PDA and guidance

[qwazse 4342]

St. Paul trumps any guidelines: "Let the marriage bed be sacred". But, I think that's the gist of the GSS anyway. And, it would lie at the heart of any discussion of PDA I'd have.

 

Both are 18-20 (in spite of me remembering them entering high school just yesterday), so I figure I'm

advising them one adult to another. They still got a lot of maturing to do, and I'd be honored if they chose to sit around my campfire to do it.

 

At least, that's the way it's worked with older youth (from other crews as well as mine). Life happens, they wind up coming to camp, play a few cards with the "youngsters", then pull a chair up beside you to talk about whatever is really on their mind.

[dhendron 26]

We also have a rule about no PDA's in our bylaws. We set our expectations, tell the youth we expect them to act like adults, and leave it at that.

 

We have had several dating couples over the years. Two of them now. The youth tend to police themselves. As long as we don't make a big deal out of it, we don't sweat a little hand holding or innocent contact.

 

On the other hand, when the relationship inevitably blows up, our hope is that if the relationship does not exist within the Crew, then hopefully the aftermath will not either. Wishful thinking sometimes. Once the drama that unfolded when a relationship failed caused all kinds of problems. The male half of the failed relationship required repeated counseling for poor behavior. The Crew youth, again policing themselves, had a low sense of humor about the whole thing. The male half had his Board of Review for his Gold Award during our 2010 Philmont Trek. We actually had three Gold BoR and one Silver at the same time. Anyway, the offending youth was unanimously rejected by his BoR for his behavior issues. Again, self-policing and self correcting. (The youth in question later pulled his head out of his behind, gained the support of the Crew, and went on to successfully apply for Gold and then Silver. I was somewhat amused that the Crew President in each case was his former girlfriend, who chaired each of his Boards!)

 

My feeling is that the youth are going to get involved anyway. Establishing clear but simple guidelines and expectations will take care of most issues.