quote , okay)

 

"Look, I know you mean well, but your really not helping as much as you'd like to think. One, it's not a finished piece of furniture going on display, but just a box that he totally made up all the dimensions to in less than 3 minutes. He made up the plans on the fly. He is just going to put Lego's in it.

 

I learned more stuff by making mistakes than just having somebody tell me everything and doing it for me. You need to let him build it, and let him learn from any mistakes he makes. Besides, in his eyes, it's a GREAT box "

 

And you know..I see this alot in Cub Scouts too: Mom or dad sees that Jr isn't building a gallery quality piece of precision ..whatever, so they grab it and start doing it for themselves.

 

WEll, like tying shoes, perfection comes over time through one mistake after another. You can learn more from having to undo something and redo it correctly ( yourself) than having somebody take over after every single mistake..

 

Of course, I know all of you understand that concept just fine.

 

But the parents?

 

How many times have you looked around and sen mom or dad building the craft and the scout was way over yonder with the other scouts and they are playing tag, fighting with sticks, etc...

 

Or they are sitting beside mom or dad , and are bored because they are not doing the activity?

 

"Over the years, I've seen a lot of things that have not gone as well as maybe I might have liked and the Scouts know haven't gone as they planned or imagined. "

 

And I bet that was the stuff they learned from that made them better scouts too! I bet they had more fun screwing up by themselves( and learning from it) than watching somebody else doing it correctly for them!

 

[Scoutfish 16]

I forgot to add: Nothing beats the look of satisfaction on the face of a kid whio just built ......whatever that thing .....is!

 

I don't always know what it is, but he built it, he built it all by himself and he's damn proud...just as I am!

[ScoutLass 10]

I've run into a few parents, sometimes moms, sometimes dads, that did everything for the boys. It's hard weaning the boys off that kind of support, but it can be done! Once I identify a perfectionist parent, I always have a job for them during the meeting. My favorite is to put them at a separate table to man the hot glue gun. By the time the boys get to the gluing stage, the project is nearly done in most cases. They bring it to the parent to glue. The parent is positioned away from the other craft materials and is dealing with a line of cubs -- no way for them to run over to the materials and start rebuilding the project for the boy.

 

I usually need to clue in the Den Chief so he can offer a little more support to the boy who has never completed anything on his own in his life. By the end of the project, the little cubbie is telling the den chief "Wait, let me do it!" instead of begging for help. And you're right, that look of accomplishment on his face is worth at least a million of mom's perfectly constructed picture frames! It's almost as good when a year later you see a more relaxed parent that is having fun without being a perfectionist. Hey, sometimes cub scouts help improve the character of the adults, too!

 

It's devious, but it works!